Are the Shin Kanzen Master Grammar books worth getting? I may be mistaken or misremembering things, but I can recall hearing or reading somewhere many years ago, that if you’re about to get one you should not bother with N5 – N4 ones and start with N3 no matter your level as the previous level’s grammar points are still included. I actually have a .pdf file with old, “regular” Kanzen Master Bunpou kyu 3 and it seems to confirm this – it starts with ます and immediately jumps to more advanced stuff.
Is that true then? Also, does that apply to N2 – N1 books as well? What would be the best one to get if one would like to have a concise list of as many all level’s grammar points as possible?
I have been interested exclusively in Bunpou material – I simply assumed that I am going to absorb the rest, kanji, vocab etc. while going through the textbooks and consuming media. During a quick research yesterday I found two reviews of the series and the consensus was similar, except one of them explicitly mentioned Reading comprehension as equally essential. Other sources cited the grammar explanations as “dry”, short and more suited towards revision and study. That is exactly what I’m after however. Very often I do know, what the construction is supposed to be used for or its general format, but I struggle to recall, whether it’d been using long or short forms etc. I wanted to have something in the printed form I could always easily take out, in order to quickly brush up on the knowledge.
So, what are your thoughts on the matter? For someone who might potentially take N2 some day but most likely will not bother with N1, what are the recommended books to get? N3 – N1 Grammar and N3 Reading Comprehension, N3 – N2 Grammar and N3 Reading Comprehension, just N3 variants of both or something entirely different? Maybe it would be more beneficial to get some kind of Grammar Dictionary instead?