Review of Making Out in Japanese by Wolfgang Cronrath

"Making Out ..." contains of a collection of about 500 rather common expressions of colloquial conversation in English and Japanese. The expressions cover general activities from inquiring, time, speaking, looking, bad words to lover's language. They are aimed at the latter though many of them are suitable in other informal situations as well. Many of these expressions can not be translated word by word and therefore have to be memorized as a unit. To avoid embarrassing situations where men use women's phrases and vice versa, all the sentences are given in male and female variants and marked properly. The book is written completely in romaji. The authors wrote another book, "More Making Out ...", in a similar style.

Both "Making Out ..." and "More Making Out ..." are useful because many of these expressions are not mentioned in the numerous textbooks and language classes which often don't cover such informal situations at all. It would have been a good idea to include a brief description of basic grammar and particle usage in informal. The Japanese phrases sound rather natural to me though they might be limited to regions where standard Japanese is spoken. (I conclude this from Japanese friends >from Kyushu who said the phrases sounded like in TV-dramas.)

"Making Out ..." and "More Making Out ..." are nice little introductions into colloquial Japanese and well worth their price.

☆ See all reviews by Wolfgang Cronrath.