Reddit mentions of A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar

What's your level at? I recommend the Dictionary of [Beginner | Intermediate | Advanced] Japanese Grammar, which my program uses as a supplement for material taught in class. It was originally written back in 1995, but it is packed with explanations and examples for a wide variety of grammar structures.

I took 3 years of Japanese in high school (I went to a 3-year high school), and although we learned vocabulary and our teacher (a 72 year-old Japanese man) told us a lot of great stories about Japan, when I got to college and started learning real Japanese, I found that I'd learned essentially nothing in high school. I had a fantastic teacher in college who was great at explaining the nuances of the language in a way easy for English speakers to understand. The most important thing to remember when learning Japanese is that it is not like English at all. Most early learners (even those with several years of experience) will try to translate from English literally into Japanese. This will almost never work. Even for fairly simple constructions like 私の名前は"name"です, you will learn that this is not the best way to say such things in Japanese.

But even with a great teacher in college, you still need a lot of personal time working on the language if you hope to achieve more than textbook understanding. I didn't discover r/LearnJapanese until after college, but this would've been a prime resource to have. Also, in case your professor hasn't made you do so already, there's a few books you should pick up to help your learning.

Makino's three book series on Japanese grammar is exceptionally helpful for understanding constructions in Japanese (like your ～ほうがいい and ～んです). A good Japanese/English reference dictionary, like Sanseido is also very helpful, but should not be your primary resource for learning the language. These books are good when you can't think of a single word (especially from the English-to-Japanese side). Also, when you get proficient enough in the language, a Kokugo Jiten (a dictionary written in Japanese, with definitions for Japanese speakers) will become your best tool. There are some companies which make good ones, like the aforementioned Sanseido, as well as the version I use, published by Shinmeikai, but I can't find one readily available online for purchase right now.

尾 is short for 語尾 which means something "end (tail) of a word", so in this case it works as something like a "compound verb", altering the meaning of the preceding verb.
The Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar has a good, albeit very incomplete, write-up on the most common compound verbs in its Appendix 2, so if you own this book you may want to look into it.

> The Vmasu to which another verb is affixed acquires additional meaning such as 'to start to do s.t.', 'to finish doing s.t.' 'to continue to do s.t.' etc.

It uses 'affixed' because you might also come across a 頭 which means the modifying word comes in front of other words.

Unfortunately I can't really name other sources, my teacher wrote her master thesis on compound verbs but it's only available in German.

As for the reverse triangle, I'm not sure, but I think SDream has nailed it, at least in your case these should be examples.

As for the ~watasu you looked up, as a 語尾 it means doing something.. thoroughly? I'm not really sure, but I think if you 見渡す a document you look over the whole thing, etc.

http://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/

Japanese has nothing to do with German, though maybe how in German you can string together nouns to make bigger nouns is somewhat how complex nouns are created from simpler components.

Here's a simple Japanese sentence:

これはペンです。
kore-wa PEN desu.

'kore' means "this". 'sore' means "that (near you)" and 'are' means "that (over there)". So you can see how systematic Japanese tends to be.

The は (pronounced 'wa' due to historical reasons) is the sentence topic marker. Japanese has many grammatical markers (for direct objects, indirect objects, and prepositions) and that's what makes the language a LOT easier to learn (and read) than any other. Again, systematic.

PEN is the loanword 'pen', spelled in the katakana script ('ペン'). The great thing about Japanese is that if you don't know a word, you can try the simplified English word and your listener might understand.

Japanese does have a couple of loan words from German, the foremost being http://www.japanese123.com/arubaito.htm

です ('dess', the Japanese tend to drop the trailing 'u' sound on these words) is the copula of assertion.

This-topic pen is.

To say this is not a pen:

これはペンではありません。

ではありません ('de-wa arimasen') is the formal negation of です。

ありません is the negative present inflection of ある (aru), to be. Verbs are very, very regular in Japan and if you peruse a language site you'll see how they are inflected.

>Do you have any books to recommend too maybe?

Books are kinda expensive but I like:

http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Basic-Japanese-Grammar/dp/4789004546

http://www.amazon.com/A-Dictionary-Intermediate-Japanese-Grammar/dp/B001PS7NL0

as grammar references.

In addition to university-level classes (where I started learning Japanese), I found that the Japan Times Dictionaries of (Basic / Intermediate / Advanced) Japanese Grammar were invaluable resources to get the core aspects of the language all up in my brain-meats.

Basic

Intermediate

Advanced

I can't comment with any degree of certainty about online learning opportunities, but I do know that Skype chats with native Japanese speakers are popular, as well as any number of browser and smartphone-based kanji flashcards that will help with listening / speaking / writing.

I highly recommend getting a Bachelor's Degree in anything (possibly with some study abroad in Japan), then applying for something like the JET Programme, which will give you more of an immersive opportunity to live and work in Japan. Japanese is one of those annoyingly alien languages to the English-language brain where the best study results will come from full immersion--and even then, it's faaaaar from easy. I've been studying the language for 20 years and fluency always seems out of reach. But you might brain better than I do, so don't let that discourage you!

This is an excellent series. I linked to the intermediate book, but there are beginner and advanced versions as well.

A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar

Websites:

• WordReference Japanese language forum
  
  
• Jeffrey's Japanese English Dictionary Server
  
  
• ALC J<->E word / sentence dictionary
  
  Books:
  
  
• Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar
  
  
• Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar
  
  
• Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar
  
  
• Nihongo So-Matome Series (Good as a JLPT Study guide)