A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Sentence Patterns (Kodansha Dictionary) Paperback – 29 Aug. 2000

This is not strictly speaking a dictionary, but an extremely useful collection of model sentence patterns which are collected into relevant groupings.Some familiarity with Japanese will be needed to gain the best from this very handily sized book. I suspect it will be of the greatest assistance to people who have started the basics, and up to those at intermediate level, who might appreciate revision material.The book focuses on the basic Japanese sentence with two main emphases: noun / adjective and the verb. Within these two divisions are many subdivisions, all carefully summarised in the contents pages. An exhaustive index also provides a handy method of finding the required pattern, but at least basic knowledge of Japanese is necessary for this.The appendices are rather good. Verbs are conjugated in their various forms, including plain, -masu, -te, -nai, -ta, ba, conditional, potential, volitional, passive and causative. Adjectives are also inflected in similarly expanded detail.As for the main body itself, I was delighted to see kanji and kana throughout. Romaji is used to transliterate, and the third line of text in each example is a translation into English.The kanji usage is relatively advanced (e.g. surnames, most nouns and adjectives), but a few will need to be found in a kanji dictionary for the real diehard fans.The example sentences are given in varying flavours to cater for polite and informal (between men / between women). The accompanying explanations are concise yet detailed enough to be helpful and clear.I cannot find fault with this publication. It really is small enough to carry around for a quick read in queues or waiting rooms, is highly instructional and of decent quality printing and binding. I have bought quite a few of the Kodansha books. Not one has failed to delight.

A fabulous book! Definitely not for absolute beginners though, unless those beginners can cope with whole sentences and dialogue in a new language straight from the get-go. This book is good for people with some kind of grasp of basic Japanese, even if just a knowledge of a few basic sentences, a bit of vocabulary, and perhaps and understanding of the phonetic writing systems (hiragana and katakana). I'm using it after spending a year working in Japan, where I picked up basic conversational Japanese informally from friends but never really got a good grounding in grammar and tenses....Basic Japanese is extremely pattern based, and so many sentences can be made using the same base structure but with different vocabulary words. It feels like math sometimes: just substitute x for another noun and bam! you can use the same sentence to talk about anything now! It's so helpful having the most common patterns laid out in a book. Going through the chapters I recognize patterns I heard all the time in Japan, and now can learn to use myself.The very first few chapters are very basic ("it is a pen" kind of stuff), but they are excellent review nonetheless, as they establish patterns that are built upon later for more complicated structures. Towards the end of the book there are quite complicated patterns (more for the JLPT 3 or 2 level), but always presented in a common pattern format that's very easy to understand and use.I love that fact that a) there are polite and informal examples of every pattern, b) there are super helpful appendices at the back with verb tables etc. and c) the example sentences are written in kanji, romaji and English so you practice using whatever system suits you best.

I know personally, these books are amazing but I never received my book from my buyer,my advice is if you're looking for these books if prime him they order them! they are hard to come by and very useful in your library for learning this language

This book provided me with some useful pointers when I first started to learn Japanese. I'm now a university graduate of Japanese and would completely recommend this book to beginners. It gives a good overview of basic sentences and allows you to start forming your own without the need for rote memorization. It is laid out with 50 basic sentences and how to use them with examples written in both Japanese and romaji, for students who have yet to learn the kana.I also highly HIGHLY recommend another book by Chino  How to Tell the Difference Between Japanese Particles: Comparisons and Exercises  for self study learners at it really helped me get my foot in the door with Japanese self study.

This dictionary provides a good refernce for someone who has already learnt some Japanese and is familiar with the script, although it does have Romaji help too.The examples are good and varied in polite and plain forms as well as occassional experssions used only between specific types of people e.g. women, business colleagues, children.This is not however a good text to start learning Japanese.一番����よ｡

Good if you need to be constantly reminded of sentences, and like to be led on a line by line / day by day basis. I tend to use this in conjunction with my iPhone learning apps.

A super book. Not too difficult. The complexity builds, so you don't feel too out of your depth. Consise, but small enough to be tucked into a reasonably sized pocket.Highly reccomended.

You actually learn alot from this book about japanese sentences and what particles to use.I definately would recommend this for beginners!