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Discovering the japanese language learnjapaneseprogram.com

Discovering the japanese language

Introduction

My interest for the japanese language began when I was a teenager. I really liked the

eastern culture in general, but the japanese one really stood out to me. I wanted to be

able to communicate with japanese people, listen to my songs and watch my stuff

without needing subtitles.

I m not a japanese descendant myself, my interest began because of anime and

manga. Through them I grew more and more curious about the japanese culture and

realized how awesome the country was. As I learned more and more japanese and

started to know Japan better, I started to realize the true benefits of speaking the

language.

Diving into the Japanese universe is like building a whole new life. You have the

opportunity to double your sources of information and entertainment. All of that

contributes to your own developing as a person. But not everything is a bed of roses,

as you know there is a ton of information on the internet, but very unorganized, so it

took me a while to learn how to use all that content. With that in mind I created this

book, to help people who are interested in starting learning Japanese, by organizing

the information so you can learn the most important stuff in the right order.

Also, something I d like to tell you is that english is my second language, so if you find

any small inconsistency in any part of this book, please take it with a grain of salt, as I

wrote it and reviewed it all by myself.

So now that you know a little bit about me, let s start!



How to use this book

You can use this book in two ways. The first way is to take it easy, slowly absorbing

each one of the topics. In the first part, we present the Japanese Writing System, and it

is crucial that you learn how it works to continue to Part 2. In Part 2, various examples

of phrases are shown. If you have mastered the contents of Part 1, you can follow

those examples very easily.

The second way would be to completely rush the book. At first it may seem strange,

but the fact is that our knowledge is not built in a linear way. If you read the whole

book even without absorbing 100% of the content, and then start over and return to

specific parts, you will have a completely different view of the lessons, as you review

things you had not understood before.

You can also use this book as a guide if you are studying Japanese and want to consult.

Some chapters of the book have reference material that can be very useful.

Focus on the studies

I am an enthusiast of the language learning process. You will see me talking a lot about

learning methods and study tips, about what is really going to make a difference in

your studies.

The "how" you do something is as important as what you actually do. As Albert

Einstein said, Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting

different results .



PART 1: The Japanese Writing System

The Japanese writing is fascinating and it arouses the curiosity even of people who are

not Japanese enthusiasts. You may have noticed the amount of people writing

Japanese symbols in their tattoos and in stickers for their cars.

In this first part, we re going to study in detail the Japanese Writing System. You will

understand what is the function of each one of the syllabaries and how ideograms

work. Phonetic syllabaries are relatively easy to learn and ideally you should

completely master it by the end of this section.

The Japanese writing system has three different systems: HIRAGANA, KATAKANA and

KANJI. These three are used always at the same time.

For HIRAGANA and KATAKANA, you are going to use a week for each one, nothing

more than that. I always try to make my students lose as little time as possible on

them, because they re very simple.

Let's get started!



1. Romaji

Yes, it is romaji, not romanji. Many people get this wrong. If you're a fan of things from

Japan, such as music, anime, movies and traditional culture, you've probably came

across several Japanese words written in our alphabet.

Examples:

Sushi

Itadakimasu

Arigatou

Sugoi

The Japanese give the name of ー字 (roomaji or romaji) to the Western system

of writing. In fact, romaji is more or less the Japanese way to refer to the Western

alphabet.

However, non-Japanese, especially Japanese fans, adopted the term to refer to

Japanese words written in the Roman alphabet. In other words, we can say that the

words previously used as examples are written in romaji.

This may not be news to you, but this clarification is important, mainly because the

information in the internet about it being too scattered.

Now, one thing that most do not know is that there are no absolute rules for writing in

romaji. There is no right or wrong, as it is just an adaptation from the original japanese.

I see many people worried about how to write correctly in romaji, or correcting a

person who wrote different from the most widely used form. That does not make

much sense, since romaji is only a transcript of the original japanese word.



2. HIRAGANA, KATAKANA AND KANJI

You've probably seen things written in Japanese and faced with various symbols and

cool letters. In fact, the japanese writing is beautiful! Besides being a tool for

communication, it is also an art.

Have you ever seen Japanese symbols being written with a brush, using a black ink?

That is called shodou (書 ) う .If you are looking for a new hobby,

search more about it later!

There are many wrong rumors about the Japanese writing. I remember when I was in

high school, a professor said that every single letter of japanese means a whole word,

and for a person to know 5,000 words, they must have memorized 5,000 symbols. As

someone who had already started learning japanese, I knew it was absurd, but the rest

my classmates ended up absorbing a wrong information.

