Grammar
Practical guides on speaking, grammar, pronunciation, listening, and study planning, written for learners who want to use Japanese in real life.
Grammar · Page 17
Japanese Adverbs: How to Make Them and Which to Learn
Adverbs are what turn a correct Japanese sentence into a sentence that sounds like a person speaking. They tell your listener how often, how much, how fast, and how well.
13 min readSou, You, Mitai, Rashii: Four Ways to Say It Seems
Japanese does not have one word for it seems. It has four, and the choice tells your listener whether you saw it, worked it out, heard it, or are describing what is typical.
13 min readKara, Node, and Tame: Giving Reasons in Japanese
Japanese has several ways to say because, and choosing the wrong one makes a polite excuse sound like an argument. This guide shows when a speaker reaches for kara, when node is safer, and where tame belongs.
14 min readKedo, Ga, Demo, Noni: How to Say But in Japanese
The Japanese words for but do two very different jobs. One is contrast. The other is a soft opening before a request, and it is the reason sumimasen ga and onegai ga aru n desu kedo appear in almost every polite conversation.
13 min readTe-Shimau, Te-Oku, Te-Miru: Japanese Auxiliary Verbs
Once your te-form is reliable, a small set of helper verbs attaches to it and carries most of the shading a Japanese speaker adds to a plain action.
13 min readTo Iu and Quoting in Japanese: Saying What Someone Said
Half of ordinary conversation is repeating what somebody else said or thought. Japanese does that with one small particle and a strict rule about the form that comes before it.
14 min readKoto ga Aru: Talking About Your Experiences in Japanese
Koto turns a whole verb phrase into a thing you can talk about. Four short patterns built on it let you say what you have done, what sometimes happens, what you can do, and what you have decided.
13 min readNagara and Tari: Doing Two Things in Japanese
Nagara joins two things you do at the same moment. Tari picks a few examples out of many. Between them they carry most of what a beginner wants to say about a busy day.
13 min readJapanese Commands and Prohibitions: The Full Register Scale
Japanese has a command form, and almost nobody uses it on you in ordinary conversation. Learn where each level of the scale genuinely lives so you can understand a shouted order without ever producing one by accident.
14 min readHazu, Wake, and Beki: Expectation and Logic in Japanese
These three endings all get translated as should, and they mean three completely different things. Sort them once and you gain the vocabulary of expectation, explanation and principle in Japanese.
17 min readTe-Kuru and Te-Iku: Movement, Change, and Time in Japanese
Kuru and iku attached to a te-form do two very different jobs. One is about direction in space, the other about direction in time, and both decide how natural a simple sentence sounds.
17 min readYou ni, You ni Naru, and You ni Suru Explained
Yō ni is one short phrase doing four different jobs, which is why it feels slippery long after you have met it. Sort the jobs once and you gain the most useful sentence a learner owns: the one that says what you can finally do.
13 min readPractical guides
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