Japanese Language Learning Reviews

501 Japanese Verbs (Barron’s Foreign Language Guides) by Roland Lange and Nobuo Akiyama

Score:
3 / 10
Pros:
501 verbs with all forms and endings; clean list format; decent introduction
Cons:
no usage examples in context for most verbs; hardly any script (kana and kanji); Japanese verbs largely regular, making this selection of verbs largely unnecessary

The Barron’s 501 Verbs series offers a learner-oriented compendium of – you guessed it – 501 useful, practical verbs. Each and every verb is fully conjugated in the target language (that is, all possible forms are given). The Japanese version delivers here.

The book’s content is expected and acceptable, although it’s almost entirely written in transliteration. Students have to rely on Romanized characters rather than reading real Japanese. Akiyama’s revision of the text at least put it into the standard Hepburn system, whereas previous editions made learners wade through non-standard transliteration. Additionally, kanji/kana are now given for the root verb and in sample sentences for certain major “essential 55″ verbs. Still, that is hardly enough to win over students yearning to reference the real written language.

A somewhat helpful introduction explains differences in formality and speech levels, how the grammar of verb forms works, and even a bit of pronunciation and intonation. Throughout the text, further explanations come in the form of “essential 55 verb” notes, given for 55 tricky or useful Japanese verbs.

Unlike some 501 Verbs books, this volume does not give usage examples for each verb, although its entries are complete enough to indicate formal, honorific and humble forms.

It’s by and large a regular affair to learn Japanese verb forms, since verb stem + ending combinations are highly predictable. This fact makes much of the information redundant. Perceptive students could get the same information from a simple table of verb endings, like those introduced in the more attractive Barron’s Grammar (or Verbs) series, also reviewed here.

501 Japanese Verbs is not a useless reference, to be sure, but this guide will only serve a select group of learners, in my opinion. With hardly any explanations and very little actual written Japanese, I get by just as well without it.