I'm in Tokyo taking a one-year intermediate Japanese class and I'm having a bit of trouble with some of the grammar points presented in class. The main problem being that the textbook used presents the grammar points but does not explain them; it only gives usage examples. The explanation is left to the teacher. So needless to say if I don't understand the teacher, miss a class, or don't write it down I'm at a loss.

I already have the beginner and intermediate dictionary of Japanese grammar but they don't have some of the points brought up in class.

Can anyone recommend a book or web site with English explanation of Japanese grammar? I've already looked at jgram.org but it also did not have the points I was looking for.

Thanks!

does http://www.guidetojapanese.org cover what you are looking for?

There's also now an Advanced Dictionary of Japanese Grammar which might be worth checking out.

[Katsuo]

If you want to check out what the Japan Times "A Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar" covers, here is an index.

Another grammar book I sometimes find useful is the one by Drohan.

http://www.jgram.org covers most grammar points up to and including JLPT1.
You can search using kanji, kana or romaji, or browse by level.
There's usually a description and some example sentences.
I found it useful to check my understanding for the harder points when using a 完全マスター grammar book (which has no english).

Someone else pointed out http://www.tanos.co.uk/jlpt/skills/grammar/ in another thread, but you need to know the JLPT level, and the descriptions are very brief.