501 Japanese Verbs (Barron's 501 Verbs)

This book is an excellent resource for those learning Japanese, and especially for those just starting out. It's a chunky tome and it seems rather daunting at first, but it quickly became my go-to reference when I wanted to find or check a verb or discover how it conjugates. The authors have broken out 55 verbs that they judge to be the most widely-used, and have listed them at the start of the book and given them special treatment with the body of the book, with an additional page of explanations and examples for them. While you won't find every single verb you will ever need here, the 501 verbs selected seem to be sensible choices and should be enough for most day-to-day situations. Verbs are listed in romaji alphabetical order, which will no doubt infuriate the purist, but suggests that the book was laid out with the beginning student in mind. Each verb has its own page (two pages for the 55 common verbs), with its various conjugations listed in a table. Again, apart from stating the verb's dictionary form in hiragana and kanji, all text is in romaji. This certainly reduces the mental load needed to understand the entries, as no on-the-fly transliteration needs to be done, but again, more advanced students of the language may chafe a bit at the lack of native Japanese scripts. The back of the book contains useful examples, drills and practice exercises, as well as an English - Japanese index and - surprisingly useful - an index organised by the verbs' 'te' form. The only gripes I have are minor and not worth knocking off a star for: the lack of kanji in the verb tables (which would probably render the book twice as long but not twice as useful) and the lack of page numbers in the list of the 55 essential verbs. This is one of the most useful references I have found as a learner of Japanese. I wouldn't want to be without it.

This Japanese verb book from Barron's is quickly becoming an invaluable part of my study materials and has helped clarify verbs and their usage. The verbs are arranged alphabetically and this has a chapter at the start explaining how to use this book and get the most from it. Initially I didn't use this too much, but as I learnt more verbs and needed to confirm their forms then I referred back to this more and more. This is very easy to use and whilst the amount of verbs can seem a little daunting, it also highlight the 55 essential verbs that you will come across and use most frequently. A great way to use this book is to learn these 55 essential verbs and then use this to clarify and refine your knowledge of other verbs as you learn them. Japanese is a very honorific language and this book shows the formal and informal versions of verbs, this is essential to ensure you are polite enough, but also when forming compound sentences, which use both forms in their creation. This is quite a large, heavy book, so not the kind of thing you'd carry around with you when travelling, but it is ideal for home study etc. I use this alongside the Japanese from Zero series (which I am using to learn the language itself), a particles dictionary and a few other study aids, but this is one that I find myself reaching for more and more as my knowledge increases. This is not aimed at beginners and may seem a little daunting when you are new to Japanese, but it becomes invaluable the more you progress. This deserves the 5 star ratings and if you're serious about studying Japanese, then make sure you add this to your learning arsenal.

This book has everything a student of Japanese could ask for. Verbs are arranged A-Z in Romanji (so for those students wanting a more serious approach, it'd be better to look for a book that organises things according to Hiragana) It also has a glossary at the back, so if you know your English verb, you can look it up in the back of the book to find the Japanese translation, then you can go back to the front of the book and find it accordingly. It also has 'essential 55 verbs' to show you which verbs are used most often and which are good to learn. Overall a very good investment.

I decided to get this verb book in particular, as I'd purchased a Japanese grammar guide from Barron's before, and was very impressed with their style and content; following up with buying this verb guide, I was certainly not disappointed! A fantastic guide for anyone wanting to master Japanese, very user friendly and helpful. Definitely recommending this book.

This is a very useful tool to learn Japanese. Quick delivery and arrived in perefect condition.

This book is very helpful! A lot of useful verbs with every form needed in it. Love it! Recommend this to any one studying Japanese

An excellent book!Extremely useful!

I own the Japanese Grammar guide by Barron's, and they are a reliable, handy guide for any student of Japanese. Perfect for the classroom or self-study. Pocket size, easy to take anywhere. My perspective of studying any language has changed thanks to these guides.

Cheap reliable reference to support Japanese language studies. It's not a dictionary, not a course of study, and not especially portable. But when you need to know the particular form of verb you don't frequently use, or to parse the meaning of a bit of dialogue, it's extremely useful. As Japanese sentences frequently leave off the subject, the context of the verb form is sometimes unclear to the learner. To be fair it doesn't have every word (like abiru for some reason) but it does have 501.

Libro portatile. Ti arricchisce il tuo vocabolario giapponese.

Enfin un bescherelle pour les japonisants! Cela livre contient 500 verbes différents conjugués et écrit en rômaji. L'infinitif est cependant disponible en kanji et katakana. Ce livre est très utile donc quand on doute de la conjugaison d'un verbe. Seul bémol comme le verbe est traduit du japonais vers l'anglais il est recommandé de connaître un minimum d'anglais pour apprécier ce livre.

Comme son nom l'indique il s'agit d'un tableau de conjugaison. Le principal défaut que l'on risque de trouver à cet ouvrage est le fait que les tableaux de conjugaisons sont en romanji (lettres latines) et non pas en Kanji et Kana. Mais bon, l'infinitif du verbe est donné en haut de page en Kanji et hiragana. Les déclinaisons des verbes japonais étant toujours en hiragana cela devrait à mon avis n'être qu'une petite gène si vous maîtrisez bien les kana et leur équivalences avec le romanji. Bref, c'est un ouvrage utile pour apprendre les verbes, à moins, bien sûr, que vous ne soyez un ultra japonisant puriste jusqu'au bout des ongles:-D

I really enjoy this book. As someone who is learning Japanese, this book is very helpful. Not only does it have the verbs, but it also shows the ways to conjugate the verbs. There are a great many conjugations in Japanese, not just six, but rather close to thirty. Although it does not show nearly that many, it shows enough to be able to get a non-native speaker through basics.