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hello, i've been having trouble finding a japanese grammar workbook that can work for me. (online resources are welcome too, i really like books though) i saw "A guide to japanese grammar" on amazon by Tae Kim and i was wondering if you guys reccommend it, though i'm still unsure because, i'm a very visual learner (also have learning disability). i was wondering if there were some more easy to understand grammar books (maybe for beginner with a slow pace) where it has bolded letters and colors and shows sort of diagram and visuals for the japanese language and grammar.
sorry, i hope that's alright. thank you! im a slow learner and a beginner to japanese (im very serious to learn it, though!) hope you don't mind.
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I suggest you to give a look to the Genki textbooks, it's not a grammar per sé but it has all basic grammar points (conjugations, adjectives, syntax etc..). Every chapter has one or more dialogues and after that you have a list of new grammar points with examples and explanations. If you are interested only in the grammar points you can ignore the dialogues, or just read them after having studied the grammar points, just to see if you understand the grammar in the context of the dialogues. If you like them then there is also a third book (an integrated approach to intermediate japanese) and a fourth (gateway to advanced japanese). The advantage of books like those over standard grammar is that they introduce grammar points in order of frequency and difficulty, so you can study them cover to cover. On the cuntrary standard grammar books are more like references, to use as a supplement for your studies (in this respect the dictionaries already mentioned are considered a standard).
One example, in the first chapters of Genki I you are introduced to the present tense of verbs, but also of i and na adjectives, basic syntax etc.. Instead in grammar books like Barron's and other they are divided by topics like "pronouns - verbs - i adjectives - na adjectives - adverbs" so if you follow them cover to cover you'll enconunter difficult verb conjugations in various politeness-level of japanese before even knowing how to cojnugate the present tense of an i adjective.
Genki I and II cover all the JLPT 5 and JLPT 4 grammar points, while "an integrated approach to intermediate japanese" and "gateway to advanced japanese" cover the JLPT 3 and JLPT 2 grammar points respectively. So you go by grade of difficulty and usefulness, and if you need to look more in depth those grammar points you can look them up on the dictionaries of japanese grammar.
Hope this will be useful for you, 頑張って!
Joined: Mar 2014
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How about this grammar? It looks very new. I was looking at it at the bookstore and it seems very easy to follow:
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Japanese-Gr...al+grammar
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Seems like Genki would fit you best. It's a bit boring and slow but very beginner friendly and quite good for self-study.
I'd also recommend you have a look at Japanese the Manga Way, there are no diagrams or colors but the manga examples for each grammar point are great for visual learners (at least they were for me) and the explanations are short and clear but more in-depth than Tae Kim (I tried using Tae Kim as a very beginner and felt lost even though I love it now).
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What about "Japanese: The Manga Way"?
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@chamcham That's an awesome book. Do *not* confuse with the so-so "Japanese in Mangaland," tho. I still go back to JTMW every now and then when I'm looking for a good explanation of something.
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thank you so much for all the help everyone, this is all very helpful
Edited: 2014-09-14, 4:29 pm