| Authors | Seiichi Makino, Michio Tsutsui |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Japan Times |
| Series | Makino and Tsutsui's dictionaries of Japanese grammar |
| Category | General grammar |
| ISBN | 4789007758 [COPAC, Webcatplus, Wikipedia] |
Review of A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar by Mark Barton
It has basically the same format as the original book. The body of the book is a discussion of specific grammatical items, in dictionary format (romaji-ordering). Before that there is some essay-style material on various general aspects of grammar and communication strategies. At the end there are a number of appendices.
One difference is that the romaji transliteration of the example sentences has been eliminated and about half the kanji have furigana attached - I have a reading knowledge of about 500 to 700 kanji, and I found hardly any I didn't know.
Most of the essays in the front are just survey level - "these are the sorts of phenomena that you will see" sort of stuff. The heart of the book is the dictionary of grammar items. It's all good stuff and completely on a par with the first book.
The appendixes are all full of good stuff that is hard to find in dictionaries. I was particulary keen on the long list of counters. It actually fairly comprehensive details about sound changes "ippon, nihon, sambon" and when to use Japanese numbers "hitohako, futahako, sambako...".
If you are entirely freaked out by abstract language this is not the book for you. The language is fairly scholarly, and there is quite a lot of grammatical jargon. If you take to such things easily there is of course no problem. If you are jealous of your time but prepared to learn some jargon for a good cause, I would suggest persevering (most of the jargon is defined in the introduction). To do justice to the level of subtlety of the distinctions they are trying to convey, you couldn't do a lot better.
Only very occasionally does the style set off my pomposity alarm, e.g., "The phrase [-nai koto mo/wa nai] is an expression of repetition that repeats the same verb adjective or N+copula which has just been used in the interlocutor's question. So the phrase cannot be used as a discourse initial sentence". This is several times worse than average.
☆ See all reviews by Mark Barton.