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<!doctype html>
<html lang="ja">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title>昨日 Sakubi: Yesterday's Grammar Guide</title>
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<body class=main>
<h1 style="text-align: center"><span lang="ja">昨日</span> Sakubi: Yesterday's Grammar Guide</h1>
<p style="text-align: center"><i>It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.</i></p>
<p style="text-align: center">Don't get stuck here. Always keep moving forward. Let's learn japanese.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img src="sakubi%20yesterday's%20grammar%20guide.png"/></p>
<p style="text-align: center">Dedicated to my cat, who died of cancer soon after I started learning japanese.</p>
<hr>
<section class=license>
<h2 style="display: none">License</h2>
<p>The text and logos in this document are released into the public domain under US law, to the detriment of the successors and heirs of all contributors, and to the benefit of society at large. <i>February-October 2017</i></p>
<p>Also under any version of the CC0 (Creative Commons Zero) license.</p>
<p>Knowledge isn't property.</p>
<p><i>Some examples in this guide are quotations from entertainment media, used under US fair use doctrine.</i></p>
</section>
<section>
<h2>Preface</h2>
<p>Copy and redistribute this guide at will. If there's an error in this guide, fix it. That's what freedom's all about.</p>
<p>If there's something important and basic that this guide does not cover, please complain about it on the daily japanese threads on 4chan's /jp/ board or /int/ board. However, Sakubi hasn't been actively maintained since late 2017. No major changes will be made to the version on this site. Someone else will need to adopt the guide on a different site for any more major changes to be made. If they do, I'll link to it.</p>
<p>If you want to force "Reader" modes to be enabled on certain browsers, go to <a href=index.html>the full URL of this page</a>. <b>Keep in mind that "Reader" modes can break formatting.</b></p>
<p><a href="#" onclick="document.body.style.fontSize='14px'">Press here to zoom in 100%</a></p>
<p><a href="#" onclick="document.body.style.fontSize='21px'">Press here to zoom in 150%</a></p>
<p><a href="#" onclick="document.body.style.fontSize='35px'">Press here to zoom in 250%</a></p>
<h5><a href="#toc">BRING ME TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS</a></h5>
</section>
<section>
<h2>What you need</h2>
<p>This guide assumes that you know the hiragana and katakana and that you're studying basic japanese vocabulary. The most efficient way to learn the kana (hiragana+katakana) is to drill it through brute force. You can use <a href="https://djtguide.neocities.org/kana/index.html">DJT Kana</a> for this. You can also learn by exposure. I did both.</p>
<p>This guide assumes that you know what writing systems japanese uses, and that you know what japanese text looks like, and what Kanji are.</p>
<p>This guide assumes that you're learning vocabulary outside this guide. I can't teach you enough words to be useful without getting in the way of the grammar.</p>
<p>If you need more guidance for things other than grammar, try the <a href="https://djtguide.neocities.org/guide.html">DJT Guide</a>.</p>
<p><b>Check this:</b> <span lang="zh"><span lang="ja">置</span></span> How does this character render? If it's missing the vertical line on the left side, your browser is using chinese fonts for japanese. You may need to install japanese fonts or change some system language settings.</p>
<div><img src="unihan%20test.png"/></div>
</section>
<section>
<h2>How to use this guide and Learn Japanese</h2>
<p>Basically, this guide is a primer. This guide takes a very specific stance: The only way to <i>acquire</i> language features and become fluent is to consume them in a real context. This guide doesn't try to drill you, and that's a good thing.</p>
<p>When you read this guide, don't try to memorize it. It won't work.</p>
<p>You shouldn't spend a week on each lesson. In fact, I think one new lesson a day is far too slow, even if you're also reviewing old lessons.</p>
<p>Every single main lesson in this guide covers basic grammar. You should read the entire thing as quickly as possible. It's important to get stuff in your head sooner rather than later. It gives it time to grow, subconsciously, and even if you didn't feel like you learned it the first time, it makes it easier to remember it for good next time. Just don't get stuck reviewing it forever.</p>
<p>After you get far enough in this guide, you should start trying to read.</p>
<p>Trying to read on a regular basis, even if you can't do it for more than five minutes, tells you <b>exactly</b> what your weak points are, and gives you a sense of progress. This guide exposes you to grammar to let you parse things, but you need to consume real japanese to turn that exposure into acquisition.</p>
<p>The most efficient way to learn vocabulary is to start picking up words from media you enjoy, then memorize them with flashcards. This is called mining. Anki is the recommended flashcard program because it uses Spaced Repetition, which shows you stuff less often the better you know it. You can use frequency lists or shared decks prepared by other people if you don't want to mine.</p>
<p>If you want to speak japanese, you <b>must</b> consume audible spoken japanese, otherwise you'll sound unnatural. It doesn't matter if it's anime or news or living in japan, you just have to consume it in the spoken unwritten form. This can come after you learn how to read, but you should passively expose yourself to it (with anything: VNs, music, anime, etc) as early as possible, otherwise it'll take a long time for your brain to pick up on nuanced sound differences, like how japanese people need to be trained before they can tell apart L and R.</p>
</section>
<section>
<h2>"Help!"</h2>
<p>All I can say is don't sweat it. Try to find a way to use this guide in a nice low stress way. Don't angst out about something being hard. Some things just take time.</p>
<p>If you still don't know what to do, or you came back here confused:</p>
<ul>
<li>Start learning the hiragana and katakana outside this guide.</li>
<li>Start studying vocabulary outside this guide.</li>
<li>Don't think that kanji are words, that makes everything confusing.</li>
<li>Remind yourself that japanese is not similar to english word-by-word.</li>
<li>A lot of concepts will not make sense in terms of literal english.</li>
<li>You can't acquire a language without consuming it.</li>
<li>Until you read enough, some things just won't click.</li>
<li>Always keep moving forward. That's what gives you the language.</li>
