I recently became aware of a cool online study tool service called Skritter, which helps you study kanji (Chinese characters).
As someone who is always looking for good study methods and a self-proclaimed master of self-study (heh heh), I really admire this service and think that anyone can make good use of it.
Skritter is an online kanji study tool that allows you to review kanji that you already know. From looking at the site and its description, it may seem like it's some kind of teaching service that will teach you new characters, but that's not what it's about. It's a study tool for you to review the characters you've already taught yourself.
It combines everything you need to review, but it offers services that other programs and simply writing on paper cannot. Not only does it read to you, but it lets you write the characters directly onto the site. But it doesn't just let you write for practice -- you're supposed to write them properly.
I have to say that if you're dedicated to learning kanji and want an easy tool to efficiently practice kanji the right way, you should really go for Skritter. Here are the helpful parts to Skritter that I think make it the ultimate tool for reviewing the kanji you've already learned:
* Review system based on the Leitner system -- constantly review everything you need to with proper frequency. All automated for you so you don't have to shuffle cards around or think about what you need to review.
* Voice clips help you hear the kanji as you write them. Because you're reading, writing, and hearing all at the same time, you are fully immersed in the kanji learning environment to learn them in the best way possible.
* Judges stroke order. Anyone can tell you that stroke order is greatly stressed as important to writing kanji, and with Skritter, you will practice them in a way so that you review not only the character's appearance and reading, but the proper stroke order as well.
* Judges shape - You write in a box as you review, with guidelines, so that your kanjis come out looking the proper shape and size.
* Fully customizable - Choose what characters you want to study.
Skritter is an amazingly effective tool, and it can help anyone review the kanji that they have learned.
The only downside I can think of is that the kanji are not used in any kind of context -- you are only ever given what they look like, the kana for their reading, a voice clip of their reading, and a rough translation of the words you write.
Because of this, Skritter should mainly be used as a review tool, in my opinion. While it is possible to learn new characters through Skritter, and as you're using it, you certainly will learn some new ones anyway, I think you should keep the "discovery" of new kanji to a more "pick up" method, learning from experiencing them in natural usage, or through looking them up for words you already know through speaking but not writing.
Just learning a character on its own is not very helpful -- it's good to learn it as a way to write a word you already know. Though you'll pick up some new stuff from Skritter, I think it definitely shines as a review tool, and it will definitely help you reach mastery of every kanji you've ever learned.
And no, I was not paid to write this or anything. It's just an honest product review of a service I recently stumbled upon :)
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Japanese sentence structure is easy!
(NOTE: This article is for anyone at any level of Japanese study. Even if you can already construct sentences, read this all the way through, and you may find that your understanding of sentence structure is better! It assumes that you already know about things like particles and words, but even a beginner who doesn't know anything yet can read this, too, because it will help you have the right mindset when you start putting your first sentences together...)
I have seen countless articles state that Japanese grammar is difficult for speakers of English to learn, and I certainly have heard my share of students complaining about it. While I will admit that it's quite different from English, and thusly baffling at first, it's actually extremely simple and structured, and anyone can do it!
In fact, if you can do simple algebra, you have all the logical competence needed to fully understand Japanese sentence structure. So if I ask you "2 plus what makes 7?" and you're able to tell me the answer is "5," then you're smart enough to understand Japanese sentences just like a native!
Japanese sentence structure can look really daunting when you see it listed in textbooks and reference sites. It looks very complicated and it seems like you have to learn a huge list of rules and this and that before you can really understand what you're doing.
But that's not true! You can understand Japanese sentence structure with just a few simple concepts. Hopefully that by reading this article, though it may get a bit wordy, you'll be able to realize how simple and easy Japanese grammar and sentence structure really is, even for you, and you'll be well on your way to having a much more solid foundation and understanding of the Japanese language.
So why does it seem so difficult for so many students? I think because so many people are thinking about it in the wrong way. A lot of people try to think of foreign languages as some kind of "code," in which you take the rules of your own language and twist them to make a new one, substituting out words and parts while altering the parts where the rules are different. This is confusing, and, well, stupid.
