Well, after RTK I decided to work with the dictionaries of Japanese grammar from Japan Times. Conjunctions, expressions, suffixes, counters and other grammar concepts are as important as particles which the books cover as well.

EDIT: You can access the three tomes online on Scribd.

Last edited by delta (2012 September 22, 5:32 pm)

All About Particles is the best book IMHO.
It pretty much has all the particles you'll EVER need to know.

Here's what you can do:

Whenever you read, circle all the particles in each sentence.
Then use the book to figure out the proper usage for each particle.
Do it enough times and things get easy real fast :-).

Last edited by chamcham (2012 September 22, 11:42 pm)

chamcham wrote:

All About Particles is the best book IMHO.
It pretty much has all the particles you'll EVER need to know.

Here's what you can do:

Whenever you read, circle all the particles in each sentence.
Then use the book to figure out the proper usage for each particle.
Do it enough times and things get easy real fast :-).

I looked through this book and loved the presentation but found A Dictionary of Japanese Particles from Kodansha to be more comprehensive, including more particles as well as particle compounds.

As for Tae Kim's guide, what's the difference between 'Complete Guide to Japanese' and 'Japanese Grammar Guide' and how do they differ?

Wow, thanks, I hadn't seen that one.

chamcham wrote:

All About Particles is the best book IMHO.
It pretty much has all the particles you'll EVER need to know.

Here's what you can do:

Whenever you read, circle all the particles in each sentence.
Then use the book to figure out the proper usage for each particle.
Do it enough times and things get easy real fast :-).

I never thought about circling all the particles That's such a simple, yet genious idea! I'm going to try this and report back after some time doing this. Thanks chamcham

chamcham wrote:

delta wrote:

chamcham wrote:

All About Particles is the best book IMHO.
It pretty much has all the particles you'll EVER need to know.

Here's what you can do:

Whenever you read, circle all the particles in each sentence.
Then use the book to figure out the proper usage for each particle.
Do it enough times and things get easy real fast :-).

I looked through this book and loved the presentation but found A Dictionary of Japanese Particles from Kodansha to be more comprehensive, including more particles as well as particle compounds.

As for Tae Kim's guide, what's the difference between 'Complete Guide to Japanese' and 'Japanese Grammar Guide' and how do they differ?

Well, "All About Particles" is 1/3 of the size of "A Dictionary of Japanese Particles from Kodansha" (128 pages vs 386 pages). So of course the latter is more comprehensive.

"All About Particles" is concise and to the point. You can't go wrong with it.
Both books are cheap enough that buying both wouldn't be a problem.

Well, it could be that one book just presents more example sentences, but that's not what I am pointing out. I'm saying that a DOJP is more comprehensive in that it has more entries / covers more particles. Anyway, you are right, both are cheap or 'free' if you allow yourself to read them in Scribd.

By the way, what's the difference between Tae Kim's 'Complete Guide to Japanese' and 'Japanese Grammar Guide'?

Last edited by delta (2012 September 26, 6:11 pm)