</ul>
<p>Do not memorize this guide. It won't work. It might even be bad for you.</p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G5IPArDxO40" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>Video link: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5IPArDxO40">The Biggest Mistake People Make in Language Learning; Steve Kaufmann - lingosteve</a></p>
<p>Still stuck? Give a look to <a href="http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar">Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese Grammar</a>, the original gangsta online, permissive, not-like-a-textbook japanese grammar guide. Reading explanations about the same thing in different places can make it easier to understand.</p>
</section>
<section id="toc">
<h2>Table of Contents</h2>
<p><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></p>
<h3><a href="#beginner">SECTION ONE: ABSOLUTE BEGINNER</a></h3>
<h4><a href="#part1">Part 1: Getting Started</a></h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="#being">Lesson 1: State of being with だ and です</a></li>
<li><a href="#noun">Lesson 2: Nouns, pronouns</a></li>
<li><a href="#case">Lesson 3: Particles and grammatical case</a></li>
<li><a href="#no">Lesson 4: の means の: possession and attributes; bonus: honorifics</a></li>
<li><a href="#moving">Lesson 5: Moving things with に, へ, and から</a></li>
<li><a href="#conjugations">Lesson 6: What is a verb? Nothing but a miserable pile of conjugations!</a></li>
<li><a href="#negation">Lesson 7: Negated verbs and using い-adjectives</a></li>
<li><a href="#theverbstrikesback">Lesson 8: The verb strikes back: the past tense</a></li>
<li><a href="#te">Lesson 9: The て particle, the て form, and the imperative</a></li>
<li><a href="#dewa">Lesson 10: Being more with で, では, and じゃ</a></li>
<li><a href="#relativity">Lesson 11: Getting detailed with relative clauses and な-adjectives</a></li>
<li><a href="#irregularity">Lesson 12: Irregular verbs and basic formality</a></li>
</ul>
<h4><a href="#part2">Part 2: Rest</a></h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="#questions">Lesson 13: Questions with か and の, featuring のだ</a></li>
<li><a href="#why">Lesson 14: Why, cruel world? なぜ なんで どうして</a></li>
<li><a href="#more">Lesson 15: Getting more with も and と</a></li>
<li><a href="#existing">Lesson 16: Existence with いる and ある, finding である and っす</a></li>
<li><a href="#enduring">Lesson 17: Enduring the pain of ている and てある</a></li>
<li><a href="#demonstrating">Lesson 18: Demonstrating: これ, それ, あれ, どれ, and friends</a></li>
</ul>
<h4><a href="#part3">Part 3: The Gauntlet</a></h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="#passive">Lesson 19: Passive られる・あれる and so-called "transitive pairs"</a></li>
<li><a href="#potential">Lesson 20: Potential れる・える and できる</a></li>
<li><a href="#wanting">Lesson 21: Wanting with おう/よう, たい, and ほしい</a></li>
<li><a href="#if">Lesson 22: One way of saying "if" with ば</a></li>
<li><a href="#endofordeals">Lesson 23: Verbs review</a></li>
</ul>
<h3><a href="#territory">SECTION TWO: ABSOLUTE TERRITORY</a></h3>
<p>At this point, you should begin reading, looking ahead to future lessons to see what the guide has to say about unfamiliar grammar. The remainder of this guide is half guidance, half reference.</p>
<h4><a href="#part4">Part 4: Communicating</a></h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="#quoting">Lesson 24: "Quoting" with って and と and という/っていう/つう taking note of だって</a></li>
<li><a href="#adverbs">Lesson 25: Adverbs with と-adverbs, に-adverbs, and い-adjectives even</a></li>
<li><a href="#enders">Lesson 26: Sentence ending particles with ね, な, よ, ぜ, ぞ, わ, さ</a></li>
<li><a href="#kindly">Lesson 27: Asking kindly with なさい, ください; prohibition with な</a></li>
<li><a href="#interrogating">Lesson 28: Question nouns: なに, だれ, どれ, いつ</a></li>
<li><a href="#kamokamo">Lesson 29: か and も as modifying question nouns (note なんと なんて なんか)</a></li>
<li><a href="#yesandno">Lesson 30: Saying yes and no with うん, ううん, はい, いいえ, ええ, and いや</a></li>
<li><a href="#nominalizing">Lesson 31: Generic nouns and nominalization with 事, 物, ところ, and の</a></li>
<li><a href="#polarity">Optional Lesson 1: Polarity</a></li>
</ul>
<h4><a href="#part5">Part 5: Getting a point across</a></h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="#just">Lesson 32: Just with だけ, のみ, ただ, ばかり, しか</a></li>
<li><a href="#still">Lesson 33: Still, already, and yet with もう まだ また</a></li>
<li><a href="#donotwant">Lesson 34: Not wanting with まい and permission with いい, ますか/ませんか</a></li>
<li><a href="#confirmation">Lesson 35: More questions with っけ/け, かい, じゃない, and じゃん</a></li>
<li><a href="#lists">Lesson 36: Making lists with や and とか and と and か</a></li>
<li><a href="#comparing">Lesson 37: Getting self-conscious with より and counting with つ</a></li>
<li><a href="#phrasalverbs">Lesson 38: なる and でできる, bonus causative せる, and reviewing the passive</a></li>
<li><a href="#reflexes">Lesson 39: Reflexes with 自分</a></li>
<li><a href="#bonux">Optional Lesson 2: Bonus auxiliaries: 見る, とする, と思う, と決める</a></li>
</ul>
<h4><a href="#part6">Part 6: Putting things together</a></h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="#without">Lesson 40: Being more negative: なくて, ないで, and ず and ずに</a></li>
<li><a href="#ifandwhen">Lesson 41: If and when with と たら なら</a></li>
<li><a href="#concurrence">Lesson 42: Concurrence with ながら あいだ うちに つつ</a></li>
<li><a href="#but">Lesson 43: Adversatives with が けど けれど しかし ても and でも</a></li>
<li><a href="#entailment">Lesson 44: Entailment with から そして ので で</a></li>
<li><a href="#linking">Lesson 45: Linking conjunctions のに ように ために せいで だって し</a></li>
<li><a href="#aspect">Lesson 46: Aspect with てしまう, ていく, てくる, ておく, ておる</a></li>
<li><a href="#butimeanlike">Lesson 47: The normalization of でも and だって</a></li>
<li><a href="#logic">Optional Lesson 3: Formal logical conjunctions または, あるいは, 及び, and more</a></li>
</ul>
<h4><a href="#part7">Part 7: Relatively speaking</a></h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="#oughta">Lesson 48: Expectation with わけ, はず, べき, べし, ものだ, かもしれない</a></li>
<li><a href="#approximately">Lesson 49: Approximately ころ, くらい, たり, and limits with まで, ほど, すぎる</a></li>
<li><a href="#thetime">Lesson 50: Doing the time with 後, 前/先, 時 (note さっき)</a></li>
<li><a href="#likeness">Lesson 51: Likeness with らしい ぽい そう など</a></li>
<li><a href="#giving">Lesson 52: Being done for someone with やる あげる もらう くれる</a></li>
<li><a href="#wrongness">Lesson 53: Wrongness with だめ, いけない, ならない, featuring "must"</a></li>
<li><a href="#itcantbehelped">Lesson 54: "Oh well" and "I can't help it" with "It can't be helped"</a></li>
<li><a href="#undertherug">Optional Lesson 4: Under the rug: A mess of particles and auxiliaries</a></li>
</ul>
<a href="#theend">The End</a>
<h3>INTERMISSIONS</h3>
<h4>Part 1: Getting Started (intermissions)</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="#i_vowels">Vowels</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_longvowels">Long vowels and gemination</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_devoicing">Devoicing</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_spelling">Spelling irregularities</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_consonants">Consonant irregularity</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_synthetic">"Synthetic" language</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_subarashiki">What's subarashiki about poetry anyway?</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_jargon">About jargon</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_infinitive">What even is an infinitive?</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_grammar">Japanese japanese grammar is bad, too, actually</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_parsing">The dreaded parse and auxiliary verbs</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_keigo">Keigo and some archaic speech</a></li>
</ul>
<h4>Part 2: Rest (intermissions)</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="#i_noninotes">Two notes on の and のだ</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_whynotes">Notes on なぜ なんで どうして</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_totrivia">Single piece of trivia on と</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_existingnotes">Notes on いる, ある, である, and っす</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_enduringnotes">Notes on ている and てある</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_demonstratingnotes">Notes on demonstratives</a></li>
</ul>
<h4>Part 3: The Gauntlet (intermissions)</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="#i_passivenotes">Notes on the passive</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_potentialnotes">Notes on the potential</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_wantingnotes">Notes on wanting</a></li>
<li><a href="#i_endofthegauntlet">The Gauntlet</a></li>
</ul>
</section>
<section>
<h2 id="intro">Introduction</h2>
<p>This guide will cover most of the grammar needed to read basic japanese. We're not going to go into too much detail, and we won't cover much vocabulary. Some words are basically grammar, though. Also, there are no exercises.</p>
<ol>
<li>Skill building, as in reading a grammar explanation and answering questions about it, doesn't work when it comes to learning a new language.</li>
<li>A lot of people are poisoned by modern education and will basically kill their brains if there's anything to "work" on.</li>
<li>Grammar guides are a terrible place to learn vocabulary.</li>
</ol>
<p>If you want to pass a test, like the JLPT, this guide isn't meant for you. You should be fine if you use it, but it will betray your expectations constantly.</p>
<p>Not even the best linguists in the entire world can explain simple ideas like "gonna" with any less than an impenetrable book-length essay. That's not a matter of philosophy, it's a matter of explaining what things really mean, or how they work. Simple incomplete explanations are good, but have holes in them. This guide tries to walk the line and warn you about things it can't explain, but it's really hard, and this guide might mess up sometimes.</p>
<p>This grammar guide does its best to give you some basic exposure to japanese grammar. It can't <b>teach</b> you it. It can only expose you to it. Your job is to turn that exposure into acquisition. The exposure is just a foot in the door.</p>
<p>And, by all means, if something is too hard, skip it. You're not trying to memorize something so you can pass a test. You're not trying to memorize something so you can identify it with 100% precision when you're reading.</p>
<p>You're trying to get something into your head. If you can't, that's fine, you'll pick it up naturally later.</p>
<p>Don't look back.</p>
</section>
<section>
<h2 id="beginner">
SECTION ONE: ABSOLUTE BEGINNER
</h2>
<section>
<h3 id=part1>Part 1: Getting Started</h3>
<p>Everyone has to start somewhere. If you're not a kid, it's a lot easier to get started if you compare to what you already know. Let's do that for a while. It's not as good as reading japanese, but it'll help a lot.</p>
<p><i>(This guide assumes you know the kana, you're learning vocabulary, and you have a mouseover dictionary like Rikaisama (for Firefox) or Yomichan (for Chrome/Opera). If you don't, go fix that.)</i></p>
<section>
<h4 id=being>Lesson 1: State of being with だ and です</h4>
<p>Japanese has two basic "is" words. The grammar term for "is" words is "copula". Copulas have a dedicated term because they're special.</p>
<p>The two copulas in japanese are だ and です. です is more polite than だ. Despite both being copulas, they can't always be used in the same patterns.</p>
<p>Unlike english, the state-of-being word goes <b>after</b> the word that you're using to describe something, rather than before it.</p>
<div class=example
>ペンだ<br>
It's a pen.<br>
<br>
ネコです<br>
It is a cat.</div>
<p>The difference between だ and です is sometimes translated as a difference in whether a contraction is used, but this is <b>not</b> what's happening in japanese.</p>
<p>Later on, we'll see です get used in places that english wouldn't allow "is". It can act like a filler word instead of a copula.</p>
<p>Japanese has two basic tenses: the simple tense and the simple past tense. Dictionaries list verbs by their simple tense. We're only using the word "simple" to say that nothing else is added to the verb.</p>
<p>The simple past form of だ is だった. The simple past form of です is でした.</p>
<div class=example
>オレだった！<br>
It was me!<br>
<br>
そうでした<br>
That was so.</div>
<p>The simple tense is usually called the present tense or the non-past tense. It's important to remember that it can be used in a lot of situations. Present tense and non-past tense are reasonable names, but don't treat names like rules, sometimes names are confusing. We'll be using these names interchangeably.</p>
<p>The simple tense and simple past tense usually line up with english's present and past tenses, but they're not used in all the same places. Just remember that english and japanese use tense in different ways.</p>
<p>In japanese, ordinary statements about the future use the simple tense most of the time. This is where the name "non-past" comes from.</p>
<p>The simple past tense is usually just called the past tense. Sometimes it can also be used for things that already completed like "has become", even if they're hypothetical and haven't happened yet.</p>
</section>
<section>
<h4 id=i_vowels>Intermission: Vowels</h4>
<p><i>Intermissions are useful, but if they stress you out, you shouldn't read them.</i></p>
<p>Japanese only has five vowels. The quality of the vowels sometimes changes slightly depending on the sounds near them, but not enough to make new vowels.</p>
<p>Unlike english, japanese has a very regular orthography (how writing corresponds to sounds). The japanese vowels are, for our intents and purposes, always pronounced the same way, except for when they're not pronounced at all. More on that later.</p>
<p>Resources about the japanese vowel sounds are widespread on the internet. Explaining sounds through text is a fool's errand.</p>
</section>
<section>
<h4 id=noun>Lesson 2: Nouns, pronouns</h4>
<p>Japanese has nouns and pronouns, just like english. Pronouns are less special than they are in english, and act like normal nouns most of the time.</p>
<p>Japanese does not have a plural form. Nouns and verbs don't have to agree for plurality, person, or gender. Japanese can explicitly refer to a group by attaching certain suffixes to nouns, but none of them are a true plural, they all convey extra information that plurals don't.</p>
<p>Japanese has tons of personal pronouns (me, you, them) that english doesn't, but the demonstrative pronoun system (this, that, these, those) is much less irregular. Also, japanese pronouns never change form for case like english ones do (he vs him), though you can put suffixes on them.</p>
<p>Don't bother memorizing these word lists. Learn words outside of this guide.</p>
<div class=example
>私・わたし me (normal, slightly formal when men use it)<br>
あたし me (casual, feminine)<br>
俺・おれ me (casual, masculine)<br>
僕・ぼく me (casual or polite, masculine)<br>
彼・かれ him<br>
彼女・かのじょ her / lady<br>
あなた you
</div>
<p>達 is a suffix. This suffix can be applied to pronouns and nouns. This suffix refers to the group the noun/pronoun is in.</p>
<div class=example
>私達・わたしたち Us<br>
ジム達・じむたち Jim and company<br>
ペン達・ぺんたち The pen and stuff
</div>
<p>達 is normally for living things, and the usage with "pen" above is considered colloquial, or at least informal. It just shows up enough to mention.</p>
<p>Japanese has compound words. They work the same way as in english.</p>
<div class=example
>町・まち town, district<br>
中・なか inside, middle<br>
町中・まちなか downtown, in town, the middle of town
</div>
<p>Japanese has prefixes and suffixes just like english. This is different than compound words. Prefixes and suffixes can't stand on their own.</p>
<div class=example
>研究・けんきゅう research<br>
研究者・けんきゅうしゃ researcher
</div>
<p>者, pronounced しゃ here, is a suffix. It can act like a piece of a compound word, but can't stand on its own as its own word. When 者 appears on its own in a sentence, it's a different word, and not pronounced as しゃ. <i>Thanks, kanji.</i></p>
<p>昨日, meaning "yesterday", is normally read as きのう, not さくび. But since it's this guide's name, it can have a reading different than the normal word spelled the same way. Watch out for reading variation when you start reading, or you'll be super confused.</p>
</section>
<section>
<h4 id=i_longvowels>Intermission: Long vowels and gemination</h4>
<p><i>Intermissions are optional.</i></p>
<p>In japanese, "long vowel" doesn't mean what it means when you're talking about english. Japanese long vowels literally last longer.</p>
<p>Japanese also has something called "gemination". Gemination means that the speaker briefly stops on a consonant. In japanese, this adds the same amount of time as using a long vowel. Practice the following to get a hang of the idea:</p>
<div class=example
><table><tbody>
<tr><td>Kata</td><td>Ka-ta</td></tr>
<tr><td>Kaata</td><td>Ka-a-ta</td></tr>
<tr><td>Katta</td><td>Ka-t-ta</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>
<p>The letter t isn't pronounced twice in the third example. There's a point in time when the mouth stops making the first "a" sound and is in the position of the "t" sound, but the air is blocked. It's not released until the "ta".</p>
<p>Long e is sometimes spelled as ei えい. Not all instances of えい are a long e. But all instances of えい that are a long e can also be pronounced as literally え followed by い. It can sound stiff, but it's still correct. To illustrate:</p>
<div class=example
>えい (not a long e): Only pronounced as えい<br>
えい (is a long e): Can be pronounced えい or ええ
</div>
<p>Long o is sometimes spelled as ou おう. Not all instances of おう are a long o. Unlike えい, sequences of おう can only be pronounced a certain way, depending on whether it's a long o or not. おう is used this way because it reduces how many words have the same spelling.</p>
<div class=example
>おう (not a long o): Only pronounced おう<br>
おう (is a long o): Only pronounced おお
</div>
<p>お and う are so close that the distinction between おう and おお might be hard to hear or articulate in casual speech, but the distinction is always <i>intended</i>.</p>
<p>Most instances of おう that are not long o sounds are verb endings. But there's one verb ending where this is not the case: the volitional, taught later.</p>
</section>
<section>
<h4 id=case>Lesson 3: Particles and grammatical case</h4>
<p>Japanese has "particles". Particles are similar to prepositions. They mark an entire phrase as having some logical relationship to something else. Japanese particles come after the phrase they're modifying instead of before it.</p>
<p>English uses word order when you need to know what job each noun has in a sentence: subject, verb, object. This can get flipped around in other patterns and in poetry, but word order is english's main thing here.</p>
<p>These jobs are called grammatical "cases", and each job is a particular "case".</p>
<p>Japanese uses particles to indicate these jobs. There's a default word order, and you can drop particles, but particles are the norm.</p>
<p>Remember: these translations are only for demonstration, and the japanese sentences are not necessarily natural-sounding. The sentences and translations are only here for illustration, not instruction.</p>
<div class=example
>ジムがネコを食べた<br>
じむが ねこを たべた<br>
Jim ate cat.</div>
<p>Here, が marks "Jim" as the subject. を marks ねこ as the direct object. The subject of a verb like "eat" is the person doing the eating.</p>
<p>Japanese throws a wrench into the picture by having something we call a "topic marker", は, which literally just says "this is what I'm talking about". Most grammar resources compare は to が. They do this because sometimes it's unnatural to use が, and you have to use は instead, or leave the subject unstated. But は is more general than being an alternative to が.</p>
<div class=example
>ネコはイヌが食べた The cat, a dog ate it.<br>
イヌはネコを食べた The dog ate a cat.