Instead, let's think of Japanese as its own unique world that has nothing to do with English. Forget "verb this" and "adjective that" and Japanese sentences are made with these simple steps:
1. Start with a core.
2. Tack whatever stuff onto it you need.
3. You're done!!
Now, you're probably thinking, "What?! It is not that simple!" Well, my friends, I am not tricking you! That's really all there is to it. Let's take a look at what makes each step:
STEP ONE: START WITH A CORE
All Japanese sentences revolve around a single core. In fact, this "core" by itself is a complete, full, proper sentence in Japanese.
Let's take a look at some of these cores that are commonly heard as a sentence:
分かりました wakarimasita/wakarimashita
Now, you probably have heard people say this before. It often translates to "Understood." and you pretty much say it to say that you've understood something you've been told, especially directions or commands or instructions or things like that. By itself, this single word is a complete sentence!
Let's look at another:
いい？ ii?
You should have come across this before. You can use this to ask people if something is all right with them. Often this can be translated as "Are you sure?" "Is it okay?" "How is this?" etc. (depending on the situation). It's usually pretty easy to understand when it's used. Even though it's just one word, this is a complete and proper Japanese sentence!
Here's one more:
駄目だ！ dame da!
Now, depending on your definition of "word," you could say this is two words, or you could say it is a word and the copula, or you could even consider the word+copula combo to be a single "word." When talking about Japanese, some people consider the copula a word and some don't. Whether you do or not, this is still pretty simple for a sentence. It's translated as things like "It's no use!" "It's broken!" "This doesn't work!" "That's no good!" "This is bad!" etc. etc. etc. depending on the situation. Anyway, this simple phrase is on its own a complete sentence in Japanese.
Now, why am I saying all this?
That's really all you need to make a Japanese sentence are these simple phrases and words. At the heart of every Japanese sentence, you will find one of these phrases. There are only three types of words that can be used as these "cores," and every sentence has one.
These "cores" can be called a variety of things, such as a "predicate" (that's what I hear used the most, it's also the term used in many textbooks like JSL), but it's usually not made clear exactly how important or simple it really is to have these predicates or cores.
And that's all you really need to make a sentence in Japanese. It's especially important to understand that this "core" is here, and it's the driving point of the sentence. Now, you probably want to make more complicated sentences than single words sometimes, so we go to the next step...
STEP TWO: TACK STUFF ON!
After you have established your core/predicate, you just have to tack stuff onto it to make it into what you want. The core part goes at the end, and you build onto it from the beginning. Let's use something to my first example earlier. (The first romanization is literal to the characters, the second is closer to Hepburn, if it differs.)
分かる
wakaru
This sentence simply refers to some kind of "understanding." Depending on the situation, it could mean different things, but for example, if someone asked you if you could understand Japanese, you could answer with wakaru to mean "I understand it." That part alone is a core.
Now, in different situations, we can use this same core to build other sentences.
日本語が分かる
nihongo ga wakaru
Now, all we did was tack on 日本語が nihongo ga. This just makes it more specific to what are core is talking about. Now instead of just saying "I understand," we're saying "I understand Japanese." So in a situation where someone asked "Do you understand any foreign languages?" we could answer this.
Now, I'm not telling you how to use individual particles here, because this is just about the structure of sentences in general. But you always just take the phrase you want and put the particle after it. So if you want to say which language is being understood (which uses particle ga) you just take the language and then put ga after it. Nihongo ga. Pretty simple, right?
So you're pretty much taking a word or phrase and putting the particle after it and making it into a little mini phrase. You can call this a particle phrase or particle set or something (it doesn't really matter what you call it, just know its is its own little phrase).
To make a sentence, all you do is take as many of these little phrases that you need and tack them on to the beginning of the sentence and then throw the core in at the end. All of the phrases will explain what the core is talking about.