There are some words composed of a single symbol, but they are few. Virtually, no

Japanese native knows 5,000 symbols, but probably everyone knows more than 5,000

words.

The japanese language has three writing systems, and before you ask: Yes, they all are

used at the same time.

In fact, the three systems are complementary, each one has its function and its time to

be used. As a person who wishes to learn japanese, you must learn all three.



The three writing systems are:

HIRAGANA ( )

KATAKANA タ

KANJI 漢字

Let's see how the three systems are used at the same time:

Example:

山田車タイ .

(This is Mr. Yamada s car tire)

Purple, we have the HIRAGANA!

In blue, we have KANJI!

Orange, we have KATAKANA!

They are used all at the same time, each one with their proper function.

Two of these systems are only phonetic. Phonetic means that the letters represent

sounds, just like the Roman alphabet. In fact, we're used only with phonetic writing

systems.

The phonetic systems are HIRAGANA and KATAKANA, where each letter represents a

sound. That means that a letter in isolation has no meaning unless it represents a word.

Both HIRAGANA KATAKANA as have 46 letters each.

KANJI is different, each letter represents an idea, a meaning. Each KANJI has a

meaning, so each one of them can be read phonetically differently depending on the

word they are used. But don t worry, it is not as difficult as it sounds, and I wrote a

section only for kanji so I can explain everything about it.



3. HIRAGANA

HIRAGANA ( ) is the most basic system of the japanese writing. It is the first

one that children learn in school and it is possible to write every japanese word with it.

However, even though you can write every Japanese word with it, this is not exactly

what happens. The other two systems are widely used.

The system consists of 46 letters, each letter representing a sound, a syllable.

Also, there are no consonants.



あ A

KA

SA

TA

NA

HA

MA

YA

RA

わ WA

い I

KI

SHI

CHI

NI

HI

MI

RI

う U

KU

SU

TSU

NU

FU

MU

YU

RU

WO

え E

け KE

SE

TE

NE

HE

ME

RE

O

KO

そ SO

TO

NO

HO

MO

YO

RO

N

Observations:

The letter although Romanized as "wo" has the sound of "o", like ;

No word begins with the letter .

Hiragana is used to represent phonetically every word. When you look in a dictionary

for a word in KANJI, the representation will be in HIRAGANA. A lot of words are also

written only in HIRAGANA.



Example:

地鉄

The word is in KANJI, but above them, we have a phonetic representation in

HIRAGANA. This is called furigana (placing the reading over the kanji).

Tip: Most of the mangas have furigana on all their kanji. That makes reading manga

a very good exercise to learn kanji.

When you cannot write a certain KANJI, a way to keep the communication is to write

the word in Hiragana. That is what children do. Even adults stopped using some kanji

for being difficult or too time consuming to write.

Hiragana is also used for particles.

Example:

飛行機う

ーー行い

。

(I went to New York by plane.)

The particles detached are hiragana. The particle is where or using what an action

occurs and the particle indicates the direction.

It is also used on verbs. Most verbs have their own KANJI, but the part that indicates

its flexion comes in HIRAGANA:



Example:

昨日う

, 食ました.

(Yesterday, I ate sushi).

今日う

, 食ます.

(Today, I eat sushi).

The highlighted part in each sentence are hiragana indicating the verb tense. In the

first, we have the verb "eat" in the past, and in the second, present.

Dakuten (濁点) And Handakuten (半濁点)

These symbols work for both HIRAGANA and KATAKANA, and they re used to modify

the sound of a letter.

The dakuten is popularly called tenten (点々), and it refers to the symbol that

modifies the following letters:

→ Dakuten

→ Handakuten



Handakuten, popularly known as maru ( ), refers to the symbol and it s used

only in the letters , , , , as it follows:

With these symbols, we increase the range of possible sounds in Japanese, while keeping

the same number of letters.

Junctions

We can add a few letters to form new sounds, such as:

Actually, there are a limited number of letters in which that occurs:

＋＝

kya ya ki ＋



kya

kyu

kyo

sha

shu

sho

tcha

chu

cho

nya

nyu

nyo

hya

hyu

hyo

bya

byu

byo



pya

pyu

pyo

rya

ryu

ryo

Notice that the second letter is always small. In fact, when you are writing, this

difference should be visible. Ideally, the small print is approximately 1/4 the size of

conventional letters.



The small

When we insert the letter , small size, between two letters, it creates a double

consonant. When pronouncing it, you have to make a little pause on the small つ, it s

almost like a little cut between a syllable and the other.