</div>
<p>One way to differentiate は and が here is thinking of が as a focus marker. This "focus" is in <b>addition</b> to が's behavior as a subject marker, not instead of it.</p>
<div class=example
>ジムがネコを食べた Jim is the one that ate the cat.</div>
<p>English uses articles and swip-swappy sentence patterns for this kind of focus.</p>
<div class=example
>ネコは魚食べる<br>
Cats eat fish (cats in general)<br>
The cat eats fish (the cat we were talking about)<br>
<br>
ネコが魚食べる<br>
A cat eats fish (about a particular arbitrary cat)<br>
The cat eats fish (about a relevant cat)<br>
Cats are what eat fish (cats in particular)</div>
<p>Japanese is a "subject-object-verb" (SOV) language. That is, normal statements have subject, object, and verb in that order. English is SVO. Both languages allow moving the parts around, but doing so changes where the emphasis goes.</p>
<p>If you need more information on は, view <a href="https://www2.gwu.edu/~eall/vjgnew/vjghomepage/vjghome.htm">"Unit 8: Particle wa" of "Visualizing Japanese Grammar"</a>.</p>
</section>
<section>
<h4 id=i_devoicing>Intermission: Devoicing</h4>
<p><i>Intermissions are optional.</i></p>
<!-- <p>Particles are grammatical words that don't have any special properties. Prepositions usually create a "prepositional phrase", a string of words that can't be broken up, particles don't. The term "particle" is used for english sometimes too, to describe verbs with prepositions that aren't bound to their phrase: "I turned it <i>on</i>" (particle) vs "I turned <i>on it</i>" (preposition). But aside from particle verbs, people don't agree on how to use the term "particle" about english grammar.</p> -->
<p>In certain places, the vowels "u" and "i" can be "devoiced", meaning that they're not pronounced at all. です and でした are examples. It's still acceptable to pronounce the vowels in these cases, but you'll sound weird.</p>
<div class=example
><table><tbody>
<tr><td>Desu</td><td>De-s</td></tr>
<tr><td>Deshita</td><td>De-sh-ta</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>
<p>Don't bother learning any more about devoicing until you're much better at japanese. It'll make it harder to notice irregular devoicing patterns that people don't bother teaching.</p>
</section>
<section>
<h4 id=no>Lesson 4: の means の: possession and attributes; bonus: honorifics</h4>
<p>の is a particle. It's a possessive marker and an attributive marker. "Attributive" here means that something is an attribute of something else, like an attribute in a video game, like the "flame" in "flame sword". The relationship is always straightforward.</p>
<div class=example
>私のネコ My cat<br>
君の Yours.<br>
ネコの先 Ahead of the cat<br>
男の子 Boy (metaphorically, male child)</div>
<p>If you get lost, the easiest way to remember の is: It's like "of", but applies backwards.</p>
<div class=example
>夜の人 Person of the night</div>
<p>Sometimes "of" gets confusing, and you have to remember the idea "attribute".</p>
<div class=example
>夜の海 The night sea<br>
海の夜 Night on the sea (NOT "night of the sea")</div>
<p>の is literally the single most common word in all of japanese, so make sure you remember it well!</p>
<div class=example
>私の子供のネコが多い<br>
My child's cats are many. (My kid has a lot of cats.)</div>
<p>Let's take a moment to learn about honorifics. If you're consumed any translated japanese media, there's a good chance you already understand this.</p>
<p>When referring to another person by name, their name usually takes a suffix like さん, くん, さま, or ちゃん. This is not an exhaustive list of honorifics, and they have a lot of context-specific nuances that would take a long time to memorize. Just keep in mind their function.</p>
<p>Just like the honorific titles Mister, Miss, Master, Sir, and Lord in english, japanese honorifics indicate the attitude the speaker is taking towards that person, and/or towards their relationship with that person. It's much less normal to use the honorific alone in japanese than english, so they act more like suffixes than independent extra words.</p>
<p>Referring to someone by name without any honorific at all might be familiar or intimate, or assuming of your interpersonal relationship with them. This is extra true if you use their given name instead of their family name.</p>
</section>
<section>
<h4 id=i_spelling>Intermission: Spelling irregularities</h4>
<p><i>Intermissions are optional.</i></p>
<p>Japanese has a small number of spelling irregularities. These irregularities make written japanese easier to read, not harder.<p>
<p>Particles: When the particles は, を, and へ are spoken, they're pronounced as "wa", "o", and "e", not as "ha", "wo", or "he". Actually, "wo" is still correct, and you see it all the time in singing, but it sounds silly in normal speech.</p>
<p>Words: The word 言う いう, meaning "say", is pronounced ゆう when in the simple tense (dictionary form).</p>
<p>Japanese has a "pitch accent" system, where words have a specific change in pitch (or none) that distinguishes them. This is <b>not</b> the same thing as stress or tone.</p>
<p>Pitch accent is not represented when japanese is written in kana.</p>
<p>Pitch accent is actually very important if you want to speak, so <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_s6QqmJd7k">you're going to have to find a resource for that if you want one</a>.</p>
<p>Japanese isn't "robotic", "monotone", or "flat". Japanese has prosody, just like english. Every language has prosody. Prosody is the natural "musicalness" of language.</p>
</section>
<section>
<h4 id=moving>Lesson 5: Moving things with に, へ, and から</h4>
<p>These particles mainly deal with location. から indicates the starting point of an action, and へ and に indicate the ending point of an action.</p>
<p>から is the same general "from" you see in english, even when it's abstract.</p>
<div class=example
>学校から私に家へ手紙を送った<br>
[He] sent me home a letter from school.</div>
<p>The english translation doesn't even have any marking on three of the nouns. Particles make things easier, at least for a language learner.</p>