So let's say someone asked "Does anyone in here understand any foreign languages?" to a group of people in a room, and you wanted to reply that you understand Japanese. In this case, we will need to specify that you are talking about yourself and not the other people, so we're going to tack on another little phrase that specifies that the wakaru is talking about "self":
私は日本語が分かる
watasi ha nihongo ga wakaru
watashi wa nihongo ga wakaru
Notice that the core, wakaru is still at the end, because we're talking about something being understood. All we did was tack on two things, nihongo ga which says that Japanese is the thing being understood, and now watashi wa which says that "I" am the person that understands.
Of course, not all of our little phrases have to take particles. There are other special phrases that don't use any particles. So like if we want to say that we only understand a little, we can use another phrase...
私は日本語が少し分かる
watasi ha nihongo ga sukosi wakaru
watashi wa nihongo ga sukoshi wakaru
There are plenty of little words and phrases that can modify your core even further. Sukoshi here just says that the understanding is little. When you're using phrases that don't use particles like this, they almost always go right before your core part. But that's something that's easy to pick up.
You can just keep adding all kinds of phrases to clarify your core more and more. You could put a thousand phrases in there if you wanted to. It's good to think of each as little phrases, with a core at the end. Thinking of it that way, all sentences in Japanese are essentially this:
phrase phrase phrase phrase phrase phrase core.
Of course, the number of phrases is up to you. It can be as little as zero (just a core) or as many as over 9000. Seriously, it's just phrases and then a core. That's really easy!!
Trying to think of it like English with words mixed up (so many times I hear people trying to reason it out by saying an English sentence in a weird order like "Tuesday on Mary did John to flowers gave!") is counterproductive and frankly pretty dumb. I mean, read what I just wrote. Doesn't that sound dumb??
You don't want to think of it as some weird set order that's like English but mixed up. It's just phrases and then a core. The phrases give more information about what the core is talking about. Simple!!
In fact, if we're talking about the previous "example" of Mary giving John a present of flowers on Tuesday, think of it like this: What is your core? What is the key action or description you want to describe? You're talking about the giving of a present, right? So your core is going to be giving. The main point of this sentence is to talk about giving. This will often line up with your "main verb" in English, but it's best not to think about Japanese sentences as translations of English ones, but as their own sentences.
So your core is "give." Now, if you just say "Gave!" no one is going to know what you're talking about, so you need to tack on phrases that describe it more. Right now, we just have this:
あげた
ageta
So we know something was given. So now we just need to add details. What was given?
お花をあげた
ohana wo ageta
ohana o ageta
Now we know that flowers (ohana) were the thing that were given. We just tacked on a particle phrase with the thing that was given and the particle we needed. That's great, but we want want more details. How about who is doing this giving?
マリーがお花をあげた
marii ga ohana wo ageta
marii ga ohana o ageta
Yup, same thing. Tacked on a phrase. Now we know Mary did the giving. MORE DETAILS!
ジョンにマリーがお花をあげた
zyon ni marii ga ohana wo ageta
jon ni marii ga ohana o ageta
Yeah, tacked on another phrase. This one says that John is the one who was the recipient of giving. Now we know Mary gave some flowers to John. What's our last detail? You got it...
火曜日にジョンにマリーがお花をあげた
kayoubi ni zyon ni marii ga ohana wo ageta
kayoubi ni jon ni marii ga ohana o ageta
Seems redundant, right? That's because it probably is really easy to you right now. You just add stuff before the core. Simple!! Now, you may be wondering, "How do I know what order to put all that stuff before the core?!"
Well, here's a little secret: Word order is not nearly as strict as in English! In English, the word order is very important because that's how we tell the relationship between the words. In the English sentence "Mary gave John flowers." we know that Mary gave the flowers and John received them because Mary comes first and John comes after the "gave" part. But in Japanese, that's not the case.
Remember how we're making all these little particle phrases? Those particles themselves tell us how the phrases connect to the core. When we say marii ga somewhere in our sentence, that ga particle tells us that marii (Mary) is the one who is doing the giving. No matter where we put it in the sentence, it's still going to mean the same thing.
This is why it's good to think of each particle phrase as its own little phrase. In order to figure out what a sentence means, you can look at each little phrase, then look at the core. The particle tells you how the phrase relates to the core. The phrases always relate to the core. So don't get so worried about having a strict order, because those particles just link up to the core.