Some words using the little:

Zasshi

Magazine

う

Gakkou

School

Bikkuri

Surprised / scared



Letters with similar sounds

Looking at the list of letters that make up the HIRAGANA, we can see some letters

which apparently have the same sound, which are:

And

and

and

Addressing the the first pair, ( and ): Both are read as o , however

( ) is used only as a particle. This will be better explained on the particles session.

The important thing to understand here is that there is a particle with the sound "o"

which is written with the letter , even though in romaji it is usually written as wo .

As for the other two cases, the sound is the same. There is no logical way to know if a

word uses one or the other, you really need to learn how to write the word.

The good news is that for the pair and , we can say that 95% of the words are going

to be using , and the pair and , 95% of the words use .

Also, a very fun way to memorize the HIRAGANA is to listen to songs in Japanese and

try to follow the lyrics.



Conclusion

If someone asks me: "What is the FIRST thing I need to do to learn Japanese?". My

answer is: "Learn HIRAGANA".

Knowing HIRAGANA is important for you to search in dictionaries, both physical and

online. HIRAGANA is the basis for everything else, there is no way to learn Japanese on

a functional level without knowing HIRAGANA.

Also, it is not difficult! Despite being almost double the letters we use in english, our

brain is able to fully learn it quickly. Look up for words in HIRAGANA and write them

multiple times. You can also use a site like http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/ and try

to read every hiragana you find. In one week you re going to be good to go.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/



4. KATAKANA ( タ )

KATAKANA is another basic system of writing. It is also composed of 46 letters. All the

sounds that exist in HIRAGANA, exist in KATAKANA. The difference between them is in

situations in which they are used.

ア A

KA

SA

タ TA

NA

HA

MA

YA

RA

ワ WA

イ I

キ KI

SHI

チ CHI

NI

HI

MI

RI

U

KU

SU

TSU

NU

FU

MU

YU

RU

WO

E

KE

SE

TE

NE

HE

ME

RE

O

KO

ソ SO

TO

NO

ホ HO

MO

YO

RO

N



The most visible case for KATAKANA are words with foreign origin, mainly from the

West and the English language. Mostly, words that were imported from other

languages and are now part of the Japanese language.

Some examples:

s u k a a

ーt o

skirt

k o o

ーh i i

ー

coffee

h a n b a a

ーg u

hamburguer

b a n a n a

banana

Looking at the phonetic of these words, we can see a clear resemblance to the

phonetics of the original word, however, these words have already been incorporated

into the Japanese language and we can safely say they are japanese words.

Extension signal ―

In katakana, the extension signal is widely used, and it is represented by ー. It prolongs

the sound of the previous syllable, as seen on the previous examples.

Name of countries and cities

KATAKANA is also used to name countries and cities outside Japan:

Examples:

AMERIKA



ア United States of America BURAJIRU

Brazil ITARIA

イタア Italy FURANSU

France

NYUUYOOKU

ーー New York

RONDON

London



Names

KATAKANA is also used to the write non-japanese names.

Some common names in English written in KATAKANA:

Name Katakana

Anthony アソー

Brian イア

Dennis

Hector ター

Joseph

Patrick

Wesley ー



KANJI (漢字)

KANJI is no doubt the one which generates more curiosity, admiration, enthusiasm and

doubts among people who want to learn Japanese.

KANJI is the most striking feature of the japanese language. They are more complex

than the other writing systems, as well as being way more beautiful.

But how do they work? How to learn KANJI? I will try to answer the most common

questions asked by students about it!

The most important concept that you must understand in relation to KANJI is that each

one of them represents a meaning. KANJIS are also commonly referred to as

ideograms.

More importantly, each KANJI has only one meaning, one idea. When consulting

dictionaries, it is common to see several words in english describing it, but this is often

because the meaning is too large to be represented by a single word in another

language.

KANJI originated in China (Hanzi being its original name). Those ideograms have

evolved over the centuries until we got what we have today.

The total number of ideograms, especially if we include China, is absolutely unclear. In

Japan, there are about 6,000 ideograms scattered throughout the literature, and 2,136 of

them considered by the Japanese Ministry of Education and Culture as regular-use Kanji.

Before you get alarmed by these numbers, I'll tell you a secret that few books and few

teachers know:



Approximately 20% of the 2,136 kanji composes 80% of all the content written in

Japanese.

In other words, knowing a good number of words that are written with approximately

450 kanji, you can acquire a level of familiarity with the language that allows you to

read magazines, books and other written materials. At this level, you can already read

enough to make the process very enjoyable.

Eventually, learning new kanji will become an automatic process as you are more and

more exposed to them.