<p>The subject was dropped in the japanese version of this sentence. The subject can be dropped in japanese if it's understood. This is just like how english uses pronouns. If you don't drop something that's obvious enough to drop, it emphasizes it.</p>
<p>へ translates well as "to" or "toward" in most situations, including abstract ones.</p>
<div class=example
>東京へ行く Going to Tokyo / Headed for Tokyo</div>
<p>に can mark an indirect object or a location.</p>
<p>An indirect object is something relevant to or affected by a verb, but not part of the verb's core meaning. This overlaps with へ a little, but へ cares more about motion and towardsness, and に cares more about the noun itself.</p>
<div class=example
>学校に来た Came to school.</div>
<p>Location is easy.</p>
<div class=example
>学校に暮らす I live in school.</div>
<p>The idea of "indirect object" used by に can show up in places that would look like direct objects in english.</p>
<div class=example
>研究者になる Becomes a researcher.<br>
ここに来た He came here.</div>
<p>In this way, に becomes a general "first option" for things that look like direct objects but cannot take を for the equivalent verb in japanese. There are other particles that also do this job, which we will cover later. For certain meanings, you can only use a given particle, not an arbitrary one.</p>
<p>These particles can be used in other ways, but we're not ready for that yet.</p>
<p>This is a good time to remember that particles attach to phrases, not words. This applies to every particle we've learned so far.</p>
<div class=example
>私の家から来た Came from my house</div>
</section>
<section>
<h4 id=i_consonants>Intermission: Consonant irregularity</h4>
<p><i>Intermissions are optional.</i></p>
<p><i>The italic text in this intermission will indicate values in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet#Letters">International Phonetic Alphabet</a>.</i></p>
<p>The consonant g is sometimes pronounced ng, even at the beginning of words. In modern times, this is a matter of accent, not variation between dialects. It feels prestigious, not slangy, but it's being phased out.</p>
<p>The syllable ん is <b>always</b> pronounced as m before "p" and "b", <b>always</b> pronounced as ng (<i>ŋ</i>) before "k" and "g", and <b>always</b> pronounced like ng (<i>ɴ</i>) at the end of an utterance. Basically, it merges with whatever comes after it, just like how the "input" is usually pronounced "imput", and "inking" as "ingking".</p>
<p>Most japanese syllables use the consonants regularly. Only a couple don't.</p>
<p>Within the basic kana, only the kana ふ, つ, し, and ち have irregular consonant sounds. They are, in effect, "fu" (<i>ɸu</i>), "tsu", "shi" (<i>ɕi</i>), and "chi" (<i>t͡ɕi</i>), in order.</p>
<p>When they're voiced, three of the four irregular basic kana, づ, じ, and ぢ, change qualities slightly. So does ず.</p>
<p>In standard japanese, ず and づ are in free variation. Either one can be pronounced as dzu or zu.</p>
<p>The same is true with じ and ぢ pronounced as ji (<i>ʑi</i>) (as in the second consonant in "vision") or dji (<i>d͡ʑi</i>) (as in the first consonant in "James").</p>
<p>ず・づ and じ・ぢ being treated the same way is a feature of the standard accent. Other accents can merge the four of them together even more, or not merge them at all.</p>
<p>When し, ち, じ, and ぢ start diphthongs, like ちゃ, ぢゃ, しゃ, and じゃ, the "i/y" sound in the middle is dropped. For example, ちゃ is <b>always</b> pronounced as "cha" (<i>t͡ɕa</i>), never as "chya" (<i>t͡ɕja</i>). Normal diphthongs like きゃ are pronounced the normal way, like "kya" (<i>kja</i>).</p>
</section>
<section>
<h4 id=conjugations>Lesson 6: What is a verb? Nothing but a miserable pile of conjugations!</h4>
<p>Unlike english, japanese has several categories of regular verbs. In other words, unlike english, japanese says that all of its verb categories are regular. Even though you might say that "ashen" and "eaten" are irregular in english, japanese doesn't follow the same logic.</p>
<p>Right now, japanese has two categories of regular verbs. It used to have categories of categories, but there's only two categories right now. The two categories are one-form verbs and five-form verbs, which conjugate differently.</p>
<p>Here's an example, using a ます form that we'll learn properly in Lesson 12. Don't bother memorizing this table.</p>
<div class=example
>見る／見ます, "one-form" verb.<br>
切る／切ります, "five-form" verb, ending in る.<br>
買う／買います, "five-form" verb, ending in う.<br>
死ぬ／死にます, "five form" verb, ending in ぬ.</div>
<p>One-form verbs always end in る, and just drop the る when they conjugate. The stuff leading up to that る is the verb's basic identity, and isn't changed. The verb itself, aside from conjugation, has only "one form".</p>
<p>Five form verbs can end in one of several syllables. In the present tense, this syllable always ends in a "u" vowel, and different conjugations can change it to any of the other four vowels in japanese, or slur it. This means that it can have any of five different vowels at the end. In other words, five forms.</p>
<p>Five-form verbs in the dictionary form can end in one of several different syllables, but it always ends in the vowel "u".</p>
<div class=example
>切る 殺す 死ぬ 選ぶ 読む 問う 動く 急ぐ 持つ
</div>
<p>One-form verbs in the dictionary form always end in る. But the part before the る always ends in a phonetic "e" or "i". The dictionary form just attaches る to the one-form verb's <i>one and only base</i>, the part of the one-form verb that never changes.<p>
<p>Japanese verb conjugation likes to pile words together, and you end up with things like 見られたくなかった. Over the next few lessons, we start learning the logic behind these long piles of conjugations. This makes them easier to break down.</p>
<p>This lesson is just establishing the basics needed to understand what we're going to look at.</p>
</section>
<section>
<h4 id=i_synthetic>Intermission: "Synthetic" language</h4>
<p><i>Intermissions are optional.</i></p>
<p>Japanese is synthetic. The linguistics term "synthetic" means that a language likes to synthesize (!) words out of small parts. Generally speaking. <u>Above all, "synthetic" does <b>not</b> mean a manufactured, synthesized language itself.</u></p>
