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Expressive Japanese: A Reference Guide for Sharing Emotion and Empathy

Average customer rating:

An excellent supplementary source for intermediate learning

Expressive Japanese: A Reference Guide for Sharing Emotion and Empathy
Senko K. Maynard
Manufacturer: University of Hawaii Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0824828895

Book Description

Feelings play an enormous part in our lives, but their expression is often neglected in foreign language education. How do I communicate happiness, surprise, or anger? How do others communicate these emotions to me? Such questions become increasingly relevant as we become more competent in the language we are learning. Expressive Japanese is the first detailed guide to emotion words and expressive strategies for students of the language. Words connoting feelings, such as "kanashii" (sad), are important in everyday Japanese conversation, but communicating emotions effectively also requires the use of expressive strategies, such as "Nani?" (What the heck?), "Yattaa!" (I did it!), or "Hottoite!" (Leave me alone!").

Introductory chapters examine the characteristics, constraints, and history of expressive Japanese and discuss linguistic variations and styles and how these play a part in conveying emotion and empathy. There follow more than seventy entries that draw on hundreds of authentic examples taken from a variety of sources, including television dramas, comics, interviews, novels, essays, newspaper articles, and web sites. In these examples, students will find playful and creative uses of expressions that do not usually appear in language textbooks. English cues and key Japanese expressions are indexed at the back of the volume, making this a handy reference for anyone who possesses a grasp of the fundamentals of elementary Japanese.

Based on extensive research by a prominent linguist and teacher, Expressive Japanese brings learners into the world of real human interaction and effectively illustrates how native speakers use language to convey identity and a sense of self as well as to communicate feelings and emotion.

Customer Reviews:

An excellent supplementary source for intermediate learning.......2005-07-24

This book is not for beginners whatsoever. It states in the preface that the reader should have Level 3 knowledge in terms of the JLPTs (Japanese Language Proficiency Tests), and I agree. If you plan on using this book, you need to have a good grasp of the Japanese language, which means a year of more of college level classes, or several years of independent study. I have taken 4 years of high school Japanese, and I still had some trouble with a few examples.

That being said, this is what I was looking for in a language book: authoritative information. If you search Amazon, you'll find dozens of basic Japanese books that all teach the same basic information. Numbers, objects, days of the week, changing verbs to past tense and informal forms... after a point, it's like hitting a wall with learning new things, you still don't have a solid understanding of the subtle differences of the language.

Expressive Japanese is long overdue. It teaches you to understand what a person is feeling when she says something, and shows examples of other variations conveying the same emotion. Hundreds of examples written in normal text (with kana and kanji), romaji versions, and English equivalents. It also has a system in which the text explains the context of these conversations (most of them taken from actual sources, like tv and books).

It's a big book with no waste of space, but it has no repeating or filler. It contains substantial illustrations of the nuances of specific expressions and leaves the readers with the task of knowing or looking up in a dictionary most of the other words.

It is not a textbook; it doesn't have lessons. Essentially, this is best used as a supplement to whatever method you are already using to learn Japanese. I have no doubt this book will be used as part of upper level courses in college classes, but it is not so pedantic that you need an instructor to explain the text. It is fully capable of holding its own weight, and is extremely helpful in advancing your understanding of speech, especially if you feel you can understand most manga and anime, but need a little help in catching the undertones of the characters.

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