Now, there are particles that link phrases to other phrases to make a more complicated phrase (like 隣の人 tonari no hito; here the 'no' is linking tonari and hito to make the single phrase tonari no hito). But if you're studying properly, it should be easy to realize which particles do this because their only function is to stick words together like that.
Anyway, let's look at our example again, and separate all the little phrases.
[火曜日に] [ジョンに] [マリーが] [お花を] あげた
[kayoubi ni] [zyon ni] [marii ga] [ohana wo] ageta
[kayoubi ni] [jon ni] [marii ga] [ohana o] ageta
I put all of our phrases in brackets. The structure of this sentence is as follows:
phrase phrase phrase phrase core
Now, let's mix up our phrases.
[マリーが] [お花を] [ジョンに] [火曜日に] あげた
[marii ga] [ohana wo] [zyon ni] [kayoubi ni] ageta
[marii ga] [ohana o] [jon ni] [kayoubi ni] ageta
The structure of this sentence is:
phrase phrase phrase phrase core
And both sentences mean the same thing... Mary gave John some flowers on Tuesday. The order of the phrases does not change the meaning! The core is still there, so we know "gave" was what happened, and because of the particles, we know how each phrase relates to the core, so we can still know which phrase tells who gave, which tells who was given to, which tells when, and which tells what was given.
Now, I'm not saying word order doesn't matter at all. The emphasis can change slightly. Whatever you put first will sound slightly more important than the rest. In English, we emphasize with voice strength and pitch and stuff. In Japanese, word order can help you do this, too. But if you're not emphasizing anything in particular, the word order is pretty free. Sometimes certain things will sound more natural first, or sometimes you will need to use a certain order because you have ambiguous particles or something, but these are cases that, if you understand this simple phrase phrase core structure, you will be able to deal with when you encounter them pretty easily. The point of this article is to get you to understand how simple sentence structure really is in Japanese.
STEP THREE: YOU'RE DONE!!
Yup, that's it! You've now made your sentence. And guess what? You can make every sentence in Japanese in exactly the same way. The only thing that's really left is putting a "sentence particle" or "ending particle" at the end if you need to. There are particles you throw at the end of a sentence in order to change its meaning or nuance or something.
For example, the way to make a question in Japanese is just to put か ka at the end of your sentence. Using the example again, if we threw ka at the end of that flower-giving thing, we'd just end up with "Did Mary give John flowers on Tuesday?" Yup, that's all you have to do. There are other sentences particles that serve other functions, and you probably know them by now.
WAIT, THERE'S A CATCH I BET!
Okay, so you're ready for the big time and you want to make more complicated sentences, or you're having trouble understanding complex sentences in Japanese. It seems like you need to use more than one core, or that a sentence you're reading or hearing has many cores inside it. What's up with that?
Sentences can be made up of more than one sentence. We do this in English, as well, of course. There are a few ways that this happens. A simple one is when two sentences are put back to back and use some kind of conjunction. In Japanese we don't really have conjunctions like we do in English, but we have particles that can link up entire sentences.
For example, if we want to say "I'm studying mathematics, but I don't understand it very well." you could say something like this:
数学を勉強しているけど、よく分かりません
suuzigaku wo benkyousiteiru kedo, yoku wakarimasen
suujigaku o benkyoushiteiru kedo, yoku wakarimasen
This is pretty simple, and I think a lot of people wouldn't have trouble making a sentence like this. Basically we have two sentences, the first is 数学を勉強している suujigaku o benkyou shiteiru (phrase core) and the second is よく分かりません yoku wakarimasen (phrase core). We want to link the two together to make one big sentence, so we link them with kedo which means something like "but." Now we have one big sentence with two cores. Essentially this is just two sentences with two cores, and instead of saying them separately, we just said them with a connecting particle.
I think that's pretty easy though.
