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Essential Japanese
Emphasizing sentence patterns as the key to attaining a basic control of Japanese, Essential Japanese is a comprehensive introduction to the modern colloquial language. Stressing mastery of the fundamentals, this is the text for the busy person wishing to learn Japanese in a reasonable amount of time.
- GenresJapanJapanese Literature
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1962
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 5, 2012
I can’t even begin to describe how enormously helpful this book is. It taught me more in one, literally pocket-sized, 460-page volume than I had previously understood from 18 years of studying Japanese on-and-off through classes at a Japanese Buddhist church, university courses, and various resources I used for self-teaching.
Unfortunately, it’s also incredibly outdated, and much the vocabulary is specialized for post-World War II military basemen and Christian missionaries, who were the primary target market for this book (probably making up the majority of Americans living in Japan). It’s also out of print; all these things make it somewhat difficult to recommend for general use. It teaches some extremely formal language that has nothing to do with “Essential Japanese” any longer—it’s pretty much only spoken around royalty, and most people aren’t dining with the Emperor’s family. It’s great for understanding super-formal speech in a Samurai movie, maybe, not much else. But on the other hand, you won’t easily find explanations of these speech modes anywhere else, and in addition it explains language that really is crucial to understand in a very straightforward manner, that I hadn’t seen addressed in other textbooks I’d used. It is at the same time the most complete and most concise book on Japanese grammar I’ve had the pleasure to know.
It’s worth noting that it does not use any sort of Japanese writing system other than romaji (latin letters).
Unfortunately, it’s also incredibly outdated, and much the vocabulary is specialized for post-World War II military basemen and Christian missionaries, who were the primary target market for this book (probably making up the majority of Americans living in Japan). It’s also out of print; all these things make it somewhat difficult to recommend for general use. It teaches some extremely formal language that has nothing to do with “Essential Japanese” any longer—it’s pretty much only spoken around royalty, and most people aren’t dining with the Emperor’s family. It’s great for understanding super-formal speech in a Samurai movie, maybe, not much else. But on the other hand, you won’t easily find explanations of these speech modes anywhere else, and in addition it explains language that really is crucial to understand in a very straightforward manner, that I hadn’t seen addressed in other textbooks I’d used. It is at the same time the most complete and most concise book on Japanese grammar I’ve had the pleasure to know.
It’s worth noting that it does not use any sort of Japanese writing system other than romaji (latin letters).
September 2, 2011
I have a number of Samuel E. Martin's books, they are the best language books I have and they set the standard by which I compare language textbooks.
This is a small pocket-sized book, but it covers more depth and leads to more understanding than the vast majority of superficial textbooks out there.
Martin had a unique ability to explain complicated grammar in a clear and logical way, and this is exactly what you get in this book: the core structure of Japanese explained clearly, and in an analytical and logical manner.
As in all his books the exercises are quite demanding, they force you to think in Japanese.
If you want to understand how the Japanese language is structured beyond the superficial, then get this book.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews