Review of A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar by George Knoll

I use both of these excellent reference works in my study of Japanese. The intermediate volume is almost identical in format to the beginner volume, save different appendix content, type font, and a lack of romaji in example sentences (replaced with furigana).

Notable among the excellent appendices of the intermediate version is a list of "kanji modifiers" (I forget the linguistic term used here), or characters that when used in a compound kanji changes its meaning with consistency across compunds ("sin" [for new] and "fu" [for "not" or "anti"] are obvious examples).

Basic content is structurally just like the beginner volume, same alphabetic (romaji) organization. Just as informative as the first.

Professor Makino is a well-known linguist and professor of Japanese at Princeton University, and has contributed to two excellect Japanese grammar references. I highly recommend both, and hope that "A Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar" is soon to follow!

☆ See all reviews by George Knoll.