A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar 日本語基本文法辞典

An indispensable reference for Japanese language learners.

This book does not replace textbooks, but instead acts as a reference for grammar points when reading or writing. So you can't skip the textbook and go straight to this — you'll still want to go through some kind of introductory course, whether that's Genki or Tae Kim or Japanese: the Manga Way or whatever.

You may wonder if it's really necessary to get these grammar dictionaries when you can Google grammar points as easily as you Google vocab. In my opinion, the books are still worth the money because the explanations are longer, clearer, and more reliable than random websites on the internet, and because these books provide a ton of high quality example sentences.

You don't have to read it cover to cover, since it's intended to be used like a dictionary — you look up specific grammar points on an as-needed basis. However, I did read it cover to cover, after I had already started reading native material, and am glad I did because it was a really good reinforcement of what I had already learned.

You can actually read this book for free (legally!) online as a PDF at archive.org, so if you're still not sure you can check it out there: https://archive.org/details/ADOBJG