本： 誰よりも君が好き

Difficulty Level: 1
Full Title: 誰よりも君が好き　日本語力を磨く二義文クイズ
Author: 山内博之　
Publisher: アルク (2008)
Pages:  178
Preview: google books

Deepen your Japanese grammar understanding through ambiguous sentences!!

Well, the last of my birthday books finally came!! I got a couple JLPT grammar books, plus this. So far, i haven't touched the JLPT books, but this one is really quite fun :)

Each page contains an ambiguous sentence in Japanese. You think about it, and see if you can work it out, then the explanation is on the next page. Simple, fun, and a great way to test and strengthen your Japanese grammar knowledge!!

The explanations are short, clear and easy to understand, and the book was written with learners in mind, so the vocabulary used is full of common words. That's why i've marked it as level 1. The whole book is in Japanese, with no english translation though, so you do need to be able to read a bit.

Overall, i think people just moving into intermediate stage, or generally intermediate level would get the most from this book, but i'm still learning things from it. One thing i really like is that at the end of the explanations, it explains how a slightly different sentence can only be read in one way and not the other. It also tells you which way of understanding the sentence is more common (sometimes i've thought of the other meaning first, so this is actually quite useful!) And, of course, working out the ambiguty is fun... it really makes you think about the grammar of the sentence.

The level of difficulty of the ambiguity varies too, with some being really easy to spot and others taking longer. So again, even though it's an easy read, and i've ranked it 1, that doesn't mean the ambiguities will all be too easy for you if you're more advanced. The only real criticism i have is that the "difficulty level" given in the book seems fairly arbitrary. Well, i can't work out whether one cat face is supposed to be the hardest or easiest hahah. Maybe it's more dependant on where your grammatical strengths and weaknesses lie...

Anyway, definately a good read for anyone who wants a break from grammar textbooks, but still learn some grammar.

p.s. can you spot the ambiguities in the title of this book? There are 3 different meanings of that sentence. If you can't already spot them all, this book is probably for you. :)