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.

Teach Yourself Japanese

A basic introduction to Japanese grammar covering the following topics:
1. Introduction
2. Standard hiragana
3. Double hiragana
4. Other kana information
5. Numbers
6. Greetings
7. Basic grammar
8. Vocabulary
9. Dialogues

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 ]

WaKan

WaKan is a freeware tool to assist in learning the Japanese and Chinese languages. It contains a character dictionary, a word dictionary, a vocabulary manager, a translation tool, a simple text editor and many other helpful functions, including the printing of flashcards.

One of the main goals of this project is to enable students to read Japanese or Chinese text with minimum knowledge of the … [ Read more ]

Rikai

This site is incredibly useful – just paste a URL or selected Japanese text, hit Go and you will see your page or text reproduced but with a twist – when you mouse over a word you will see a definition and readings for that word.

Note: POPjisyo.com offers more or less the same thing and is, apparently, an imitator of this site. You can’t go … [ Read more ]

Kanji.kiev.ua

This site is quite distinct from other dictionaries of kanji. It provides students of Japanese with unrivalled opportunity to focus on the most important things. To make the task of learning characters manageable only most frequently used words are presented here to illustrate character usage. The almost 1,700 words illustrating usage of the first 200 most basic characters at level 1 are definitely “must know” … [ Read more ]

Expressions Used in Letters

The difference between written language and conversational language in Japanese is much greater than in English. Japanese letters often use classical grammar patterns which are seldom used in conversation. Although there are no particular rules when writing to close friends, there are many set expressions and honorific expressions (keigo) used in formal letters. A conversational style is not usually used when writing formal letters.

Nihongo Everyday

This site offers daily comments in Japanese (left) and romaji (right). You can hear the entries as spoken .wav files by clicking the links under the romaji.

Yoji-Jukugo

Yoji-jukugo are idiomatic expressions made up of four kanji characters. Japanese is normally written with three types of scripts: kanji, hiragana and katakana, but these idiomatic words are written in kanji only and with no kana between them.

Yoji-jukugo contain classical wisdom or morals in short phrases. In English there are words that people use which make them sound intelligent or denote higher education. … [ Read more ]

Talking on the Phone

Let’s learn common expressions used on the phone. Don’t be intimidated by phone calls. Practice makes perfect!

J2E Flashcard Program

J2E is a Java 2 applet flashcard program based on the wordlists in the Yookoso! textbook series. Right now, there are wordlists for chapters 3-7 (approx 350 words), with more wordlists and features planned. Features include score counts, kana/kanji hints and kana/kanji input support. There is no romaji support nor any plans to include it.

Note: This program requires true Japanese text support. … [ 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 ]

Kanji Radical List

This page offers up the 214 Kanji radicals along with their names, mnemonic names, and hyperlinked Kanji that contain the relevant radical (clicking these characters brings up all their relevant information along with compound words that contain them).

Reading Tutor

The Reading Tutor was designed to help JFL/JSL learners improve their reading skills in Japanese. This system was developed specifically to help learners study written Japanese at their own pace, in their own way.

Here’s what is in the toolbox to help you start reading Japanese or improve the skills you already have.

Dictionary Tool:
– Japanese-Japanese Dictionary Tool
Just click … [ Read more ]