A review by ashleylm
Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You by Jay Rubin
4.0
What a treat! Almost 5 stars, if only I wasn't lost for most of it. I don't know how to speak Japanese, and am a rank beginner in terms of learning to read it, so some of the trickier bits sailed past me--but it was astonishing how much I grasped, and how enjoyable it was to read about the intricacies of this language from an opinionated, humorous, knowledgeable author.
I even ran around quoting bits of it to uninterested friends, colleagues, and family, that's how much I liked it. It reads like a series of blog posts of varying lengths on several subjects, and you're sure to find a few of them to your taste, if not all.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!
I even ran around quoting bits of it to uninterested friends, colleagues, and family, that's how much I liked it. It reads like a series of blog posts of varying lengths on several subjects, and you're sure to find a few of them to your taste, if not all.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!