Review of Japanese Verbs and Essentials of Grammar by Charles Eicher

Some people swear by this book but I just don't like it. It's all romaji and it presents grammar in an extremely weird, disorganized way. It seems to be a list of cheat sheets, not a reference book. I don't think this book will lead to any systematic learning of Japanese. But that's just my opinion. There are better books out there, that's for sure.

Lampkin's book is egregiously horrible and evil, and should be avoided at all costs. It is disorganized, and what little organization it has encourages people to continue to think about Japanese in English, rather than thinking about Japanese IN Japanese. It is all in romaji, and the typesetting is horrible. The categories she chooses are extremely odd. Many of the explanations of grammar points are fuzzy and off-target. In many sections, the book is merely a list of words and definitions without context to explain them.

As an alternative to Lampkin, I would suggest using the @book@Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar@, which has the primary virtues of being written by native Japanese speakers (unlike Lampkin), it is in kanji/kana, and explains grammar by example, IN Japanese. Another good alternative is @book@Handbook of Japanese Grammar@ which also explains grammar by example. You may need additional verb support so for that, I'd recommend a book from the Power Japanese series, Japanese Verbs at a Glance

☆ See all reviews by Charles Eicher.