In Japanese, there is no gender, no number, which means that anything masculine-feminine, singular-plural, does not exist.
Let’s take as an example, the kanji 兎. All by itself, this kanji can either mean « the rabbit (male) », « the rabbit (female) », « the rabbits (plural, male) », « the rabbits (plural, female) ».
Let’s take another example, the kanji 狐. All by itself, this kanji can either mean « the fox (male) », « the vixen (female fox) », « the foxes (plural, male) », « the vixens (plural, female fox) ».
A third example, the kanji 犬. All by itself, this kanji can either mean « the dog (male) », « the dog (female) », « the dogs (plural, male) », « the dogs (plural, female) ».
Finally, a last example, the kanji 猫. All by itself, this kanji can either mean « the cat (male) », « the cat (female) », « the cats (plural, male) », « the cats (plural, female) ».
The simple word can, depending on the context of the sentence of course, be translated in one of these four ways because these nuances do not exist in Japanese. Of course, if necessary, there is a way to specify if the subject (here, an animal) is male or female, or if there is one or more. But remember that the word as it is can mean all of this.
In Japanese, there are no definite articles and indefinite articles, which means that the idea of « a dog » or « the dog » or « rabbits » (no article), etc, all these things do not exist in Japanese.
That is, if we just take the kanji of 魚, as an example, we could just as easily translate it as « the fish » or « a fish » or « fish » if there are any several.
Ditto with other kanji seen higher (兎, 狐, 犬, 猫). We could translate them as « a rabbit (male or female) », « rabbits (plural, male or female) », « a fox (male) », « foxes (plural, male) », « the vixen (female fox) », « the cat (male or female) », « the cats (plural, male or female) », « cats » (no article, implies an indefinite number).
Come on, one last for the road : 象. All by itself, this kanji can either mean « elephant (male or female) », « elephants (plural, male or female) ».
With all these examples, you have certainly incorporated this first point. Let’s move on.
In Japanese, there are also no possessive adjectives. For you English speakers, you have in the English language, possessive adjectives :
– My, your, his / her
– Our, your, their
Well, in Japanese there is no equivalent. There is indeed the idea of possession but it is not expressed through possessive adjectives but with a particle : the particle の. We will see this particle in another course. Just remember that for now.
Finally, in Japanese, there are no conjugations, no tenses, no modes... Yes, you got it right! There are no conjugations and there is no tense.
That is, in Japanese the verb will not change its conjugation according to the personal pronoun. There are also no conjugation tenses. There is no compound past, imperfect, more-than-perfect, simple past…
In fact, there is only the tense of the present and the tense of the past. There is not even a future tense. Of course, there are different ways of expressing all nuances of tense concordance, which we’ll explore much later when we get into conjugation in more detail.
Thus, all the difficulties of conjugation specific to the English language, it does not exist in Japanese. As of this moment, we have just removed at least 70% of the things that make the English language difficult. And yet the English language is far from being the one with the most complex conjugation.
Before I go any further, I would like one thing to be very clear. The Japanese language is not a difficult language, far from it. All you need is an optimal method with courses and exercises to be done daily every day. And I mean every day, it’s important. I repeat : the Japanese language is not difficult.
If we take the comparison a little further with English, the sentences in Japanese are relatively short. The shorter we can make sentences and remove extraneous elements, the more we will do it. Conversely, in English, I don’t know if I can say that the sentences are longer since in English, we very often have the possibility of contracting words. Most often, we contract the verbs « to have » and « to be ». And we have the inversion of the possessor and the possessed when we want to express possession. However, in Japanese we use kanji to express ideas, so we can express a lot in writing using very few characters. This is the advantage of a language based in part on ideograms compared to a language based on an alphabet.
Obviously, the Japanese language has many other specificities of its own : particles, adverbs, invariable qualifying adjectives, variable qualifying adjectives… We will see all of this step by step.
Now if we want to create sentences in English and translate them into Japanese. It will be important not to translate them word for word. When we translate from one language to another, it is not the sentence that we are translating. It is an idea.