Jouyou Kanji (常用漢字)

The Japanese Ministry of Education and Culture selected the most used ideograms and

officially announced them as the Joyou Kanji (Regular-use Kanji) (常用漢字)

うう漢字 .

That was an attempt to organize them to be more easily taught and read. Almost 99%

of the Japanese written content only use these kanji.

Many foreigners are shocked to see these numbers. You must be thinking that you ll

only be able to read Japanese after learning all the 2000 letters.

Not quite. First of all, understand that it makes no sense to measure the amount of

Japanese by the number of kanji you know. I know people who have studied



a lot of kanji and know very little japanese, and also people who speak Japanese very

well but know very few kanji.

In Japan, 1006 kanjis are taught in elementary school. However, between childhood

and preadolescence, a Japanese is not limited only to kanjis taught in school. Through

experience, a Japanese will learn many other symbols that appear in people's names,

words on television and also within the written content they consume, such as

magazines, books, manga, catalogs, advertising etc. The number 1006 kanji refers only

to formal education.



School year Number of kanji

First year 80 kanji

Second year 160 kanji

Third year 200 kanji

Forth Year 200 kanji

Fifth year 185 kanji

Sixth year 181 kanji

High school 1130 kanji

What makes the Japanese really learn KANJI is not their education in school, but being

exposed to it almost every day of their lives.

So far, we are talking as if isolated kanjis meant something, but actually, to make it

simpler, in the end, kanji are only letters used to write words, and being a japanese

reader is not about reading kanji itself, it is about reading words. It is very common to

know the meaning of all the kanji that make up a word but not knowing the word

itself. In some cases, you try to deduce the meaning, but that s not always possible.



KUNYOMI AND ONYOMI

Kanjis are ideograms, so they are not phonetic. A KANJI represents a meaning. Words

are written in KANJI and within each word, each KANJI will have a different reading.

Consider the following examples:

Word In japanese

Tomorrow

あ

明日

Today

う

今日

Sunday

う

日曜日

Diary

日記

Japan

日本



In all of them we have the KANJI 日, which means day (it also means sun).

Considering all the words that use a KANJI and all the ways it can be read, we reached

a number of 2 to 5 ways to read the same KANJI. These ways of reading a KANJI are

categorized into two groups: Onyomi (音読 ) and Kunyomi (訓読 ).

Onyomi is how the KANJI was pronounced in China when they were incorporated into

Japanese. Also, that doesn t mean that these readings are the same as the reading in

Chinese nowadays.

The KANJI were not imported to Japan all at once. Remember that we are talking

about several centuries ago. At that time, different KANJIS were imported to different

regions at different times.

Whenever we talk about "Japan imported kanji from China", people tend to think that

it was a systemic process which took up Chinese characters and adapted to Japanese.

Not exactly, the kanji came tied to words. Thousands of Chinese words were

incorporated into Japanese, and the way each KANJI was read in these words is what

we call Onyomi. The act of separating the readings was something done much later, to

facilitate the study and understanding of the language.



Usually, Onyomi is used in words composed by more than one KANJI, without any

HIRAGANA. Most of these words originated in China, and it was through them that the

KANJI were imported.

A few words where the kanji are read with Onyomi:

Word Meaning

うう

空港 Airport

わ

電話 Telephone

母語 Mother language

う

旅行 Travel

These words are called jukugo (熟語). We talk about them later in this chapter.

Now talking about Kunyomi, it is the Japanese reading of the KANJI. Before the

Japanese developed a form of writing, they would talk, they had words to represent

things. When the Chinese writing system began to appear in Japan, the Japanese were

gradually associating japanese words with chinese KANJI. This way, original japanese

words started to be tied to KANJI.



A few words where the kanji is read as kunyomi:

Word Meaning

あ

赤い Red

東 East

木 Tree

そ

空 Sky

人 Person

Jukugo (熟語)

Jukugo is basically a word composed of more than one KANJI. Each kanji is a letter.

Examples:

Word Meaning

日本 Japan

う

銀行 Bank (Financial Institution)

うえ

公園 Park

うえ

野 Ueno (A region in Tokyo)

う

野球 Baseball



Usually, it is easy to decipher the meaning of a jukugo once you know the meaning of

each KANJI, but Japanese natives will only stop to do that when they really don t know

the word. It s the same thing in english, when you know a word you look at them and

you instantly know it s sound and meaning. When you do not know a word, you stop,

read calmly and, if not automatically learn it by the context of the sentence, then you

look at a dictionary or ask someone.

Approximately 50% of the words in Japanese are composed of jukugo.

