Love, Hate and Everything in Between: Expressing Emotions in Japanese

Rating:
Summary: To the bride, the Sister-in-Law is a thousand demons
Review: Some people say that Japanese is not a very expressive language, with such subtle nuances and high context that blunt emotional vocabulary just doesn't exist. "Love, Hate and Everything In-between" will give you the necessary vocabulary to tell those people how wrong they are, and where they can stick it.

Basically a dictionary of emotional vocabulary, this small book is organized into two large sections, "From Uncertainty to Love" and "From Uncertainty to Hate." In these two are smaller sub-categories, such as Flattery, Sympathy, Tough Love, Love to Excess, Higher Love from Buddha, Frosty Silence, Arrogance and Pride, Finding Fault, Getting Mad, Revenge, Betrayal and too many others to name. Each sub-category has several vocabulary words and phrases, as well as common usage for each entry. Like any Japanese study book worth getting, both romaji and kana are used for each entry.

Anyone looking for a guide to picking up Japanese guys/girls might be disappointed with "Love, Hate and Everything In-between." This is a serious study aid for those looking to expand their fluency in Japanese, focusing on a specific, useful and fun aspect of the language. I have found it particularly of aid in reading Japanese manga, where relationships, both love and hate, form a major part of most storylines.

The only drawback to this book is that it is pretty much a straight dictionary, without any exercises such as are found in the "Handbook of Japanese Verbs." It probably isn't something that you will read straight through, but rather pick an emotion and expand your ability to express emotions in Japanese.


Rating:
Summary: This is a useful book
Review: This book isn't like a lot of books which fall under the category of picking up Japanese women. This book is about the words you use to talk about a relationship. Most other books just teach you some phrases, but this book teaches you a little bit more. It teaches you phrases based on different situations and feelings. You won't find anything in here about asking a girl for her phone number, but you will find good examples showing you how to express yourself in Japanese. The hate part of the book is probably more useful than the love part of the book. If a girl gets mad at you, you need to know what she is saying.

This book does contain a lot of roma-ji, but it also contains a lot of hard Kanji. Usually I'd take off a star, because I really hate roma-ji, but this book deserves 5 stars.