Love, Hate and Everything in Between: Expressing Emotions in Japanese(1997)

Jay Rubin

A desire to communicate heart-to-heart with people from another culture is what attracts many people to language study in the first place. But it can take a long time to make friends and feel socially comfortable in a Japanese-speaking context, and there are few textbooks that can help. This volume does just that, by collecting and discussing more than 400 phrases that are useful when talking about personal experience and nuances of feeling.

With this book you can learn to say that you like someone, love someone, respect someone, have a thing for someone, have a crush on someone, still carry a torch for someone, have no feelings either way for someone, or wouldn't give someone the time of day. You can tease a friend about their new relationship, talk about children or parents, vent anger or express sympathy. You can learn many different ways to thank a person or to respond to a compliment, and the specific attitude that each conveys.

All entries are defined and then amplified with two or three sample sentences. The naturalness of the sentences keeps the reading interesting, and makes it easier to gain not only passive understanding but the confidence to start using these phrases right away in conversation.

Impress your boss, charm your neighbor, apologize to a co-worker. This handy guide will be welcomed by anyone hoping to make Japanese friends and influence Japanese people.

Previous published in the Power Japanese series under the same title.