To look up grammar patterns, I strongly recommend using proper dictionaries meant for such. Dictionary of basic/intermediate/advanced japanese grammar is the best one I've used, these bring up SO many grammar patterns and give really thorough explanations and examples.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

As a Chrome user, I keep forgetting about Rikaichan.  It would not have been as handy as usual in this particular case because the text in question was in a video (so hovering over it would not have meant anything to Rikaichan), and it was written vertically to boot.  But it's good to keep Rikaichan in mind for more common situations.

It's interesting to learn that っぽい would not appear in the dictionary.  It looks like I'll have to re-learn quite a bit about dictionary usage when it comes to Japanese, even for kana-based dictionaries.

gfb345 wrote:

Thanks for all the suggestions!

As a Chrome user, I keep forgetting about Rikaichan.  It would not have been as handy as usual in this particular case because the text in question was in a video (so hovering over it would not have meant anything to Rikaichan), and it was written vertically to boot.  But it's good to keep Rikaichan in mind for more common situations.

It's interesting to learn that っぽい would not appear in the dictionary.  It looks like I'll have to re-learn quite a bit about dictionary usage when it comes to Japanese, even for kana-based dictionaries.

Rikaichan was ported to Google Chrome.
It's called "rikaikun".

I'm using it right now........ :-)

Last edited by chamcham (2010 April 08, 9:33 pm)

nest0r wrote:

Speaking of the DoBJG (and so on), someone made an Anki deck (see shared decks in Anki) of 8555 cards or something, all the sentences from those books. Very handy for when you're referencing the book's notes and want to SRS examples.

That's very good to know.  Thanks.  I've had my eye on getting those books for a while.  It looks like it's getting to be time.