The Handbook of Japanese Verbs: A Kodansha Dictionary

Super handy book! When you’re just starting out and unfamiliar with Japanese grammar and writing this is really helpful and explains structure etc really comprehensively

Japanese is relatively difficult to start learning and the more you learn the more you can learn. This book if you dip into it when you are first starting will seem hard, however as you progress the book becomes more useful. A book alone cannot teach you. It can help you but you have to search out a Japanese course websites other books and of course Japanese people. I have done all of the above and this book is making more and more valuable contributions to my learning. good luck with your study.

Ideal for understanding Japanese verbs and their uses.

It would be more immersive if the samples were in kana. The explanations are a bit confusing. I've watched videos that explain them much simpler. This could be a good adjunct to learning though as long as you use other sources as I did pick up new things.

Perfect book to study Japanese grammar everyday

Book came quickly and in good condition, the cover is a leaf over the actual cover. Some slight misprints in the book (a cover page had not glued properly in the middle, and some textual mistakes but not that impact the book majorly e.g. A list of the tenses for a verb and one in the list is the wrong verb in English but as 5 of 6 are correct its obvious this is a rare typo - the japanese appears correct). Seems a useful reference manual overall!

I got this book about 3 days ago and I already finished it. I took Japanese in college (it was my major in undergrad). Looking back, this book would have come in handy. I’ve used multiple Japanese language programs and textbooks such as Genki, Tobira, Situational Functional Japanese (while studying abroad) as well as commercial programs such as Berlitz and many others. I’ve been studying Japanese informally since graduating so it could be that I’ve had time for some of those grammar concepts I learned to marinate, but I’m pretty confident that this verb book is just really good. (It is for those of us who are ‘verb-challenged,’ the book’s words, not mine.) This is one of those books that you can repeatedly refer back to and use as you learn more Japanese (if you’re a beginner or if you just want to review). While a lot of the forms and terms may seem confusing to a beginner, beginners should keep in mind that a book like this can be used over a long period of time. The verbs covered in this book are basically what you’ll find in Genki 1 & 2. For some reason, I found the explanations and example sentences in this book much more thorough than previous textbooks. But that could be that all the material was review for me. Either way, I wish I would have purchased this a long time ago. One thing I noticed missing from this book was the じゃない (ja nai) conjugations that Genki uses (this book only provided ではdewa)). This book uses a mix of romaji (in really huge letters) and Japanese (kanji and kana-hiragana and katakana) all together. I’m not anti-romaji (anymore) so that didn’t bother me, but I do prefer the Japanese characters. I think the inclusion of both is a good approach. The title of this book is a little misleading. This isn’t simply a dictionary (if it was, I probably wouldn’t have read it all); it’s more of a reference book with exercises for you to practice. It gives you a little bit of time to practice each concept after seeing it in a few sentences, so it’s not an extensive workbook. It is very concise and well organized, which I appreciated. One thing I really (really) liked were the English translations next to the Japanese inside the conjugation charts. The charts demonstrate the あいうえお aiueo conjugations, which include most of the basic conjugations (minus the the more complex tenses such as causative and causative-passive). Passive and potential are basically grouped together. But causative and passive have their own conjugation charts. Honorific/Humble/Respectful language is mentioned here and there, but I don’t believe there is a set section for it. (I think Genki does a better job just because it has charts for respectful language.) The introduction and first part of the book tell you what you will learn in the book (conjugation-wise) and the second part of the book is for different grammar points associated with each conjugation. I really like how this is organized as you can focus on learning one conjugation and what it can be used for instead of jumping around from tense or conjugation to conjugation learning one use here and there only to have to go back and learn a new use for an old conjugation form from a few chapters ago (Genki cough cough). Not that there isn’t merit to the other way, but this way is better for focusing on grammar. Each usage has about 3 examples each and after being introduced to a few different grammar points associated with the conjugation, there’s a short fill-in-the-blank activity where you’ll have to write in the correct conjugation/usage based on the English translation and Japanese sentence (available in romaji and Japanese characters). This is basically the formula for the rest of the book. In the back are the answers to all the exercises and a few indexes. One index is by Japanese sentence patterns (with English translations! for quick searches), one is for basic Japanese verbs (regular I verbs aka う -u verbs, then regular II verbs aka る -ru verbs, then irregular verbs aka する -suru and くる -kuru) and an English index for Japanese verbs found throughout this book (verbs by their English translations). As most if not all kodansha books, there’s also a list of other books you may want to purchase at the end of the book. Overall, I would highly recommend this book as a supplement to whatever program, course or series you are using to learn Japanese.

Un des Kodansha que j'ai trouvés les plus utiles, ce qui est peu dire, vu la qualité des ouvrages de cet éditeur ! Outre une intro générale (10 pages) sur les temps, les niveaux de langage, et une première partie (32 pages) sur les conjugaisons , ce qui m'a le plus intéressée est la deuxième partie (160 pages) qui passe en revue une à une les structures verbales, d'abord celles construites sur la "forme conjonctive", puis sur la "forme du dictionnaire", puis sur "forme négative", puis sur la "forme conditionnelle", puis sur la "forme impérative", puis sur la "forme volitive", puis sur la "forme en て" puis sur la "forme en た" puis sur la 'forme en たら", puis sur la "forme en たり". Chaque structure est illustrée de 3 phrases types, et des exercices d'application (corrections en annexe) reprennent les structures par groupe de 3. Ces exercices ont l'avantage d'être des exercices à trous, ce qui évite les problèmes de vocabulaire (toujours basique de toute façon). Je me sers donc de cet ouvrage à la fois pour un apprentissage systématique, et comme ouvrage de référence lorsque je trouve une structure dans un texte et que je veux en vérifier le sens, car sa consultation est très facile. A noter que toutes les explications sont en anglais, ainsi que la traduction des phrases types et des exercices. Toutes les phrases en japonais sont données intégralement en romaji et en kana et kanji de façon très lisible (pas besoin de loupe pour les kanji qu'on connait mal).

Lo compré para regalar y, tras hojearlo, me parece uno de los mejores libros sobre verbos japoneses para estudiantes. Claro y conciso. Perfecto tanto para los que se inician en el estudio del japonés como para repaso para aquellos que ya tienen cierto nivel. Otra gran publicación de Kodansha.

All you need to know about Japanese verbs is here! Everything! From tenses to auxiliaries, to transitives and even to collocations!

Didático.