Reddit reviews Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You

As far as I can tell, she borrows a lot of inspiration from this really fantastic book which I would recommend everyone to read as well. It's available online if you know where to look.

Aye, mastering keigo is like learning a secret hand-shake. It's really amazing the kinds of reactions you can get to utterly ridiculous requests if you just ask politely.

Reminds me of part of Jay Rubin's book Making Sense of Japanese (which I highly recommend and have read several times): he talks about a sign he purchased at a department store that says "本日お休みさせていただきます". This sentence is amazing. It's subjectless, is in polite-form, and has a causative. It's literally something like, "Today I am humbly receiving the favor of resting/taking off".

Point being, that's such common grammar but very complicated and essential to master.

If you really want to understand it, this is the book to get:

Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You - Jay Rubin

I would like to provide some input here regarding JpPlayer. I have been subscribed to the service for 3 years now and it is hands down one of the best study tools I have at my disposal. It does have one major flaw however so I want to make sure people are aware of it before they purchase it, or at least to make sure they try the 3 day trial to make sure they won't have any issues.

The video stream itself is in high-definition. Unlike normal HD streaming services however it doesn't do well scaling quality to accommodate for hardware and connection issues. This means if you have a laptop with a low-grade video card using shared VRAM with the system memory you can run into all sorts of frustrating problems. I've only seen this problem with integrated cards like this though and have never had issues on any system running a stand-alone dedicated card.

The other problem is one that most people will never have to worry about but it is still worth mentioning. JPPlayer will not run properly on an accessory monitor. This means if you run a multi-monitor gaming system with an additional display for watching TV or surfing the net for example, the player has problems for some reason playing anything if it's moved to the accessory screen. It will run just fine on the main monitors however. This is a very minor bug and affects a very small percentage of possible users, but better to know it exists than to pull your hair out like I did trying to find the reason.

Finally I will say that the guy that distributes and cares for the program is absolutely amazing. He has always answered any technical questions I have had on the program and has worked with me on trying to fix that accessory bug from time to time when I try new fixes. When the satellite provider stopped broadcasting the stream a few years back he actually sent me a refund for my remaining time as I'd paid for a year in advance. They have of course long since reintroduced the feed and it's been running strong since. He is a very trustworthy and honest businessman so rest assured your money will be well spent.

JPPlayer aside I would like to also concur with OP regarding the Dictionaries of Japanese Grammar. I dropped traditional grammar methods and started just using those books to look up grammar when I came across it and found it a far more efficient method. They are a bit expensive but again the are worth every penny.

I would only add one thing to the original list. There is a book out there written entirely in English called "Making Sense of Japanese". It's an absolutely amazing short little piece that covers some of the most confusing topics that most learners struggle with and explains them using clear, concise English. It's fairly inexpensive and as with the rest completely worth it.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/156836492X/ref=oh_details_o06_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Hmm, I’ve never read that, but I would assume it’s easier than one would probably think. After all, the Japanese have been navigating this ambiguous terrain of zero pronouns and particle confusion their whole lives. If they can understand it, then it has to be possible.

If you think about it, we do really weird stuff like that, as well. For example, in the sentence “He gave him his keys,” we technically could have three different people here. Perhaps Tom grabbed his dad’s keys from the dresser and gave them to his brother, Mike—in which case Tom=he; Dad=his; Mike=him. If we know that beforehand, then the sentence makes perfect sense. Yes, it’s a bit odd, but it’s not like we’d really have any trouble understanding it at that point. I can only imagine how difficult that is for Japanese learners of English, though.

Since you’ve given me a book recommendation, I’ll give you mine. It’s Jay Rubin’s “Making Sense of Japanese.” It’s a series of short essays that demystify some of the toughest-to-grasp concepts for English learners of Japanese. He covers the type of scenario which you mentioned having trouble with (don’t we all?) extensively and intuitively, and I think it’d help anyone at any level of fluency. It’s pretty short, pretty cheap, and immensely enlightening. I read it again at least once a year. I truly cannot recommend anything better to a fellow 日本語の学生!

Here’s the Amazon (US) link, if you wanted to check it out:
Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You https://www.amazon.com/dp/156836492X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_A3IQDb6Y5TTXV

I know you are joking but if anyone is curious where I got this from it's this book: https://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Japanese-What-Textbooks/dp/156836492X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493839717&sr=8-1&keywords=jay+rubin


It's written by Haruki Murakami's English translator and is a great read if you are learning Japanese.

Try satori reader, from the guys who made human japanese.

If you really need a textbook you should probably go with Tobira, it covers more advanced stuff than genki but you can probably handle it since you finished Human Japanese.

I can also recommend ["Making Sense of Japanese"] (https://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Japanese-What-Textbooks/dp/156836492X) by Jay Rubin, it's a short read but gives you a deeper understanding of a few different topics.

Imabi is probably the most complete japanese resource in english and it's free, definitely give it a try.

I've read https://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Japanese-What-Textbooks/dp/156836492X 2 times now. Will read it again when my level increases :)

1. Nope. But some socializing is healthy.
   
2. Eh. The music one could go, unless you have a link there to your Soundcloud or whatever kids use these days. But it wouldn't be a problem.
   