<p>Japanese is a synthetic language, due to it piling verb conjugations on top of eachother like 見られたくなかった. Piling things together like this is called "agglutinative". When you make complicated meanings with single pieces that have several implications, that's called "fusional". Japanese is not fusional.</p>
<p>The opposites of synthetic are "analytic" and "isolating". Chinese is both analytic and isolating. English is considered an analytic language because it loves function words and has relatively few productive inflections, but less isolating because it loves derivational affixes.</p>
<p>The exact definitions of "analytic" and "isolating" tend to be fuzzy, because extremely analytic or extremely isolating languages tend to be both, not just one or the other. Modern linguists think that categories like these, in the vague sense, aren't that useful at categorizing all the languages, just the ones that grammar people liked looking at.</p>
</section>
<section>
<h4 id=negation>Lesson 7: Negated verbs and using い-adjectives</h4>
<p>When you turn a one-form verb into a negative verb, it cuts off the る at the end of the simple tense and adds ない.</p>
<p>For five-form verbs, you turn the ending "u" into an "a", with one exception.</p>
<p>These examples are for illustration. You should not memorize them, just understand them for now and move on.</p>
<div class=example
>1-form: Drop る, add ない<br>
<table>
<tr><td>見る</td><td>見ない</td></tr>
<tr><td>食べる</td><td>食べない</td></tr></table>
</div>
<div class=example>
5-form: Replace "u" with "a", then add ない<br>
<table>
<tr><td>殺す</td><td>殺さない</td></tr>
<tr><td>切る</td><td>切らない</td></tr>
<tr><td>買う</td><td>買わない</td></tr>
<tr><td>問う</td><td>問わない</td></tr></table></div>
<div class=example>
食べない not eating / to not eat</div>
<p>For five-form verbs ending in う, the negative uses わない, not あない. This is that one exception.</p>
<p>Japanese has two types of adjectives. Don't worry, it's not the same deal as the two categories of verbs. い-adjectives act like verbs. な-adjectives act like nouns. We'll cover な-adjectives later.</p>
<p>Here's an example of an い-adjective in practice.</p>
<div class=example
>赤い火 Red fire</div>
<p>The reason い-adjectives "act like verbs" is because you don't use だ with them.</p>
<div class=example
>火が赤いThe fire is red.</div>
<p>"is" is only present in the translation. In fact, attaching だ here would be ungrammatical. <b>Do not</b> attach だ to い-adjectives.</p>
<div class=example
>火が赤い<i>だ</i> (ungrammatical gargling)</div>
<p>Attaching です is okay, but です doesn't indicate state of being here, it just adds politeness. This is the first major way that だ and です are different. When it's not attached to a noun, です is just a politeness marker.</p>
<div class=example
>火が赤いです The fire is red.</div>
<p>There are more constructions that end up putting a だ or です right at the end of い-adjectives, but they don't indicate state of being like attaching だ or です to a noun does.</p>
<p>Like verbs, you can conjugate い-adjectives. Replace い with かった or くない.</p>
<div class=example
>火が赤かった The fire was red.<br>
火が赤くない The fire is not red.
</div>
<p>ない is an い-adjective and you can conjugate it like one.</p>
<p>見なかった Did not see.</p>
<p>Adjectives are turned into abstract nouns with さ. There are more ways to do this, but さ is by far the most common.</p>
<p>大きさ Size (largeness) (from 大きい)</p>
</section>
<section>
<h4 id=i_subarashiki>Intermission: What's subarashiki about poetry anyway?</h4>
<p><i>Intermissions are optional.</i></p>
<p>In classical japanese, the attributive form of い-adjectives ended in き, not い, and き is therefore an adnominal form. You'll run into this form all the time since it's still intelligible to native speakers, so it's no use hiding it.</p>
<p>Japanese stories like to use literary language features once in a while, just like english. Just as a novel might misuse "wherefore", so too will a japanese novel misuse <confusing literary term X>. While this doesn't apply to the き ending of い-adjectives, it does apply to things too advanced to be covered here, for sure.</p>
<p>All the same, you're going to have to acquire the misused versions of literary terms in order to understand them when writers misuse them. That's part of the experience of the language, how <feature X> is used, not just what it's "supposed" to mean.</p>
<p>Uneducated attempts to sound archaic are definitely not 素晴らしき, but the low-grade tone of voice you can get out of just the right use of old grammar, or the jokes you can make when characters know different parts of it, those are definitely 素晴らしき.</p>
<p>Classical japanese actually has a couple different categories that evolved into modern い-adjectives, but you don't have to worry about that.</p>
</section>
<section>
<h4 id=theverbstrikesback>Lesson 8: The verb strikes back: the past tense</h4>
<p>You form the past tense of a verb by attaching た or だ to the right "stem". Stems are basically the shortest verb forms you can write. You attach the right stuff to the end of the right stem when you want to make complex conjugations.</p>
<p>We're introducing stems now because the past tense of five-form verbs uses irregular stems.</p>
<p>90% of the time, you only use three stems. Here's an example:</p>
<div class=example
>殺す 死ぬ<br>
殺さ 死な<br>
殺し 死に/死ん
</div>
<p>Here's an example of these stems in use:</p>
<div class=example
>殺す<br>
"he kills"<br>
殺さない<br>
"he doesn't kill"<br>
殺した<br>
"he killed"
</div>
<p>That's right. Basic stuff like tense and negation uses only three stems. There are more stems, but they show up less often. We'll cover them later.</p>
<p>With that out of the way, we can introduce the past tense properly. We've seen the past tense forms of だ and です already, which are だった and でした. We also saw 殺した in the stem example above.</p>
<p>You'd be right to assume that the た is what makes it the past tense. The hard part, and the reason for the delay, is that the stem for the past tense <u>of five-form verbs</u> isn't as regular as the stem for the negative form. It depends on the exact original syllable ending. Here are all possibilities:</p>
