Kakuko Shoji Knihy

Collocations are word combinations that occur in natural speech more frequently than can be explained by chance. In English, we say, "take a bath" (or "have a bath" in British English), but in Japanese the equivalent is "get in a bath," o-furo ni hairu. The verb hairu is the one that collocates with o-furo. It has long been recognized that the study of collocations can lead to more natural language production, and yet until now there has been no book on the subject for learners of Japanese. Common Japanese Collocations will be the first resource to introduce the most frequently used noun-and-verb and noun-and-adjective combinations. The book is divided into six thematic chapters centering on daily life. Each chapter presents more than a hundred key entries, which consist of a noun and a selection of words that go with that noun. Some collocations come with example sentences that demonstrate how the word pair can be used in a sentence. In addition, throughout the book there are notes on common usage errors.

Previously published under title: Core words and phrases: things you can't find in a dictionary.

Basic Connections provides basic information about expressions and usages that facilitate the flow of ideas and thoughts in written and spoken Japanese. It explains how words and phrases dovetail, how clauses pair up with other clauses, how sentences come together to create harmonious paragraphs. Since this is a book about the basics it starts with the fundamentals, explaining first the two types of Japanese sentence—"A is B" and "A does B." Then it proceeds to the problem of the modifier and the modified—a matter of "which is which." Wa and ga naturally get considerable play; after all, it is downright impossible to speak properly without them. There is also a discussion of linking nouns and noun phrases, not to speak of verbs and verb phrases. The book goes on to devote a whole chapter to common mistakes and troublesome usages. The final chapter attempts to pin down some particularly slippery locutions: such as toshite, imada ni, sore kara, whoppers like "Sentence A-te sae inakereba, Sentence B," and many more. Any beginning or intermediate student, having spent a certain amount of time and energy studying this book, will be able to speak and read Japanese in a much more coherent fashion.