The writing desk: tools and books for Japanese writing

Most of what goes wrong in a Japanese draft gets caught by a person who stops and looks something up. The things on this page are the ones that make the looking up quicker. None of them writes the text for you, and a rule-based tool like the checker on the front page can only point at patterns. What helps is having the right book within reach at the moment a doubt appears: is it 〜わけではない or 〜わけにはいかない here, does this verb take one kana or two after the kanji, has a 。 slipped to the top of a column on the manuscript sheet.

So the list is short on purpose. A grammar dictionary comes first, because grammar doubts are the ones a word search cannot settle. Then a kanji course book, because most kanji slips come from half-learned shapes and readings. A first textbook if you are still building the basics. Manuscript paper, for handwriting and for a feel of how long 400 characters really is. And a keyboard with Japanese legends, if you type in kana.

Grammar references

If you only add one book to your desk, make it a grammar dictionary. A textbook teaches grammar in the order a course needs; a grammar dictionary lets you go straight to the item that is bothering you and read everything about it in one place.

A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar by Makino and Tsutsui, published by The Japan Times, is the standard English-language choice. Entries are listed alphabetically by their romanized form, so you look up ba, dake or kara the way you would look up a word. Each entry gives a short definition, key example sentences, a formation section that shows what the item attaches to (a verb's plain form, a noun plus だ, and so on), further examples and notes that compare it with items that look similar. That last part is what makes it useful for checking: when a learner writes から where ので would sound better, the note on the difference is right there.

It suits learners from their first year onward, and it suits anyone who checks other people's Japanese and needs to explain a correction in English rather than just make it.

A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar by the same authors follows the same layout for the next layer: longer compound patterns and the more formal connectives you meet in articles, reports and business writing. If the basic volume starts to feel thin for the texts you read, this is the natural next step. It makes sense to keep both side by side, since the intermediate entries often assume you know the basic ones.

There are also pattern dictionaries written in Japanese for teachers and learners. They are worth a look once you are comfortable reading explanations in Japanese, because they use the vocabulary Japanese editors use when they discuss a sentence.

More on using these while you proofread: Japanese grammar dictionaries worth keeping on the desk.

Kanji course books

A kanji course book is different from a kanji dictionary. A dictionary is for looking things up; a course book is for learning the characters in a planned order, so that the shapes and parts build on each other. For a writer, that pays off as fewer wrong components and fewer homophone slips.

Remembering the Kanji 1 by James W. Heisig (University of Hawaii Press) is the best known method book. Each character gets a single English keyword, and you learn to write it from that keyword by building a small story out of its parts. Readings are left to a later volume. It suits adults who want to be able to write a large number of kanji from memory fairly quickly and who do not mind treating readings and vocabulary as a separate job. The keywords are memory hooks, not translations, so you will still need a dictionary for real meanings.

The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course by Andrew Scott Conning takes the other road. It covers the Jōyō kanji in an order designed so that components appear before the characters that use them, and each entry brings meaning, readings, a memory aid and example words together. It suits learners who want to meet readings and vocabulary at the same time as the shape, and it doubles as a reference you can search when a character in a draft looks wrong.

Neither is better for everyone. If writing from memory is your weak spot, the first will feel natural. If reading is, the second probably will.

A first textbook

If you are still building the basics, a proofreading book will not help much yet. A good integrated course will.

GENKI I: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese, from The Japan Times, is widely used in university classes and by people studying alone. Each lesson pairs dialogue, vocabulary and grammar explanations in English with practice, and a separate reading and writing part brings in kanji step by step. The GENKI I Workbook gives matching exercises for each lesson, including listening. Self-learners tend to get the most from the pair, since the workbook is where you find out whether a pattern has stuck.

The course has been revised over the years, so make sure the textbook and workbook you buy belong to the same edition.

Paper

A genkō yōshi practice notebook is a pad of manuscript paper: a grid of squares, one character per square, usually 20 by 20 for 400 squares a sheet. It is still used for school essays and many handwritten tests, and it is the most honest way to learn the layout rules: where small kana sit, which square a 。 goes in, what happens when a closing bracket lands at the top of a column.

When you choose one, check the square size against your handwriting, whether the grid runs for vertical or horizontal writing (some pads do both), and whether the paper takes pencil and an eraser without tearing. A plain kanji practice notebook with large squares is a better fit if you only want to practise shapes.

The layout rules, and a way to practise with them: Genkō yōshi: how manuscript paper works.

Keyboard

If you type Japanese with romaji input, any keyboard works: the input method does the conversion, and the legends on the keys do not matter much. If you use kana input, where each key types a kana directly, a keyboard with the Japanese JIS layout makes life easier. It has kana printed on the keys, 変換 (henkan) and 無変換 (muhenkan) keys on either side of a shorter space bar, a 半角/全角 key for switching input, and a few symbol keys in different places from a US layout.

Two things to check. First, tell your operating system that the keyboard is a JIS keyboard, or the symbols you type will not match the keys. Second, if you share files with people who use US layouts, nothing changes in the text itself: the layout only affects typing, not the characters you produce. Setting up the input side is covered in typing Japanese: romaji vs kana input.

How we choose what goes on this page

We read the publishers' descriptions, look at how a book is organised and which edition is current, and think about who it suits: a first-year learner, someone writing reports at work, a translator who checks other people's Japanese. We do not run tests, and we do not give stars or scores. A book is on this page because it answers a question people often have at the desk, not because it is the only good one.

If you only get one thing, get the grammar dictionary that matches your level. Everything else can wait until you know where your own mistakes cluster.