This book is going to allow me to pass the level 2 Japanese test. Buy this book for reference or study it as a textbook. Ive studied it the last 4 months and its made such a difference.
Good examples and simple explanations for all the little things. Perfect for intermediate students trying to be advanced.

First of all, you need both this book and the beginner's guide (Also available). The index in the back of this volume references both books and occasionally you will look up a grammar phrase and find it's in the blue beginner's volume.

Expensive, but a necessary reference. My main gripe is that it's sometimes not obvious how to look up a phrase and i spend a lot of time digging through index. A little standardization would help (Ex: yarou to suru... would you look this up under "you to suru", or "to suru", or "suru"?)

The appendices offer good usage info on topics as compound verbs and counters. I use it as an English counterpart to some of the japanese profieciency exam grammar reviews that are available in Japan in Japanese.

This is a great book as the Basic japanese grammar. it's well organized like an encyclopedia. having this book and the one before will cover most often used japanese grammars. one of the best grammar out there. very concise and useful for those who are serious about being fluent in japanese. no other book have i come across that is as easy to use and understand as this book. this book is like the bible of japanese grammar. Also get the Basic japanese grammar. it will give you a very strong foundation which is a must for those who love the japanese language.

It goes without saying that Japanese is among the most intricate and diffucult languages to learn and master. Nakama 1 however seems to make the language much more manageable. The textbook is wonderfully clear and descriptive. Kanji are presented well with stroke orders, meanings, and their use is illustrated within conversational passages. There is a wealth of vocabulary and the presentaiton of the grammatical points, numerous as they are, is amazingly clear. This textbook is great for a course and for one learning on their own. I initially had reservations about the book simply because the Japanese langauge course I'm taking covered 2 chapters of this book every week. Point being that there is ALOT of manageable material in each of the 12 chapters. Combine this book with the workbook and the tape and you'll come out of it having very strong inroads into the Japanese language. All in all, a great book.

Nakama 1 is designed to present the fundamentals of the Japanese language. It consists of 12 well organized chapters designed to give students of the Japanese language a solid start to learning proper Japanese.

Chapter 1 starts off with a brief yet to the point introduction to Hiragana. Hiragana characters are then covered in detail. Specially created manga (cartoons), vocabulary words, and listening sections (provided in a cassette should you happen to buy it) make it easy for the student to learn and master this basic set of characters (Hiragana). By the end of Chapter 1, the student should be able to easily write and read Hiragana. By the end of Chapter 2, the student would most likely have mastered Hiragana.

Chapter 3 covers Katakana in detail - basically the same way Hiragana is covered in Chapter 1.

Kanji is introduced gradually in the second half of the book with stroke orders followed by reading practice. Hiragana superscripts are provided for both, Kanji vocabulary throughout the book and Katakana vocabulary in the first few chapters of the book to help the student with character pronunciation.

There are many features designed to help the student make the most of Nakama 1. Ohh, I should also mention that there is a very useful Japanese-English and English-Japanese Glossary at the end of the book that contains a fair amount of vocabulary.

I am very satisfied with Nakama 1's performance and I'm looking forward to getting started with Nakama 2. Nakama 1 is indeed a great starting point to learning Japanese.

I wish all of those who are determined to learning Japanese much success in their journey.

This book is one of the best language tools I have found to learn Japanese, but the word basic in misleading. Intermediate is more appropriate. By giving examples of usage, it explains constructions that tend to be "blurry" for English speakers. Also a useful reference manual

i've been studying japanese for some 8 yrs. this is the best book out there that i've seen on basic grammar. it helps you understand japanese much more faster then the explanations that you get out of your textbooks. if your serious about japanese, then you have to get a copy. often times you are taught grammar by grammar through memorization in class but with this you get an overall picture of the japanese language which makes it more easier to learn. A must have. i didn't understand much of japanese until i learned enough grammars to get a big picture of the japanese language. then everything fell in place. it gets easier to learn and understand.now only if there is a faster way to learn kanji other then writing them out over and over. the same goes with vocabularies.

This book is a great reference. It contains a grammar index at the back allowing you to look up what you want to say in English. For example, need to know how to express "While something happened, something else happened?" No problem - look up "while" in the index, which guides you to "aida," "nagara," and "uchi." Each entry explains in detail how to construct an appropriate sentence, with plenty of examples. There are also notes that tell you the differences between similar expressions (e.g., "aida" and "nagara" are interchangeable under certain conditions, "uchi ni" is more appropriate under these conditions, etc.). It is on the expensive side, but is well worth it, especially considering it is a hefty 600+ pages containing around 200 grammar entries in small font. I use this book every day when writing Japanese, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for the ultimate Japanese grammar reference - an awesome book!

I think this is the only dictionary of its type available....It is an excellent resourse regarding for using words in context. It contains both Roman and Japanese script types and adequate examples for each entry. That is the way a really good foreign language dictionary presents data. In addition there are word lists pertaining to specific fields such as medical words (but very basic) and science. One of my favorite features about the book is the word list in Japanese at the back that will help you if you need to look up a word in Japanese and find a meaning. However, I am far from being satisfied with it. For me it falls short for the following reasons: (1) When you buy a dictionary you want something that will give you the words you need when you need them. If you buy this thinking you have all you need, then you're going to be in for a disappointment. It just doesn't contain enough regularly used words. I have gone to this dictionary so many times to look something up just to find that is is not included. For example, the word "violence" is not included. That is not a lollapalooza of a word, is it? But it's not there. I know you have to be selective when writing a "basic" dictionary, but it means that you need another dictionary with you as well if you are a serious student of the language in any way. Secondly, and this is tied in with the first point, considering that it doesn't contain a lot of words, the price (especially if you buy it in Japan) is rather steep. I think it is a bit like a "toy" dictionary. If Kodansha were to go all the way and produce a comprehensive dictionary in this style, then you would really have something!!!

I can honestly say this book is for the beginner, considering the entries the book contains. I am especially pleased with the vast amount of examples used (They even give Japanese sentences for simple nouns). These are very good to help make out the components of a Japanese sentence (even learning new Kanji). It's a very attractive, yet thick book. A beginner would most appreciate the Kanji, romaji, and english translations. There are some interesting things in the back as well.

I bought this book at a used bookstore. First of all, the quality of the book itself was surprising. I have a small library of Japanese books, and this is just what I have been looking for. It can be used as a dictionary, of course, but it can also be studied from too. It is very to the point without the need to second guess the book. By having example sentences with proper usage for each word, it presents the actual usage of the language as a by-product of explaining the actual words. This is what makes this book so special to me. And as far as the first reviewer's comment about not even having the word violence, he MUST be missing a page. To quote:
violence n. the use of strong physical force, etc.
1. hageshi-sa (adj(i)) stem of hageshii vehement + suf. sa (ness)
extreme intensity of force or strength, either physical or emotional (vehemence, intensity, passion)
example sentence
2. bo[okoo - an action involving strong physical force intended to harm or injure (fig. rape), outrage, attack, assault)
bo[oryoku - strong physical force used to arbitrarily carry out one's intentions (brute force)
example sentence

I have never seen a book like this before. If you get any supplementary book to go with a good textbook, get this. I might also suggest Yookoso Revised Edition as that main textbook as well.

As with any text book, this one has it's ups and downs.

On the up side, this book introduces both phonetic alphabets, some kanji, vocabulary, and some basic grammer rules. It also attemps to attract the reader into thinking by using cartoons, sample sentences, and questions.

On the down side. It requires the teacher to work harder than nessesary to accomplish the task of teaching. Some parts of the book are down right confusing, even to a native Japanese teacher.