Common Japanese Collocations: A Learner's Guide to Frequent Word Pairings Paperback – October 24, 2014

This book is geared towards more serious learners and not for someone whose just wanting to learn something for a short trip to japan, so if you're interested in only learning something minor or not continuing your studies, then this book is not for you. That being said, it's a extremely useful book for hardcore learners of the Japanese language. This book is more of a reference book but it gives detailed explanations on how exactly a word should be said so you know how and when to use it. It'll definitely make you sound and feel more natural in the Japanese language.This book does not have a index but the well organized table of context does make up as a good substitute. Also, there is no romanji (which is good thing), so you do need to know hiragana and katakana before picking up this book. This book does use furigana so you don't have to know the kanji right off. I would suggest this book for upper-beginner to intermediate learners. One neat feature is that there is a Appendix at the end of the book that visually shows you correct and incorrect collocations (word pairings).I already love this book and can see me using it for a long time to come.

This book is very helpful in transitioning away from awkwardly translated English concepts to natural Japanese expressions. Of all of the Japanese books I’ve bought this one is definitely one of the most useful.I would pay real money for a searchable app version, though. Or maybe an index in the back. It can be hard to find what you need the first few times, but after a while I got used to the categorization.

I've been learning Japanese for a while and found that I need some kind of resources when writing or making conversation. This book fills this gap. I've taken Japanese Language Proficiency Test N1 (still waiting for December 2013 result) and do not have much trouble reading or listening. Previously, I found this book in a bookstore and was not impressed. At that time, I thought it's just a mindless collection of Japanese phrases. However, now that I'm in a stage where I need it, I find that it's really helpful and essential in my growth as an advanced Japanese learner. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

This is an interesting book, and I have found it extremely helpful. However, it's important to understand how this book might be useful. It's not something that you will get much benefit from just reading through. And its also not really a reference book to look up information, nor is it a useful phrasebook if you will be traveling to Japan. This book is squarely aimed at people who are studying Japanese seriously, and are looking for a quick list of useful phrases that they can study, showing how a lot of useful nouns and verbs are used in actual Japanese.The only way you can get much benefit from this is by actually studying the phrases. I highly recommend adding them into a Spaced Repetition System like Anki, but you can also make paper flashcards to study them. My only problem with this book is the fact that it takes a lot of work to make flashcards or to type the information into your computer to study. I think a book is not the most useful format for information like this.The collocations contained in this book are genuinely useful, and when learned, can take your Japanese ability to the next level. Having studied numerous lists of vocabulary or sentences from other sources, I can honestly say that this collection of collocations is the most useful that I have come across. There is really something to be said for learning how to use a word in a variety of different ways, rather than simply learning words in isolation.

Sections are broken up by theme then situation. Ie Home stars with Body and hygiene and goes as far as cooking, clothing, and incidents/accidents. To some, that's a hindrance but personally it makes things much easier. This book even goes over abstract phrases not gone over in most textbooks. Like the exact phrases for racking one's brain or describing someone as capricious.Lastly, entries are usually based around one word or Kanji. This book also does NOT use romaji but simply furigana (thank goodness).

I'm planning to return to Japan after not speaking Japanese for many years. This book provides a good review for an intermediate level speaker such as I and provides good examples of word usage and phrases that are not just simple clumsy translations of English. For my needs, it is much better than textbooks or the conversation guides for visitors that are readily available. I'm very pleased with it. A working knowledge of hiragana and katakana are essential. I doubt that a beginning student will find it helpful.

I was looking for a book of this nature for a while. Most of the time textbooks teaching a language will only go by a few mundane expressions such as "take a bath," or "put on clothes." That is fine and all, but for those people who actually want to know as much of the language as a native, knowing and understanding mundane expressions is an absolute must. The only complaint that I have about this book, however, is that it sometimes provides some atypical expressions that you'll probably never hear/see used in Japanese. But despite that fact, the book by itself is absolutely wonderful.

Wonderful book! Definitely helps me with my Japanese studies! I haven’t gone into depth with it yet, but I can tell that it is going to be a wonderful book.