文法

は WA
subject
を O
object
へ E
indicates direction
turns sentence into question
indicates location (英語 "at") (Claypoole, p. 55)
英語 "at", "to" (Claypoole, p. 20, 224, 228, 236)
possession (英語 "'s").
subject or object (Claypoole, p. 12)
あれ
object far away (Claypoole, p. 12)
がある
to have a quality. e.g. 難 = problem; 難がある = to be a problem.
する
to do, make. e.g. 駐車 = parking; 駐車する = to park.
-する
plain (Sato, p. 14)
-いたします, -します
plain, polite (Sato, p. 14)
-しません
negative, polite (Sato, p. 15)
-した
past tense (Sato, p. 15)
-して・いる
progressive (Sato, p. 16)
-して・います
progressive, polite (Sato, p. 16)
-して・いません
progressive, negative, polite (Sato p. 16)
-して・ください
request (Sato, p. 17)

Sources

Beginner's Japanese, Joanne R. Claypoole, edited by Emiko Hara, 1994. This book seems to cover the bases pretty well, although I find it a bit hard to use (for example, index entries don't always point to the most useful page). Like most books in English it has too much ローマ字. It has some, but not enough, カタカナ and ひらがな, and no 漢字.

The Magical Power of Suru, Nobuo Sato, 1995. This is a clever, although somewhat special purpose, book which covers the many uses and conjugations of する. It has too much ローマ字 but also includes カタカナ, ひらがな, and 漢字 enough to avoid driving me totally crazy.

EDICT from Jim Breen.


Jim Kingdon, 日本語, 各種資料.

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Jim KINGDON: 日本語 English.