Learning words in jukugo is one of the most efficient ways to learn the readings of the

kanji. Learning and studying jukugos (which are nothing more than words), makes you

automatically learn the readings of the kanji inside them.

Radicals (部首)

If you've seen the kanji details, you must have realized that various parts are repeated

in several different ideograms. If you have not noticed, we'll talk about it now.

To get started, see the examples below:

持 carry

待 stop

時 time

Notice that the three ideograms above have a common element. The 寺 symbol.

The 寺 itself is also composed of elements even simpler, see:



The kanji 寺 is formed by the kanji 土 (on top) and the kanji 寸 at the bottom. With

this, you can see that the kanji are not just random traits, they are formed by a limited

number of elements that are repeated several times.

These elements can facilitate your learning.

As you become more and more familiar with the ideograms, you will pay attention to

these elements. Knowledge of these elements helps you to remember the kanji, and

allows associations to remember its meaning.

More examples:

木 tree

林 grove

森 forest

Notice that the kanji 木 appears as an element of kanji 林 and 森. You can use your

imagination to create associations that will help you remember the meaning, for

example:

A grove is formed by some trees: 林

A forest consists of many trees: 森



Knowledge of these radicals can be very useful for foreign students because you can

use some mnemonics to memorize kanji. You can create relationships between the

meaning of the radicals and stories that take the meaning of the KANJI.

Part 2 - The Japanese language

Now that you re a little more familiar with the Japanese writing, I m going to show you

how basic sentences work in japanese.

For this part you don t need to have memorized all HIRAGANA, KATAKANA and, even less,

KANJI. Remember that this is a theoretical and reference book. If you are somewhat

familiar with Japanese writing, you might even learn through the example sentences to

be presented.

HIRAGANA and KATAKANA will be massively used in the example sentences. You may

still not have them completely mastered, so feel free to use those sentences as

practice for yourself.

First off, it is very important to understand that the japanese sentences work very

differently from the english ones. Yet, they are actually very simple to understand.

On the Japanese language, the verb is always at the end of the sentence. There are

sentences with more than one verb, but even on this case, the verb is always at the

end of each one of their respective parts of the sentence.



There is also no future tense. When saying something in the future, simply conjugate

the verb in the present, then inform when that will happen.

In Japanese, context is very important. When two Japanese people are talking, they do

not usually repeat words and ideas that are already implied by the context, thereby

leaving some very short sentences. Pronouns such as I , you , he , are not

repeated that often.

1. The most basic phrases

It would not be possible, nor is it the purpose of this book, to cover all kinds of phrases

in Japanese. The best way to do this is through study of texts with audio, preferably

with detailed explanations to each phrase.

I will present some basic phrases and explain its elements, so this way you can better

understand how it works. Mainly to study its verbs and particles.



Affirmative phrases

Example:

Are wa kuruma

あ車

That is a car.

Analyzing the phrase:

あ : It / That

: IS particle indicating what we're talking about.

車: Car

This

Close to you

That

Close to the person

you re talking to

That

Far away from you

and the person

you re talking to

そあ

In Japanese, the formal and informal languages are very different. The formality varies

according to the level of intimacy and hierarchy between two people, which are

particularly noticeable in verbs.

To leave the previous sentences in a formal way, which we should use to talk to people

who we have no intimacy with, you should always include the term :

This is a pencil.

そソ That is a computer.



あター That is a taxi.

essentially doesn t have an exact translation or an exact meaning, it is used as a

formality.

These basic phrases can be used for any situation where we are saying that something

or someone is something.



Example:

わ。

I'm Mark.

学校う

。

This is a school

田中ー選手。

Mr. Tanaka is a football player.

わ国大い。

My country is great. あ

あ車赤い。

That car is red.

We also cannot forget the , which is basically the informal version of . But it

cannot be used after adjectives.

イ。

This is a microphone.

けいいわ

そわ携帯電話。

This is my cellphone.

あ

青い。

This truck is blue.

All the phrases above are informal.

Notice that the latter does not have the , because the word 青あ

い(blue) is an adjective.

Interrogative sentences

Based on this simple format phrases we've learned, we can create some questions:



To illustrate:

何。

What is this?

イ。


The expression 何 means "What is it?", and the word 何 means "what".

Notice that since we put a at the end, the sentence became a question. The at

the end is almost like a question mark and it is always placed after the verb when it

comes to an interrogative sentence.

If you actually paid attention to the 何 furigana, you must have realized that in this

sentence it is read as , and when we put the word alone, it is read as . That's

correct. You must learn that the word is read as , but when it is accompanied by

and by other terms you ll learn in the future, is read as .

