The Complete Japanese Expression Guide

by Mizue Sasaki

The Complete Japanese Expression Guide enables students to speak and understand idiomatic Japanese with the ease and fluency of a native speaker.

For the first time ever, over 600 of the most commonly used idiomatic expressions in the Japanese language have been brought together and alphabetized in a single, convenient volume. No longer will the student have to rely on stuffy academic-sounding phrases and expressions. Mizue Sasaki has successfully taken stilted formality out of Japanese, and made natural, idiomatic communication readily possible.

This handy volume not only introduces essential idioms, but also provides easy-to-understand translations and numerous example sentences to show how the expressions should be used. Studying colloquial Japanese doesn't have to be hitori-zumo, a futile effort. With The Complete Japanese Expression Guide, conversational fluency is guaranteed.

Genres: Japanese Literature, Japan, Language

Paperback

First published March 1, 1993

Reviews

[Kasumi · Rating 3 out of 5]

My major issue with this book was that each example was 99% romaji and only 1 line of actual Japanese script. While there is nothing wrong with including romaji, if the target expression is "making a mountian out of a molehill" (page 226) or "when the cat's away the mice will play (page 207) then reader very likely can read Japanese hiragana/katakana/kanji.
Adding Japanese script to each of the dialogues and examples would've greatly improved this book.

As for the phrases cited in the book, I spoke with a Japanese teacher about some of them. From the ones I chose to discuss, most were deed as "used it." But a few phrases were deemed "old-fashioned/not used anymore" or "only good for test taking."

[Mauri · Rating 2 out of 5]

I meant to read this straight through, since it seemed like one of those reference guides where that might actually be worth it, but it's too boring for that. And I got sick of the vaguely sexist henpecked husband vs wife example sentences.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still useful for those of us with obsolete electronic dictionaries.