Japanese grammar

After all the fun and effort you put into diligently studying the writing of the Japanese language, we have finally arrived at a new destination ! The very first course of this second part entirely devoted to Japanese grammar.

For the moment, there is no need to rush. In this lesson, we won’t start creating our first sentences right away. This is just going to be a presentation of this second part where I will tell you everything you will find so that you are as well prepared as possible.

The first thing to know is that for this second part, you must have previously done the first part on the Japanese language writing. From now on, I consider that you know your kana, you know how to use kanji, and you know all the writing rules of the Japanese language. That is, the grammar lessons are going to be done entirely in Japanese and I will not waste time deciphering the kana and kanji for you. So, to move forward, all the notions that we saw during the first season must be definitively acquired. Even for vocabulary lessons. As usual, when it is a purely Japanese word, I will write it in hiragana, and when it is a Sino-Japanese word I will write it in katakana. But I will never use rōmaji. The rōmaji are over and well and truly over. Remember it.

In this part on Japanese grammar, we will learn how to create sentences that we can use both orally and in writing, that is to say that we will learn to arrange words in a logical way, grammatically, so that our sentences are correctly formulated, and thus express our thoughts, express our ideas…

I won’t dwell on the use of verbs in this second part. We will of course use verbs in our sentences, this will be necessary, but we will stick to the simplest use. We will not yet see the polite form, nor even the negative form, nor the imperative, nor the past tense. We will dedicate all of this to the third season, where we will see in depth everything there is to know about verbs, how to use Japanese verbs to further enrich our sentences. But for now, we’re going to keep it simple, using the basic and most common verbs, which won’t prevent us from making particularly complex sentences, you’ll see.

In this part, your progress will be very gradual because I will introduce each grammatical notion little by little in very light lessons. I am rather against the endless courses that last more than an hour and you feel like it never ends and you end up dropping out completely. Personally, I consider a written course that takes more than twenty-five minutes to read is already too long... when you take the time to read well in peace. I’m sure most of you have experienced this feeling in school before, and so have I, so I will try to make lessons easy to understand where we see together one grammatical notion by lesson, one after the other; and the courses will be supplemented with many examples to help you understand each concept covered.

Each course will therefore be very light. There won’t be a lot of content, so once you get to the end of a course you’ll be like, « Well, Japanese isn’t complicated at all, it’s even very easy ! ». And it’s effectively easy, when you have a good methodology on hand and when you make the necessary efforts, of course.

I don’t really believe in the « brain forcing » method, it is not enough; it works to learn the kana, you write your kana a few dozen times a day and it ends up entering your memory. And you will have to do this to remember the new words that will be presented to you in the vocabulary lessons. But, again, simple « brain forcing » isn’t enough, it’s also important that you understand what you’re learning because a language works in a logical way – especially Japanese ! – and is a reflection of the way in which the people who speak this language perceive the world around them. And it is by understanding how a language works, how it has been built over time that you will more effectively integrate grammar, vocabulary…

There would be no point in me throwing all the particles at you at once, for example in a lesson that takes an hour of reading because you are not going to remember anything anyway. It would not be beneficial for you or for me. It is important to study in detail all the subtleties of each grammatical notion, each particle. For your information, we’ll go into more detail about what a particle is in an upcoming grammar lesson that will arrive very soon.

For each piece of grammar that I will teach you, I will not tell you everything at once. I will only tell you what is important as we study this. Let’s take for example the particle に which will be used to organize our sentences, which will be used to introduce a place in our sentences. For example, to say « I am at school », « at school » is a place. We will first see a first grammar lesson on the particle に where its first use will be explained in detail, and we will only see its first use first. Because the particle に also has many other uses and is used to express many other things, which implies that there will be over time more lessons on other uses of this same particle. It is used in particular to express the Indirect Object Complement (COI) but we will not see it right away because in order to be able to better understand this new use, we will have to see other particles beforehand. If I put you everything in one course all at once, you’ll never find your way around. It’s by setting things up, bit by bit, that you’ll get there.

I did the same in the first season on Japanese language writing. I did not present you all the hiragana and all the katakana with the accents, the combinations… at once. No, I went there gradually so that you could fully assimilate all that I have given you to learn.

I suspect that most of you are eager to speak fluent Japanese. You want to get in touch with Japanese people to talk to them, you want to read manga, watch Japanese movies and anime, maybe documentaries too, why not ? And, of course, when you read manga or watch Japanese movies and anime, you will hear sounds, phrases that you will not understand right away. So, you are going to ask yourself : « Why is this character in this film talking like that? » « Why is this character in this anime saying that? »... It is quite normal to be curious but, at the beginning, you will have to force yourself to start with very small sentences, very short and little by little we will move on to slightly more complex sentences ; but it will take time, a lot of time I won’t hide it from you because it is important to assimilate everything that we are going to see in this second season.

Compared to the first part on Japanese language writing, this second season will be much richer in content. We’ll see a lot more, which means you need to be very patient. Don’t skip the steps, don’t skip lessons by saying « yeah right, I don’t need this, I can move on ! ». No, it doesn’t work like that. All the courses are linked and are a necessary part of your learning Japanese.