The question mark (?) does exist in the japanese language, and it retains the same

functionality as in english. However, is used when being formal, so in informal

situations the question mark is going to be used to indicate it is a question:

The same example above, but in an informal way:

何?

What is it?

そイ .


The meaning of the phrase remains the same, but informal.



Negative sentences

Denial phrases in japanese don t have the word no . In fact, there is no word

equivalent to our "no" that works in the same situations. We make the sentence

negative by modifying the verb. This section will teach you how make sentences

negative.

See the following sentences:

あ .

That's a bird.

ああ .

That's not a bird.

電話わ

.

That's a phone.

電話わ

い .

That s not a phone.

Notice that we use あ and い . Both forms are correct.

In a casual situation, we could use only い.



い

あ

More used in writing

(not an absolute rule)

い

あ

Most used in speech

(not an absolute rule)

Past tense

The same way we can make a sentence negative by changing its ending, we can also do

the same to change it to past tense. The term we use is for formal phrases,

and for informal phrases.

Examples:

あ , わ子 .

At that time, I was a child.

タア静 .

The stadium was silent.



Present Past

/

ああ

ああ

い

い



2. Particles (助詞)

Particles are basically elements that demonstrate the relationship between words and

phrases. The most basic particles dictate the relationship between words and the verb

of the sentence. There are also particles that show relationship between a word and

another.

In this chapter, I will explain the functions of the main particles and use example

sentences to demonstrate the function of each one of them.

Particle

The particle has a very simple and easy to understand function. Basically, it

indicates that something belongs to something.

Example:

わえ

My pencil

The above expression means "My pencil", the word わ means "I" and the

word え means "pencil". The particle connects the two words and the word

that comes after (え ) belongs to the word that comes before (わ ).



Another example:

犬い

首輪わ

Dog's collar

犬 means "dog" and 首環わ

means "collar".

Just look at what comes before and what comes after the particle.

Some other examples:

人心

A person s heart

車タイ

Car's tire

歌手イ

Singer s microphone

先生い

Teacher s glasses

母

Mother s dress



Particle

This particle is also pretty easy to understand. It basically means ``and``. Just keep in

mind that it is not the exact translation of and , so there will be situations where

and would be used, but not .

See example:

本ー

Book and notebook

The word 本 means "book" and the word ー means "notebook", so the

expression means "book and notebook."

However, unlike in english, there is no problem to repeat it more than once.

Example:

うう羊

Ox, horse and sheep

In the sentence above we have "cow and horse and sheep". There is no problem in

repeating the particle this way, it is not wrong.




ソ携帯電話けいいわ

Computer and mobile phone

父母

Father and mother

東京う

京都う

Tokyo and Kyoto

土水

Land and water

日月

Sun and moon

犬い

猫

Dog and cat



Particle

The particle is very similar to the particle, except that it s not restricted to

specified items.

Example:

車

Car and Truck (among others)

The word 車 means "car", the word means "truck". The expression means

"cars, trucks and other ...". The particle leaves open the possibility that there are

other words of the same universe.

An example:

路う

車あ .

On the highway, there are cars, trucks and others.

There is no equivalent to this particle in english, the closest would be the term "etc", but

the use is still different.

Particle

This is undoubtedly the most widely used particle. It indicates the main subject of the

sentence, about what or who we are talking about, which is the topic of the sentence.

Notice that it is written with the letter but it sounds like a わ. When you



get a little familiar with the Japanese language, it is very easy to recognize it inside a

sentence, so don t need to worry about it.

私わ

自転車青あ

い .

My bicycle is blue.

The expression behind the is the main subject. Which means that everything that

comes after the is talking about the subject.

私自転車青い。

Main Subject About the main subject

When translating this phrase to english, we would say my bicycle is blue , but for

japanese students this translation can be misleading, because it gives the idea that the

is referring to the subject, but that not exactly how it really works.

A more proper translation to explain how the particle really works would be:

Talking about my bicycle, it is blue

About my bicycle, it is blue

Of course, if we re translating something to english speakers we wouldn t do it this

way, these translations are only made to make you understand how to particle works.

You have to understand that, the particle doesn t refer directly to the subject, it doesn t

necessarily indicate who is doing the action. It indicates the main subject, about what or

who we are talking about.




On the following examples, other particles and verbs may appear, but don t worry

about them right now, just focus on the は particle, as we re going to explain all of

them in the next chapters. After finishing your studies, you can revisit these phrases,

and then have a deeper understanding of the language.

私わ

家いえ

。

Here is my house.

日本語。

Mark doesn t know japanese

父会社員いい

。

My father is an employee of a company.

