Chapters are organised by communicative function. Each presents several Japanese sentence patterns side-by-side with English equivalents (in the form of simple example sentences). The English equivalents are meant to give the English-speaking learner a clear idea of how the Japanese sentence pattern is actually used. Following each Japanese pattern and English equivalent is an explanation of the Japanese grammar, which gives the reader the necessary information to generate sentences using the pattern introduced. Example sentences in English and Japanese follow. There is also a practice section for each pattern, which allows the reader to test his understanding. *142 sentence patterns: most are very basic, but some are intermediate-level.