A review by shenia
Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You by Jay Rubin

5.0

A very good collection of japanese grammar concepts that are often hard to grasp for foreigners. I found myself thrilled to finally understand the difference between wa and ga (and avoiding the subject all together) after years of thinking it was something one could only get through intuition and practice. I even quoted it to my partner (who doesn’t study japanese)! The writing was insightful, funny and interesting to read, with an appropiate difficulty for my personal japanese level (somewhere between N3 and N2, for reference).

Some people say that the explanations were too long, and that might be true if you expect to read a grammar textbook. This was more similar to going to a lecture where a professor with lots of experience speaks to you about the technical aspects, the mindset and the overall approach towards learning and enjoying a new language.