姉え

日本行い

。

The older sister is going to Japan.

私わ

２歳い

。

I m 25 years old.

今い

午後時。

Right now it s 4pm.

授業う

朝あ

８時始。

The class begins at 8am.



昼う食。

I ve already had lunch.

Particle が

The が particle indicates the subject of a sentence, the one who s performing the

action or being attributed a characteristic.

Example:

兄い

寝。

The older brother sleeps

The word 兄 means older brother and 寝 is the verb to sleep .

The older brother is followed by the が particle because he is the one performing the

action to sleep .

Example:

鳥小い

い。

The bird is small

On the example, we re attributing the characteristic 小い ( small ) to the

substantive 鳥 ( bird ).

The difference between the particle and is pretty clear:



indicates who or what we are talking about.

indicates who is performing the action, or being given a characteristic.

Because of the way japanese to english translation works, sometimes phrases using

and は can have their meanings reduced to adapt to english, because there s no literal

translation, which can create confusion. That s why I m going to explain it using the

following example:

山田行い

。

山田行い

。

Adapting these two phrases to english, the translation would be:

Mr. Yamada goes.

That s when people get confused. Where is the difference? We have to understand

that english and japanese are different languages, and work differently. So, in this

case, the translation is hiding the true difference of these two sentences.

It would be very easy to understand if we explain it this way:

山田行。 Mr. Yamada goes

山田行。 About Mr. Yamada, he goes.



Easy, on the first case we re simply narrating about some guy called Mr. Yamada who is

going somewhere. In the second case we are saying that Mr. Yamada (who the person

we are talking to probably knows), is going somewhere.

Finding logical explanations to these differences can be very tricky, because japanese

people learn this stuff instinctively. I actually had this kind of problem when I started,

but as you keep studying and listening to more and more japanese, you ll basically

begin to feel it .


赤あ

。

The baby cries.

う走。

The horse runs.

本田うい。

Mr. Honda is at home.

私わ

日本語好。

I like japanese

頭あ

いい。

Is intelligent (Literally: The head is good).

待。

Sayuri is waiting for Sayaka



歯痛い

い。

The tooth hurts.

雨あ

降。

It rains

Particle も

By learning the particles and it gets pretty easy to understand the particle . It

is used in the place of or to give to impression of ``too``.

For example:

私わ

車赤あ

い。 My car is red.

田中車赤あ

い。

Mr. Tanaka s car is red too.

On the first sentence we say About my car, it is red (already doing the literal

translation that we just learned). On the second one, we are also doing the same: Mr.

Yamada s car too, it is red .

To use the particle, it is needed some previous context to be presented. The idea of

too has to be linked to something previously mentioned, just like in english.



Example:

A: Ｋ－大好い

！

I like k-pop very much

B: 私わ

！

Me too!

The も particle can also be used this way, even if the phrase isn t complete , there is

no problem because the context has been previously stablished.


前田え

ーア行い

。

Mr. Maeda went to Australia.

中田行い

。

Mr. Tanaka (went) too.

飛行機う

飛。

The plane flies.



ター飛。

The helicopter flies too.

：甘あ

い大好い

！

I love sweets!

：私わ

大好い

！

I like it too.

Particle を

With this particle we ll be able to add a little more detail to our phrases, as it marks the

direct object in the sentence.

Examples:

猫肉食。

The cat eats meat/the meat.

The word 猫, which means cat, is followed by , telling us that the one performing the

action.

After that, we have the word 肉 which means meat, followed by the particle を. Before

explaining the particle, let s jump to the verb (to eat).

We already know that the one who performs the action is the cat because of the

particle. Now, simple thinking: If someone eats, they eat something right? That s what

the particle is for.

The particle is the what? . Ate what? Drank what? Wrote what? Etc. All of those

questions are answered using .



More examples:

う

日本語勉強。

To study japanese.

見。

To watch TV.

食。

To eat pizza.

使い。

To use a scissor

ー買い。

To buy a juice

うう

洋服売。

To sell clothes.

う

数学学。

To learn math.

飲。

To drink milk.

ー。

To play a game.

-うう

歌歌い。

To sing a song.



Particle で

This particle is also relatively easy. It indicates where the action occurs or what tool used

to perform it. We can differentiate it by context, but the looking at it more closely, we

can basically conclude that the concept is the same: what the action is performed

through.

Example:

食。

To eat sushi using chopsticks

Using the particle , we are telling what tool is being used to eat the sushi.

meaning chopsticks and meaning sushi. Besides the verb , to eat.

Another example

駅え

友待。

To wait for a friend at the station.