You can also link two sentences/cores through the use of -te forms. Like if you want to say that you went to the convenience store and bought some tea, you could say:
コンビに行って、お茶を買ってきた。
Because you want to talk about going (which you could use as a core) and buying (another core), you can use -te form of 行く to lead into the next part since the sentences are related. Note here that it's really just two sentences back to back like before, but instead of linking with a particle, you're using the -te form of your core (all three types of cores have a -te form) to show that the first core begins, exists, or describes something, and then the second core/sentence is somehow related. I'm not going to go into this much, because it's really its own subject, and this is more about simply understanding that the structure is still phrase phrase phrase phrase core, and in this case, you're just putting two sentences back to back. There are other forms of cores (like -reba form and stuff) that can connect sentences together as well. Hopefully here you can see here where the two sentences and cores are.
Anyway, these are still pretty simple sentences, and if you're reading this far because you're wanting to understand really complex sentences, you're probably saying "I know all this! This is easy!" (It is easy, isn't it!) then you're ready for the final note. This is really as complicated as sentence structure gets in Japanese, and you'll realize after I explain it that it's really not that hard or complicated after all:
You can use an entire sentence to describe a word or phrase, and make it into one big phrase. The hardest part is figuring out where these big phrases begin and end, but if you understand the structure I described so far, you should already know the answers. It just might take a second to think about it.
So let's look at an example of a phrase that shouldn't be too hard to understand:
日本語が分かる人
nihongo ga wakaru hito
Here we have an entire sentence, 日本語が分かる nihongo ga wakaru ("understand japanese"), that is followed by 人 hito, which means "person." By putting the core of the sentence directly before hito, that means that the sentence itself describes that hito. So this phrase itself means "person who understands Japanese."
Now lets say we want to say that Mary gave flowers (yay, flowers!) to the person who understands Japanese. Yeah, dumb example, but hey. Just like before, we're going to use that same old phrase phrase phrase phrase core stuff. Now, instead of saying that Mary gave John the flowers, we're going to take that big phrase we made and put it with the particle ni, just like we did with "John" before, and put it before our same old core of "gave" (ageru). So we end up with this:
日本語が分かる人にマリーがお花をあげた
nihongo ga wakaru hito ni marii ga ohana wo ageta
nihongo ga wakaru hito ni marii ga ohana o ageta
Yup. Does it seem confusing? Hopefully not, but if it does, think about how you got to that point. We still started with our core, ageta ("gave"), and we just tacked on phrases to give more details. Who gave? What was given? Who was it given to? We tacked all those things on. The most complicated part was that we used a bigger and more complicated phrase in there, because we had to say "the person who understands Japanese." (Maybe we saw her giving the flowers but couldn't remember that guy's name. Maybe John understands Japanese but we forgot his name...)
So let's look at it in this way:
[日本語が分かる人に] [マリーが] [お花を] あげた
[nihongo ga wakaru hito ni] [marii ga] [ohana wo] ageta
[nihongo ga wakaru hito ni] [marii ga] [ohana o] ageta
As you can see, the structure is again this:
phrase phrase phrase core.
Of course, one of the phrases is made up of an entire sentence that is describing hito, so that one phrase actually has its own little mini phrases and cores inside of it. But in the grand scheme of the sentence, that whole big string of words is given that one particle ni and just becomes one phrase that describes who was on the receiving end of our core, ageta.
Now, here's another tricky part... word order is starting to matter. If we threw other phrases at the beginning, they might get mixed up with that first core of wakaru that ended up modifying hito. So anything that's going to modify our main core should go after our mini-core that's part of that phrase. That way we don't think that it's part of the phrase, but instead connected to our core.
However, if you use particle は wa for something at the beginning, it lets you know it's connected to the entire sentence and the main core at the end. So if we said マリーは marii wa at the beginning (instead of marii ga) we would be fine, because we would know that Mary is related to the whole sentence and the main core, and we wouldn't get confused and think she was part of that wakaru phrase.
Now, I've been using "verbal" cores in my examples, but all of this stuff applies to cores that use "adjectival" and "nominal" stuff as well.
It's a bit much to chew, thinking about all this at once, and I know this was a bit long and wordy, but when you really think about it... all the sentences ended up just being phrase phrase phrase core, where all the phrases just explained how they were related to the core. That's pretty simple and easy, if you ask me. Sometimes it's just a lot of stacking and building, but it's not hard to figure out.