To illustrate my point, let’s take the following example : « I’m hopping in a taxi. »
Well, strictly speaking, I don’t « hop » in a taxi. Say, « I’m hopping in a taxi. » is a turn of phrase specific to the English language. The idea I want to translate is, « I’m getting in a taxi. »
So, I’m not going to use the Japanese verb « to hop » but « to get into a vehicle ». For the case, it’s the verb 乗る. のる.
It is therefore important to stray as far as necessary from English words to understand the overall idea of the sentence and, then, to retrieve it in Japanese. For most of you, you have probably had to learn Western languages such as German, Finnish or even Spanish, Portuguese, Italian... Generally, for the majority of Western languages, especially Spanish, Portuguese and Italian, the sentence construction system and the conjugation system are not quite the same as in English.
However, these are all languages which are quite alike. They have more or less the same grammar, the same Latin, Nordic, Greek origin... These are languages where we could almost translate word for word although usually any language teacher will tell you : that’s not the way to do it. I fully agree, although it should be noted that during the course of learning a Western language, Westerners acquire this habit, somewhat in spite of themselves, of translating quite often word for word the sentences of a western language to another western language.
Let’s take the example below :
EN : I buy a birthday cake for my little sister in a bakery.
FR : J’achète un gâteau d’anniversaire pour ma petite sœur dans une boulangerie.
ES : Yo compro un pastel de cumpleaños para mi pequeña hermana en una panadería.
PT : Eu compro um bolo de aniversário para minha irmãzinha numa padaria.
You will notice that all the elements of each sentence are translated word for word. Of course, this doesn’t always work, although between Western languages we tend to translate that way.
However, the Japanese language works differently to the point that it’s almost impossible to translate word for word. You won’t do it. So, if you are used to doing word-for-word translation for learning Japanese, you should definitely break this habit.
Either way, as soon as we start to create our first sentences in Japanese, you will quickly understand that word for word is not an option.
Well, it’s time to start creating our first sentences in Japanese !
Here is your first verb in Japanese that we will be working with a lot : the verb « to be » of description.
In English we have the verb « to be » which can mean several things.
For example, if I say :
I am a man. → I describe what I am. It is the verb « to be » of description.
Now, if I say :
I am in the house. → I describe where jI am. It is the verb « to be » of presence.
In English, we have a single verb for two different meanings. In Japanese, we will have TWO different « to be » verbs depending on the meaning we want to express. So, for now, we will focus only on the descriptive verb, which in Japanese is だ.
In Japanese, the verb is always at the end of the sentence. It’s always the last word of the sentence.
Then the verb does not need a subject to be used. It can be used on its own.
Now, let’s imagine that we want to create our first sentence (from Japanese to English) :
兎だ。→ It’s a rabbit.
We have the word « rabbit » and the verb « to be » at the end. A very simple sentence.
狐だ。→ It’s a fox.
We have the word « fox » and the verb « to be » at the end.
猫だ。→ It’s a cat.
We have the word « cat » and the verb « to be » at the end.
Now, imagine that we want sentences (starting, this time, from English and going to Japanese). We are not going to translate the « It », or the determinant « a ». We said above that they do not translate into Japanese. We just take the noun and the verb, keeping in mind that the verb always comes at the end :
It’s a horse. → 馬だ。
We have the word « horse » and the verb « to be » at the end. A very simple sentence.
It’s a bird. → 鳥だ。
We have the word « bird » and the verb « to be » at the end.
It’s an insect. → 虫だ。
We have the word « insect » and the verb « to be » at the end.
That’s all for this lesson.
So far, the sentences we’ve seen are the easiest in Japanese; but you will see, over the following courses, we will study many other aspects of the Japanese language and we will have to construct more and more complex sentences. You are therefore very likely to end up with a confused mind. Go back to review the previous course from before may be necessary.
Before continuing, a word on the verb だ. Its polite form is です. We will see this verb in more detail, but for now, know that in all our examples, we will only use だ.
Introduction