The verb 待 means ``to wait``. When someone waits, they wait for something.

In this case, they are waiting for a friend, 友 . The word 駅, which means station, is

where the action to wait is being performed. Notice that just by knowing the context

we can easily tell if it is where, or with what the action is being performed.




う

イタア料理食。

To eat italian food at the restaurant.

アイ。

To work at a convenience store.

ー豚肉食。

To eat pork with a fork.

ーー飲。

To drink coffee with a cup.

ー払い。

To pay by credit card.

うい

飛行機ー行。

To go to Europe by plane.

うい

病院働。

To work at the hospital

イター日本語習い。

To learn japanese at the internet



Particle へ

Then we have another particle where the sound it s different from how we actually

write it. The letter should have the same sound as え. Again, once you re

familiarized with the language, doing that distinction will be no major problem.

The function of this particle is very simple. It indicates direction for movement verbs.

For example, if you re going to a certain direction, it should be indicated using the

particle .

Example:

う

社長ー送。

To send an email to the company s president.

The verb 送ります means to send . When something is sent, it need to be sent

somewhere, which in this case is to the company s president . Here is a couple more

examples to facilitate your understanding of the particle.

Example:

い

日本行。

To go to Japan.

The verb 行 means to go , and 日本 means Japan.

This particle is also used to write letters, for example:

To Mr. Jhon




そ

外出。

To go outside.

行い

？。

Where are you going?

いいい

海外行あ？

Have you ever been overseas?

う

勝利。

The path to victory.

Particle に

This is the particle which causes the most problems to my students. It looks pretty

straightforward on the surface, but it is very easy to get it wrong and suddenly not

really knowing how to properly use it. But don t worry, I m going to explain you exactly

how to learn it the right way.

Particle に to verbs in general – learning by using it

I m gonna teach you exactly how japanese kids learn to speak through some examples.

Then you can apply this concept to all of your studies. Also, still on this part I m going

to show various situations where it is used.

Veja o seguinte exemplo:

い

入。

To enter the convenience store.

On the sentence above we can learn that 入 is the verb to enter/to get in ,

and that means convenience store . With only this information we can

assume it means To get in the convenience store , right?



That s where we might have a little problem. As we observe various cases we end up

trying to create a logic, that the に particle indicates the indirect object, or it means

in/on/at . This might work in some cases, but in the specific case of this particle, that

will only make learning it harder.

To facilitate our future understanding of this particle, we should just conclude:

For the verb 入 , which means to get in , it indicates where to get in/to

enter.

That s it, case solved. This way, every time you wish to say something like to enter

somewhere , you can just follow the example:

[somewhere] 入い

。


い

う入。

To enter my house.

ういい

病院入。

To enter the hospital

うい

学校入。

To enter the school.

うい

社長部屋入。

To enter the president s office/room.

Let s proceed to another example, and another verb:



乗。

To take the bus

The verb 乗 means to take any means of transportation . There s no exact

translation to this verb. It can be used to ride a bicycle , take a cab , etc.

means bus , so in this case you can conclude that in this phrase it means to

take the bus . Thus, from now on we can use this pattern for any means of

transportation.

[transport] 乗。


電車乗。

To take the train.

自転車乗

To ride the bicycle.

ター乗。

To take a cab.

新幹線乗。

To take the bullet train.

ーイ乗。

To ride the motorcycle.

This is basically the most efficient way to learn the use of the particle. When

reading a phrase using it, simply memorize the use for that specific verb. Don t look for

a single explanation for every verb, learn it s function for each verb.



One more example:

ー書。

To write on the notebook.

The phrase above means to write on the notebook . In this case we just learned that

for the 書 verb, the particle will indicate where it is written . You could

change notebook for any other material where something could be written and it

will work the same way.

Particle に where “へ”would be used

Previouly we learned the particle. In almost every case where we use the particle,

we can use the particle, without any loss of meaning, see:

そ

外出。

To go outside

行い

？

Where are you going?

海外いい

行い

あ？

Have you ever been overseas?


Discovering the japanese

Final considerations

We reached the end of our studies, but there s much left to do! Obviously, I didn t put

everything I wanted on this book because if I did it would take at least 500 pages. My

goal from the start was to give you a general idea of the language and I hope after

finishing this book, the next time you watch any anime, movie or manga you can

already start to feel the difference. Remember to subscribe to our free training in our

site http://learnjapaneseprogram.com/ if you didn t, as I will be sending you

information about how to keep improving your japanese!

Thank you for coming all the way here, and see you soon!

http://learnjapaneseprogram.com/

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