3. Yes, it's fine.
   
   If you don't have it already, I HIGHLY recommend getting https://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Japanese-What-Textbooks/dp/156836492X/ . I studied Japanese in college. That book was invaluable for me.

This book explains the difference between を and が.

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Japanese-What-Textbooks/dp/156836492X

You can probably find a free copy floating around on the Internet too.

https://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Japanese-What-Textbooks/dp/156836492X

This book helped me a lot when I first started worrying over the は vs が issue. I'm by no means advanced but it's worth looking at imo.

As expected, my N5 didn't go well for me, as I only seriously started practicing like a few days ago. Although, listening part went well (or so I think) for me, as I'm watching Japanese stuff on a regular basis for ~7 years now.

In any case, I'm more determined now. I'm following KLC book, KLC Anki deck, JLPT N5 Vocabulary Anki deck, and An Introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar, & Language. Also, I have Making Sense of Japanese but haven't started reading it yet.

I tried Memrise too but didn't go well for me. I found Anki better. Now just have to devote some time off Anki to study grammar too.

Hope this helps, and all the best!

Honestly, in my opinion, unless it's a very specialised language institution, don't even bother with traditional classes. The majority of them will do little more than go through the beginner textbooks at a pace 10x slower than you could on your own. All the information you need to learn the language is freely available as long as you have the discipline to go through it without being forced to.

The first step will be to learn hiragana, then katakana. After that you'll want to tackle grammar basics, beginner vocabulary and kanji, and then begin getting exposure to simple native content while exploring the more intermediate and advanced material.

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For kana:

Use mnemonics to familiarise yourself with hiragana and katakana.

Then drill yourself with a tool like DJT Kana until they are burned into your brain.

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For grammar:

The single free resource I most recommend in the beginning would be Wasabi's online reference, but there are plenty of other resources out there, including Tae Kim, Imabi, Maggie Sensei, Cure Dolly, etc...

For paid resources the most commonly recommended beginner textbook would be Genki. And then Tobira for more intermediate material. My most recommended resources to purchase would be a book called Making Sense of Japanese and the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar series, with emphasis placed on the first volume.

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For kanji and vocab:

Wanikani will automate the process for you if you have the cash to pay for a yearly subscription.

If not you can use Anki with either Kodansha's Kanji Learner's Course or with Remembering The Kanji.

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All my Japanese knowledge was acquired through self-study, starting with resources similar to these. After I had sufficient experience with the basics I went on to learn primarily through reading native material and using native linguistic resources.

It took around 3 years before I was able to begin reading light novels.

There is a chapter on this in https://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Japanese-What-Textbooks/dp/156836492X

Basically Japanese sentences are inverted, in the sense that increasingly important information is found at the end of the sentence instead of the beginning. This means that a listener or reader can be led on by a long sentence before discovering that the entire scenario was a hypothetical or negation. (This is commonly used in drama/comedy.)

Japanese has several "indicators" that don't really change the meaning of a sentence but are placed at the start to give the reader/listener a warning of what is to come. In this case もし marks the sentence as a hypothetical, instead of leaving it as a surprise.

In terms of books in Japanese, probably not at your level.

If you're willing to expand to books about Japanese (written in English or another language you're fluent in), you can probably find some stuff that isn't too dry. Something like this book: https://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Japanese-What-Textbooks/dp/156836492X which is a collection of essays about Japanese by a well known translator.

There are also some bilingual books which contain Japanese and English (sometimes with a dictionary), but I think they'll still be too complex at your level of grammar to get the most out of, and you'll just end up reading the English. And honestly, by the time I felt comfortable getting through those, I could just read stuff in pure Japanese anyway.

Japansepod101 is great! But they are super spammers its true. Great product made to look terrible. Why???? Not as good as JFZ though.

George, I guess the reason people want you to recommend books is they trust you. You should be proud of that.

Books I'd recommend (even in you won't!) are:

Making Sense of Japanese by Jay Rubin (very funny and lots on interesting bits even if some of it was beyond me)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-Sense-Japanese-What-Textbooks/dp/156836492X/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486317692&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=don%27t+tell+you+about+japanese

Japanese the Manga Way by Wayne Lammers (Really terrific and great practice on your kanji too.)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/cka/Japanese-Manga-Way-Illustrated-Guide-Grammar-Structure/1880656906/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1486317895&sr=1-1&keywords=japanese+the+manga+way

Actually I don't think these books compete with your ones in any case.

And finally I recommend this explanation of when to use wa and ga. Its a video thing and you can throw away all textbooks after watching this. (I suppose it is just barely possible there is more to it than this guy says but surely not).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU9rjYZe2P4

Oh, just realised George did a video on this subject I haven't seen. Well, I am sure they are both equally good . . .

By far the best explanation of this topic I've seen is in the book Making Sense of Japanese by Jay Rubin. It also discusses some other tricky aspects of Japanese grammar, and is fun to read as well. The succinct tip from /u/EvanGRogers is consistent with the book, but the book obviously goes into much greater depth.

Well even though he's just saying it, I'd suggest the book, it is good to read.

Also you can find it right here.