Grammar
Practical guides on speaking, grammar, pronunciation, listening, and study planning, written for learners who want to use Japanese in real life.
Grammar · Page 8
Japanese Yo Ne Particle: Checking What You Both Know, Versus Ne and Yo
Yo ne ends a sentence when you state something you believe and check that the listener knows or feels the same: yo puts your own view forward and ne asks for confirmation, so it means 'that's right, isn't it?'
12 min readDropping the Subject in Japanese: How Listeners Know Who Did It
Japanese sentences leave out the subject whenever the listener can recover it, and the listener recovers it from context, from verbs of giving and receiving, from honorific and humble forms, and from feeling words that belong to the speaker.
11 min readJibun Meaning and Uses: Japanese for Myself, Yourself and Oneself
Jibun means oneself: it points back to the subject of the sentence, so the same word translates as myself, yourself, himself or herself, and it combines with particles in phrases such as jibun de, by oneself, and jibun no, one's own.
12 min readJapanese Plural Suffixes: Tachi, Ra, Gata, Domo and Doubled Nouns
Japanese nouns have no required plural, so hon means book or books; the suffixes tachi, ra, gata and domo attach mainly to people and mean this person and the group with them, each at a different level of politeness.
12 min readJapanese Sa and Mi: Turning Adjectives into Nouns, with Examples
Japanese adjectives become nouns when the final i of an i-adjective, or the na of a na-adjective, is replaced by sa for a degree you could measure, as in takasa, height, or by mi for a quality you sense, as in amami.
12 min readJapanese Third Person Pronouns: Kare, Kanojo and What People Really Say
Japanese has the third-person pronouns kare (he) and kanojo (she), but speakers mostly refer to people by name, by title or as ano hito, because kare and kanojo can sound distant and also mean boyfriend and girlfriend.
13 min readJapanese Adjectives to Adverbs: Ku for I-Adjectives, Ni for Na-Adjectives
To make an adverb from a Japanese adjective, change the final i of an i-adjective to ku, as in hayai to hayaku, and add ni to a na-adjective, as in shizuka ni; ii is irregular and becomes yoku.
11 min readJapanese Amari Nai: Not Very, Not Much, Not Often and Amari ni mo
Amari with a negative means not very, not much or not often, as in amari tabemasen, I don't eat much; in a positive sentence amari ni mo means so much that, and after a number amari means a little over.
11 min readJapanese Chū and Jū Suffixes: During, Within and Throughout
The same kanji suffix is read chū when you are at a point inside an activity or period, as in shigoto-chū and konshū-chū ni, and jū when something fills the whole of a period or place, as in ichinichi-jū and sekai-jū.
12 min readJapanese Ku Naru and Ni Naru: How to Say Become, Get and Turn
To say that something becomes or gets a certain way, put naru after the new state: an i-adjective changes i to ku, as in samuku naru, and a na-adjective or noun takes ni, as in shizuka ni naru and isha ni naru.
11 min readJapanese Te Hoshii: How to Say You Want Someone to Do Something
Te hoshii, the te form of a verb plus hoshii, means you want someone else to do something: the person takes ni, as in tomodachi ni kite hoshii, and toward superiors you replace it with te itadakemasen ka.
12 min readJapanese Da and Datta: Where the Plain Copula Appears and Vanishes
Da is the plain form of desu after nouns and na-adjectives, and datta is its past, but da is not simply casual desu: it never follows i-adjectives, disappears before ka, becomes na before no, and often drops in speech.
12 min readPractical guides
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