<div class=example
><table class=fluffy>
<tr><td>切る</td><td>殺す</td><td>死ぬ</td><td>選ぶ</td><td>読む</td><td>買う</td><td>問う</td><td>動く</td><td>急ぐ</td><td>持つ</td></tr>
<tr><td>切った</td><td>殺した</td><td>死んだ</td><td>選んだ</td><td>読んだ</td><td>買った</td><td>問うた</td><td>動いた</td><td>急いだ</td><td>持った</td></tr>
</table></div>
<p>Don't memorize this table. There's a rule for this, it's just irregular. Replace the "u" vowel with an "i" vowel, so you get like 切り, 死に, etc. Then attach the た, <u>but slur it</u>. The slurring is what makes it irregular. In particular, notice 死んだ and 急いだ.</p>
<p>Japanese speakers don't go through this process whenever they conjugate something. This process is like trivia to them. The "slurring" is a historic thing, and the slurred version is just what the form is now. At the very least, if you do a little reading and listening in japanese, you will be able to recognize the past tense at a glance. Exposure is more powerful than memorization.</p>
<p>The past tense of one-form verbs is easy. Replace the る with a た.</p>
<div class=example
>見る 見た<br>
食べる 食べた
</div>
<p>We will learn another use of this stem, one where it's not slurred with five-form verbs, in Lesson 12.</p>
<p>Conjugation is more complicated than this, but take this one step at a time.</p>
<p><i>(問う, 請う, and 恋う have irregular past conjugations among う-final five-form verbs. They might not be particularly common verbs, but they use a う stem for the past tense instead of the lengthened consonant. This is an example of the slurring being irregular.)</i><p>
</section>
<section>
<h4 id=i_jargon>Intermission: About jargon</h4>
<p><i>Intermissions are optional.</i></p>
<p>First of all, a disclaimer: 問うた might not be used that often anymore. I was told 問いかけた is the normal way of saying it in speech, a phrasal verb. All the same, it's not hard to find 問うた.</p>
<p>The two categories of regular verbs have several english names, but only one japanese name each: 一段 and 五段. In english, they're called consonant or vowel stem verbs, ichidan or godan verbs, or "ru" and "u" verbs.</p>
<p>"ru" and "u" is the worst distinction. There are 五段 verbs that end in る.</p>
<p>"Consonant" vs "vowel" implies that the reader already understands how japanese conjugation works. It also implies that's the actual difference between the two categories, when in reality, there could be any number of consonant or vowel categories.</p>
<p>"One-form" and "five-form" what you get when you translate 一段 and 五段 in a way that makes sense in plain english. Translated formally, you get "monograde" and "pentagrade" (less common), and you see these words in scholarly writing. You find "monograde", "bigrade", and "quadrigrade" in writing about historical japanese.</p>
</section>
<section>
<h4 id=te>Lesson 9: The て particle, the て form, and the imperative</h4>
<p>Don't worry if this lesson seems hard. We're just covering fundamentals, you're not expected to internalize the ideas here yet.</p>
<p>There's a verb form that ends in て. This verb form is used in three main ways: to connect statements to eachother, to connect verbs to eachother, and as a simple command. We split this in two: the "て particle" and the "て form".</p>
<p><b>The て "form"</b> is made by replacing the past tense's た with て. Keep in mind that this isn't some kind of secondary past tense.</p>
<div class=example
>殺して 切って 買って 死んで 食べて
</div>
<p>The main use of the て form is the pattern <b>XてY</b>. This pattern uses Y to modify the meaning of X, and Y usually isn't literal.</p>
<p>The following two examples use てあげる and てもらう. We learn these for real near the end of this guide. They're kind of advanced, and you shouldn't try to understand them yet, just the <b>XてY</b> construction.</p>
<div class=example
>殺してあげる I'm going to kill you.
</div>
<p>In this example, the verb あげる attaches to the て "form" of 殺す. Normally, あげる means "raise something", but because it's used in this pattern, it means "give". The speaker is "giving" the action 殺す to someone else, probably you.</p>
<div class=example
>助けてもらう roughly "is gratefully saved" or "receives help"<br>
save (te form) + receive
</div>
<p>Here, the "receive" word, もらう, modifies 助ける's て form. This doesn't just emphasize how grateful they are for being saved. 助ける normally takes the savior as the subject, but the phrase 助けてもらう takes the survivor as the subject. The <b>XてY</b> pattern isn't just attaching the verb Y to an earlier statement, it makes a whole new verb phrase, with different grammar.</p>
<p>The て "form" of い-adjectives is Xい -> Xいで, so ない -> ないで. い-adjectives don't like the て "form" that much. You usually only see the て form of い-adjectives if the adjective is part of a verb conjugation, like ない.</p>
<div class=example
>食べないでください<br>
Please don't eat.</div>
<p>Here, 食べないで is the て "form" of 食べない, and ください is a "please" word that's attached to it.</p>
<p>The て "form" can make a simple command by using it alone. You can think of this like an implied ください for now.</p>
<div class=example
>食べて、少年 Eat, boy.<br>
見て！ Look!<br>
食べないで Please don't eat.</div>
<p>Now, <b>the "て particle"</b>. For verbs, the て "particle" and "form" are identical. For い-adjectives, you replace the い with くて.</p>
<div class=example
>食べなくて 赤くて
</div>
<p>The main use of the て "particle" is to string statements together in a single sentence.</p>
<div class=example
>物分りがよくて助かる It'd help a lot to have a good understanding.<br>
彼女の目を見て、僕は告げる。 Looking her in the eyes, I say it.
</div>
<p>In the first example, the statement 物分りがよくて is followed by the statement 助かる. 助かる is not modifying よくて. Instead, the first statement is setting up the context for the second statement.</p>
<p>The second example just strings the statements together the same way the translation does.</p>
<p>Sometimes the て "particle" lets a verb act as a topic. In this way, the て "particle" can look like a noun. It's not <i>really</i> a noun, it just looks like one in situations like this. <i>(To students of grammar: this is <b>not</b> a gerund, it just translates to a gerund here.)</i></p>