Mention About Books Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You (Power Japanese)

Title	:	Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You (Power Japanese)
Author	:	Jay Rubin
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Special Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 144 pages
Published	:	March 1st 2002 by Kodansha (first published 1992)
Categories	:	Asian Literature. Japanese Literature. Nonfiction. Humanities. Language

Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You (Power Japanese) Paperback | Pages: 144 pages

Representaion In Pursuance Of Books Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You (Power Japanese)

Making Sense of Japanese is the fruit of one foolhardy American's thirty-year struggle to learn and teach the Language of the Infinite. Previously known as Gone Fishin', this book has brought Jay Rubin more feedback than any of his literary translations or scholarly tomes, "even if," he says, "you discount the hate mail from spin-casters and the stray gill-netter."

To convey his conviction that "the Japanese language is not vague," Rubin has dared to explain how some of the most challenging Japanese grammatical forms work in terms of everyday English. Reached recently at a recuperative center in the hills north of Kyoto, Rubin declared, "I'm still pretty sure that Japanese is not vague. Or at least, it's not as vague as it used to be. Probably."

The notorious "subjectless sentence" of Japanese comes under close scrutiny in Part One. A sentence can't be a sentence without a subject, so even in cases where the subject seems to be lost or hiding, the author provides the tools to help you find it. Some attention is paid as well to the rest of the sentence, known technically to grammarians as "the rest of the sentence."

Part Two tackles a number of expressions that have baffled students of Japanese over the decades, and concludes with Rubin's patented technique of analyzing upside-down Japanese sentences right-side up, which, he claims, is "far more restful" than the traditional way, inside-out.

"The scholar," according to the great Japanese novelist Soseki Natsume, is "one who specializes in making the comprehensible incomprehensible." Despite his best scholarly efforts, Rubin seems to have done just the opposite.

Previously published in the Power Japanese series under the same title and originally as Gone Fishin' in the same series.

Declare Books Conducive To Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You (Power Japanese)

Original Title:	Gone Fishin’
ISBN:	4770028024 (ISBN13: 9784770028020)
Edition Language:	English
Series:	Power Japanese

Rating About Books Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You (Power Japanese)

Ratings: 4.18 From 482 Users | 71 Reviews

Article About Books Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You (Power Japanese)

This book is probably best for students of Japanese who are a bit above my current level (I've only finished Genki 1, but through self-teaching I also know some vocab and grammar beyond that level). Even so, I gained a lot from reading this and I'll absolutely refer to it again in the future. Like many other reviewers said, it did make me laugh out loud a few times.My only complaint is the use of roomaji throughout. I thought it might have been a typographical issue, but he uses kanji and kana

For

Jay Rubin translated Wind-Up Bird, so I already knew he was amazing/brilliant/etc. What I didn't know is that he's also hilarious. Nice surprise, that.The subtitle of this book is a little misleading. "What the Textbooks Don't Tell You" brings to mind a guide to Japanese slang or curse words or something (at least that's what I thought of), but really it's more about nuance. Little shades of meaning that usually aren't mentioned in textbooks simply because the textbooks are too busy trying to

I loved this book. I've been studying Japanese for years and yet I still learned a lot from this book. Although I was familiar with all the grammar patterns he described, I still struggle to use some of them properly and have forgotten the finer points of some grammar over the years. He explains it all so clearly, I don't know why no one ever explained it like that before. は and が and んです in particular have always been a struggle, as well as the use of passive construction to mean "suffering

Not finished because I don't know enough Japanese to understand the later chapters. What I've read tries to give a more comprehensible interpretation of some common Japanese grammatical concepts for English speakers. May reread later.

I would recommend this book specifically to intermediate students of Japanese as it does effectively explain several grammar constructions that often trouble native English speakers. Having said that, there are textbooks which have been published more recently which do this quite well also, so the title probably isn't so fitting anymore.On a personal level, as an aspiring translator, I was quite disappointed. Dedicating a single page to kanji only to decry them for being 'clunky' and 'not

Great read for students of Japanese language. Essays and articles are easy to understand and use examples from a variety of sources. Learned a few things and was reminded of a lot I had forgotten. If you enjoy Japanese grammar, check this out!