Today I was walking home from the gym in Sapporo (which is where I'm at right now), and while I was walking I was listening to Spanish lessons from SpanishPod101. (No, I have no idea why I'm studying Spanish.)

Anyways, it was one of their really old lessons, from way back in 2008. And, listening to it, I realized how much better their lessons have gotten over the years, because they were explaining a whole bunch of grammar conjugations (like every Spanish class in my life), and it was so boring.

I noticed that every time they talked about grammar this or grammar that, my brain just sort of tuned it out and started thinking about how there's a lot of snow in Sapporo, or how I'd really love a coffee.

Maybe some of you guys out there get grammar pains, too. I feel you, man. Grammar can be so boring. Luckily, though, if you approach it through a well-structured, interesting resource, then it's not so bad. So let's talk about our options.

All you've got to do for grammar in Phase #1 is pick out which grammar study tool you're going to use in Phase #3.

So this will only take a few minutes to complete. Yeah!

Now, there are a ton of great grammar resources for Japanese. After all, grammar is straightforward. Yeah, sometimes it's a little bit backwards for what we English speakers are used to, but it's at least clear cut. And it's well-suited for books.

My preferred approach is to pick out a course for my grammar studies before beginning. This is mainly because so many Japanese grammar book series have only one volume. In other words, they always end before you can progress to an advanced level.

Good, advanced Japanese grammar books are hard to come by. I'm guessing it must be because so many of us foreigners start learning Japanese, but we rarely progress to anything vaguely resembling an advanced skill level… without studying in Japan or majoring in Japanese at a 4-year university. And even that fails sometimes.

My experience leads me to believe the array of grammar resources is something like this:

It probably won't get too advanced, but we want a grammar series with at least two volumes. The options aren't that extensive, but here are a few I've come across…