Series 'Japanese Language Patterns'

Books in the 'Japanese Language Patterns' series

• Japanese Language Patterns Nihongoban - Volume 1
• Japanese Language Patterns Nihongoban - Volume 2
• Japanese Language Patterns - Volume 1
• Japanese Language Patterns - Volume 2

Reviews of the 'Japanese Language Patterns' series

Anonymous review

In his work The Structure of the Japanese Language (MIT Press, 1973), Susumu Kuno, Professor of Linguistics, Harvard University, notes, "In my research I have relied most heavily upon the work of four scholars in Japanese linguistics." And along with Shiro Hattori, the late Akira Mikami and Shigeyuki Kuroda, Professor Kuno names Anthony Alfonso, "whose Japanese Language Patterns (Sophia University,Tokyo, 1966) I regard as the best reference grammar, if not the best textbook in existence for any language of the the world."

Review by Sean Holland

This two volume set was given to me by a student as a parting gift when I left Japan. The grammar explanations are simple, to the point, and very effective. I have often used the Alfonso books for ideas about how to explain things to my own students. The disadvantage of the books may be that they are entirely written in roomaji. Since I have used them more as references for teaching ideas rather than as study materials for myself, the roomaji thing is not an issue for me.

Review by David Luke

It's a large two-volume set, which starts with basic patterns and covers most of the basic grammatical constructions in Japanese. Alfonso includes _lots_ of example sentences, fairly detailed and clear explanations, and a lot of drills and exercises, making this a good book for self-study. He also includes intonation information, which is very nice, but the book is 100% romaji, which gets very tedious very fast, IMO. The price is around Y3500 for each volume. There's a big section on 'wa' and 'ga' in the second volume, somewhere around pp. 975, if I remember right.