Hey guys I started learning japanese so that I can read visual novels. Can anyone recommend me a good grammar deck ? Also if possible not one with simple sentences like "he did that" or "yesterday this happened" etc. Mainly because half of visual novels are monologues where things are described.

I would get the 'A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar' so you can read the explanations, and use the deck that is made up of the example sentences from that book.

I'll send you a modified version of the DoBJG deck that I got from a livestreamer. It has a few corrections amongst other great additions. It's also been further modified by me to suit my style better, but it's neither here nor there.

Get the book to go along with it and either just read it cover to cover while you also process the deck, or read and unsuspend a grammar point a day, or something like that. I just did the former, which worked fine.

Sorry, it's just taking a while to upload, will edit with link when it's done.

I'm also adding ADoBJG to Memrise, with the requirement modest proof of ownership is provided (either send pic from Memrise account or have pic with Memrise account name). Another user was kind enough to run the sentences through a male and female text to speech program so the reviews are not as boring.

Here's DoBJG deck.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/35nvkgq6551s81....apkg?dl=0

I've seen this book recommended a lot but the fact that it has rōmaji throughout puts me off. Is there an alternative with just Japanese script?

Don't be put off by the romaji. You will not find it without and it features Kanji/Kana so there's really no issue.

Nah, personally I find it very distracting. Its difficult to not automatically look at the rōmaji first, even though I don't mean to and then, when I look at the Japanese, I'm not really reading it im just remembering what the rōmaji said.

(2016-06-07, 8:22 am)debrucey Wrote: Nah, personally I find it very distracting. Its difficult to not automatically look at the rōmaji first, even though I don't mean to and then, when I look at the Japanese, I'm not really reading it im just remembering what the rōmaji said.

I understand what you're saying, but the Japanese sentences aren't there for reading practice, they're there to illustrate the grammar points. In that way, it doesn't really matter if you're remembering the romaji when reading the Japanese. The essential thing is that you grasp the grammar.

You'll also probably find this a self-solving problem before long... I find Japanese characters much easier to read than romaji now, and given parallel text like the DoBJG I'd have to force myself to stare at the romaji if for some reason I wanted to read it.

(2016-06-07, 6:03 am)debrucey Wrote: I've seen this book recommended a lot but the fact that it has rōmaji throughout puts me off. Is there an alternative with just Japanese script?

The どうなときどう使う series is fairly similar in content.

Disclaimer: I have owned both and did not personally find either series that useful because it was always faster and easier to Google search.

SomeCallMeChris basically said it all. The book is for understanding grammar explanations, not reading practice, and after a while, romaji becomes way more difficult to read anyway. Finally, if you use the deck I linked to revise, you're not going to be remembering the romaji somehow, there's no romaji in the deck. So ultimately, there's really no reason to worry. While I read this series cover to cover, it's designed for reference mostly, so it makes sense that it has romaji, because that makes it far more useful to people with a linguistic interest in Japanese, who might not have it as a language they actually understand.