I just searched Amazon Japan for books about kihon joseki. Aside from the general dictionaries, there were books aimed at beginners (shokyu), intermediates (chukyu), shodan, and 3 dan. I stopped there. AFAIK, there are kihon joseki for 5 dans. Obviously kihon joseki covers a wide range.

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It's easy to show that there can be a difference in English between 'basic' and 'fundamental'. For example, if we dismissively say of a book "it has a pretty basic plot", it would not make much sense to replace that with "it has a pretty fundamental plot", which would be more a statement of praise.

But stripped of emotion (such as dismissiveness/praise above), the terms are usually interchangeable. This is amusingly illustrated by kihon, which does only have the 'building on a foundation' sense. The Japanese for two well known English phrases "fundamental human rights" and "Basic English" uses kihon. Of course BE is an interesting case, as its founder was obliged to use a more 'basic' (i.e. easy) word to convey the sense of 'foundation'! (One of the main proponents of BE was Frank Daniels, a Prof. of Japanese here in London.)

There is, however, another contextual linguistics-based approach. I posit that a when person is presented with something that says simply either Basic Joseki or Fundamental Joseki (or variants such as 38 Basic Joseki), it raises a very strong expectation that he will be given what is essentially a list (something easy to grasp). Even if the writer believes he is presenting something he believes the reader can build on, from the title the reader will expects that to be presented in easy fashion.

If the writer wants to convey in a title that he is offering meat and two veg instead of an ice cream cone, he will instinctively turn to phrases such as "Fundamental joseki to get you to 1-dan", or "Basic joseki theory". Conversely, if he wants to stress that is offering the sugary option, he will to well to use phrases such as "100 basic josekis everyone has to know" or "The core josekis".

There is also the problem that using joseki as a plural can create a different expectation. 'Basic joseki' sounds more abstract and so leaves open the possibility you'll be getting a bit of theory. 'Basic josekis' tends to emphasise the lustiness.

If you're looking as a beginner, I found Baduktopia's Joseki Jeongseok Compass 1 a really nice start. It gives a review of past joseki to play out, a new basic joseki, errors and follow-ups and maybe a variation or older version that's still okay, some step by step exercises, then some openings with the joseki in it, two with errors to find, two professional openings. It covers 20 joseki. Will there ever be a second volume?*sigh*

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Hey Todd,

I just ordered this book which has been out of stock at YMI since May 2014 and just became available. Didn't see it on the YMI site but bought through amazon.

Sensei's net and this other site seem to indicate that there are 4 books, but maybe the last 3 haven't been translated?

http://www.schaakengo.nl/www_schaakengo ... al_ld.html