Nihongo Notes

Some grammar notes posted back in 1996. The first three items are useful and easily comprehended but the last three items are more appropriate to a linqguistic conversation/study only.

Nagoya University CMJ Grammar Online!

This online tool/program is designed to help you practice and review basic Japanese grammar. It covers many of the grammar points taught in the book A Course in Modern Japanese (CMJ). [hat tip to Nihongojouzu.com]

CMJ Grammar Online

This CAI program is designed to help you practice and review basic Japanese grammar. It covers many of the grammar points taught in elementary Japanese language courses.

The program is based on A Course in Modern Japanese (CMJ), Volumes 1 & 2 (Nagoya University Japanese Language Education Research Group, University of Nagoya Press, 1983). If, while working with the program, you have any questions concerning … [ Read more ]

Nihongo Resouces

In addition to Japanese dictionary functionality, this website offers:

  • free online lessons at a university level (you need to know the kana if you want to take these lessons)
  • a free grammar book (almost 400 pages, PDF)
  • a good section for learning the writing systems, which includes history and useful diagrams
  • a kanji learning section that splits up the 1945 jouyou (常用) kanji into 5

[ Read more ]

Tim’s Takamatsu: Language

A collection of online and .pdf files covering basics of Japanese grammar. I personally found the Japanese Verbs section to be the most useful and comprehensive.

Sentence Ending Particles

In Japanese, there are many particles that are added to the end of a sentence. They express the speaker’s emotions, doubt, emphasis, caution, hesitation, wonder, admiration, and so on.

A Logical Japanese Grammar

Mash Satou offers this overview of Japanese grammar (available in HTML online or as a PDF download). Topics include:
– Pronunciation
– Loan Words from English
– Parts of Speech
– Word Orders
– Correspondence of Pronouns, Cases, Articles, Interrogatives
– Nouns, Adjectival Nouns, Verbal Nouns
– Verbs, Adjectival Verbs, Auxiliary Verbs
– Particles
– Uniformed Regular … [ Read more ]

Jim’s Japanese Grammar Summary

This summary of some basic Japanese grammar has been derived from the Japanese grammar text books that were used at Swinburne University when I was studying Japanese there in the 1980s. I copied these points into a small notebook to use as revision while travelling, etc.. I have decided to key them in and make them available as a WWW page which can supplement Keith … [ Read more ]

A Japanese guide to Japanese grammar

Most textbooks try to teach you Japanese with English. That want to teach you on the first page how to say, “Hi, my name is Smith,” but they don’t tell you about all the arbitrary decisions that were made behind your back. They probably decided to use the polite form even though learning the polite form before the dictionary form makes no sense. They also … [ Read more ]

Wikipedia Japanese grammar

A detailed (and growing) entry on Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia.

Fast Track – 100 Grammar & Useful Phrase Bits

Watered-down, understandable, bite-sized grammar helps. Perhaps by knowing these basic Japanese grammar points, you will be able to communicate in Japanese limited only by vocabulary and guts! Of course this list is a simplified grammar, and is only an introduction to the grammar points.

Wikibooks Japanese

Another wiki on Japanese grammar – this one has some o.k. material, but generally not nearly as good as the wikipedia site…

Japanese for the Western Brain

Kim Allen offers this basic look at Japanese grammar. She has written several “chapters” as a series of short articles on topics related to the chapter title. The divisions are not perfect; there is some overlap and some mixing of categories. It is important to note that each chapter phases from basic to advanced material. Hence, the beginning student will understand the beginning of each … [ Read more ]

Particles (About.com)

Particles are probably one of the most difficult and confusing aspects of Japanese sentences. A particle (joshi) is a word that shows the relationship of a word, a phrase, or a clause to the rest of the sentence. Some particles have English equivalents. Others have functions similar to English prepositions, but since they always follow the word or words they mark, they are post-positions. There … [ Read more ]

About.com Japanese Grammar/Expressions Lessons

Another fine feature of the excellent About.com Japanese Language site. There aren’t a ton of entries yet (more added regularly) but the ones that I have read through are explained very well and target useful and/or tricky areas of comprehension.

Conversation Openers and Fillers

In conversations, openers and fillers are used quite often. They don’t always have specific meanings. Openers are used as signals that you are about to say something, or to smooth communication. Fillers are usually used for pauses or hesitation. English also has similar expressions such as “so,” “like,” “you know,” and so on. When you have opportunity to hear native speakers’ conversation, listen carefully and … [ Read more ]

Bible Japanese Page – Weekly Grammar Example

This is one section of the Bible Japanese Page in which you will find a weekly grammar lesson that draws from readings of the Bible (currently the Gospel of John). Useful even if you’re not Christian…

Yookoso Email Lists

Well, this is the Kanji a Day and Grammar a Day email service from yours truly – just adding a link to it here to be thorough…

jGram – Japanese Grammar Database

2021-04-06 NOTE: DC, the guy behind jgram, accidentally let the domain name expire. Someone else rescued it and I think he is planning to revive it himself but the details are still unclear at the moment. I have the most recent copy of the database and will be using it for my daily emails but some of the links will not work.
This is a cool … [ Read more ]