Japanese Verbs: Saying What You Mean

by Tim R. Matheson

It has been said that Japanese is 80% verbs and their endings. Japanese Saying What You Mean guides the student of Japanese through the verbs, along with their various forms and conjugations, in short, clear lessons. While the book is written to be "beginner friendly," it is also packed with tips concerning the actual use of the language in modern settings, which will be useful to students well advanced in their study of the language. All forms include plenty of examples to illustrate their use. Based on the popular online version, which receives hundreds of hits per day, the book includes more lessons and example sentences in Japanese in addition to the romaji. It also includes a supplement containing a brief general overview for brand-new students, a guide to the particles, and a guide to the various name suffixes that are so vital in Japanese society.

Genres: Japanese Literature, Language, Education

227 pages, Paperback

First published August 4, 2009

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been studying Japanese for a good while now, and I've used loads of different methods, course sets, and websites. When I first started digging into the grammar, I was confused to death about verb conjugation and verb endings. No matter what website I looked at, what book I read, or what podcast I listened to, I was totally unable to grasp the concept. I was starting to worry that I was in over my head, and maybe I was just not intelligent enough to figure it out. That's when I stumbled upon Tim Matheson's website. He had a large portion of this book posted to his site so I took a peek to see how his lessons looked. I was amazed. He was able to explain everything I was struggling to learn in a way that I could understand. I was finally able to understand the verb bases, I learned how to conjugate super quickly, and I learned all kinds of new and useful verb endings. And it was so easy. In fact, I enjoyed the lessons so much, I went out and ordered a copy of the book. I started studying one or two verb endings every few days until I had the whole book memorized, and I was pleased to see my understanding and ability to use the Japanese language dramatically increase.
Even now, after owning this book for 7 or 8 years, I find it useful to thumb through it and review things that I may not use that often. (Also, I have filled the pages with notes about other verb endings I've learn through the years.)
All in all, I'm so glad I bought this book! It has been amazingly helpful, and I recommend it to anyone studying the Japanese language.