I reassure you right away. All of these grammatical notions that we are going to see together do not require you to be gifted in English. What I mean by that is that we are going to talk about the subject of the verb, about the Direct Object Complement (COD), the Indirect Object Complement (COI), the tense complements... But don’t worry if you are not good at English grammar, if your English lessons at school are now way behind you, know that everything will be explained in great detail. For example, when we get to the COD particle, I will definitely give a reminder of what a COD is with a supporting example to illustrate this to jog your memory. Then, I know full well that there are some pretty complex grammatical terms that you certainly don’t know, unless you’re an English language or literature teacher or even a language teacher... or a « language geek » like me. If I tell you, for example, about coordinating conjunction, contradictory conjunction, transitive verb, intransitive verb, adverb of manner, adverb of degree, adverb of quantity, adverb of tense, adverb of frequency, adverbial particle, emphasis particle. There, I am convinced that most of you reading me have absolutely no idea of most of the grammatical terms I just mentioned. But again, don’t worry, I’ll take the time to explain everything to you, sometimes using different terms that will be easier to understand.

I remind you that I am not a Japanese teacher by trade and my way of teaching is certainly very different from what you see in the school system, although I never went to college. I am a great enthusiast of languages and not mastering all the very complex grammatical terms to perfection has never stopped me from learning several languages (afterwards to learn to teach languages, that’s another story!). You yourself who speak English may not know what a circumstantial condition complement or a conditional clause is while you use them regularly in your day to day life. So even when we cover grammatical notions specific to the Japanese language, I will explain absolutely everything to you. So, everything will be clear in your mind.

This second season will also be enhanced with vocabulary lessons where we will discover new words together. As long as it is necessary, I will put some remarks, some annotations in order to help you understand why such a word is like this or like that. But I will only do it for the vocabulary lessons. This same vocabulary will be the one I will use mainly in the grammar lessons that will come later. That is to say that you will have vocabulary lessons where you will have words to learn, so in the following grammar lesson you will find these same words, I will also indicate to you the vocabulary lesson that it would be good to review. So, you know the words that are going to be used and you won’t be lost. The goal is not to go around in circles around the same three or four words, it is to use lots of different words in the sentences so it will be most of all necessary to keep pace. Of course, even in grammar lessons, I will sometimes be required to use new words which do not come from vocabulary lessons and which I will put in the form of a list at the very end of the lesson.

Not all the vocabulary that we will see in vocabulary lessons will necessarily be used, but it does mean that you have to learn everything by heart. Nothing is to be overlooked.

In my courses, I also will use from time to time proper names in katakana to force you to go back over everything that we have seen about combinations, etcetera. Of course, I will occasionally use proper Japanese names. And learn them by heart too. These will be Japanese surnames like the ones we saw in the first season, but also Japanese first names. It is also important to memorize them because a course on Japanese first names awaits you towards the end of season two.

As for the first season, at the end of each grammar course you will have exercises in order to practice and check your mastery of the newly introduced notions.

Finally, to finish, during this whole second part, we will not see the polite form. Maybe some of you have already seen or heard of the polite form. These are the sentences with the verbs in です and -ます. To put it simply, using the polite form is to express yourself in a more polite way than the basic neutral form that we will be using throughout this second part. Personally, I won’t teach you the polite form from the start of grammar courses. We will not see this form until much later in the program. Most teachers at school teach it early on in grammar because when you speak Japanese you have to be polite. You cannot address your supervisor using the neutral form. It’s totally impossible and unthinkable! The Japanese are very fond of politeness, much more than we Westerners... and yet the polite form will have to wait. Why? Simply because I noticed when studying Japanese language myself and chatting with people around me who were also trying to learn Japanese that we couldn't quite distinguish between the polite form in an affirmative sentence or in a negative sentence... without confusing with the neutral form, and passive sentences – neutral form and polite form as well – as well as many subtleties here and there. Very quickly, it became a real puzzle and we did not know what was what. The difficulty was multiplied. Actually, I’ve realized that it was much easier to see everything at neutral form first, and then much later to focus solely on the polite form; we will revise everything that we have seen but by switching everything to the polite form in one go, it will be super easy.

Finally, you do not need a specific manual to follow my courses on this site. I will never ask you to buy a book, let’s remember that the purpose of this site is to make the Japanese language accessible to everyone. As for the first part, everything will be explained in detail, I will not tell you to refer to such a manual for this or that. However, I strongly recommend that you get at least – I mean at least – the « Kanji To Kana » to learn how to draw kanji, how to pronounce in purely Japanese and in Sino-Japanese such kanji and so on. If you ever come across a kanji that we haven’t seen in class and you want to know its pure and Sino-Japanese pronunciations, the « Kanji To Kana » will be essential for you. I already talked about this book in season one, so you should have already got it. If not, do it because I could never teach you 2000 kanji. One day it will take you to throw yourself into battle and go into it on your own.

I also suggest that you consult the FAQ where you will find advice and other indications concerning the various English-Japanese dictionaries that you can get because you will need them. Again, don’t worry, you don’t necessarily have to buy a dictionary. I present paid resources of course, but also free resources with the advantages and disadvantages for each of them. And, anyway, already know that the following course will focus on this subject. I will explain in detail all the possible and imaginable dictionaries that you can get.

And only then, we will finally see the famous course entitled « The formation of a Japanese sentence » where we will finally get to the heart of the matter. We will finally start to create sentences in Japanese, and then from lesson to lesson, little by little, we will learn to enrich our sentences, to create more and more complex sentences, and you will see, you will be able to make absolutely amazing things. Count on me !

This course on the presentation of the second part of Japanese lessons is this time well and truly over. Take the opportunity to review the previous courses to refresh your memory, take time to relax if you want and I’ll see you very soon I hope, in the next course.