If you're reading or hearing a sentence, sometimes it can be harder to understand because you're not making the phrases yourself, so you might get confused figuring out where they begin and end.
Here's some tips to help you:
1. Listen/look for particles. Each particle constitutes a phrase. Know that when you hear or read a phrase, it's going to be describing some upcoming core.
2. When you get to the core, realize that all the phrases before it described that core in some way.
3. If that core ends up describing something (like the "person who understood Japanese" above) and then you hear another particle, realize that everything you've heard or read up to this point is one giant phrase, and now you're working toward another core with more phrases. If that's the case, restart from #1. If not, go on...
4. Think about all the phrases you just heard and how the particles told you they relate to the core. There's the meaning of your sentence!
It may sound difficult, but it's really easy. Thinking of sentences as nothing more than phrases that work together to describe a core, you will be able to understand Japanese sentence structure easily with just a bit of practice. Try to notice where phrases are and you will realize that every Japanese sentence is nothing more than phrase phrase phrase phrase core, and sentences back to back like that.
It was wordy, but hopefully if you read all the way through, you'll realize how simple Japanese sentence structure really is. Of course, you can stack up phrases and make complex phrases, but in the end, the basic structure is very easy, and it's just a matter of practice building "big" sentences. But just because a sentence is big doesn't mean it's difficult! It's still the same structure and should still be pretty simple if you can realize where the phrases and core are.
Also note that "core" is simply my word that I used here to describe it. You may hear it called other things like "predicate" other places, or often it will be called nothing at all (because people tend to analyze Japanese sentence structure in some pretty weird ways, especially because they can't get away from comparing it to English or thinking of it in an Englishy way).
Good luck with your Japanese studies and keep working hard! Parse away, my friends!
I have seen countless articles state that Japanese grammar is difficult for speakers of English to learn, and I certainly have heard my share of students complaining about it. While I will admit that it's quite different from English, and thusly baffling at first, it's actually extremely simple and structured, and anyone can do it!
In fact, if you can do simple algebra, you have all the logical competence needed to fully understand Japanese sentence structure. So if I ask you "2 plus what makes 7?" and you're able to tell me the answer is "5," then you're smart enough to understand Japanese sentences just like a native!
Japanese sentence structure can look really daunting when you see it listed in textbooks and reference sites. It looks very complicated and it seems like you have to learn a huge list of rules and this and that before you can really understand what you're doing.
But that's not true! You can understand Japanese sentence structure with just a few simple concepts. Hopefully that by reading this article, though it may get a bit wordy, you'll be able to realize how simple and easy Japanese grammar and sentence structure really is, even for you, and you'll be well on your way to having a much more solid foundation and understanding of the Japanese language.
So why does it seem so difficult for so many students? I think because so many people are thinking about it in the wrong way. A lot of people try to think of foreign languages as some kind of "code," in which you take the rules of your own language and twist them to make a new one, substituting out words and parts while altering the parts where the rules are different. This is confusing, and, well, stupid.
Instead, let's think of Japanese as its own unique world that has nothing to do with English. Forget "verb this" and "adjective that" and Japanese sentences are made with these simple steps:
1. Start with a core.
2. Tack whatever stuff onto it you need.
3. You're done!!
Now, you're probably thinking, "What?! It is not that simple!" Well, my friends, I am not tricking you! That's really all there is to it. Let's take a look at what makes each step:
STEP ONE: START WITH A CORE
All Japanese sentences revolve around a single core. In fact, this "core" by itself is a complete, full, proper sentence in Japanese.
Let's take a look at some of these cores that are commonly heard as a sentence:
分かりました wakarimasita/wakarimashita
Now, you probably have heard people say this before. It often translates to "Understood." and you pretty much say it to say that you've understood something you've been told, especially directions or commands or instructions or things like that. By itself, this single word is a complete sentence!
Let's look at another:
いい？ ii?
You should have come across this before. You can use this to ask people if something is all right with them. Often this can be translated as "Are you sure?" "Is it okay?" "How is this?" etc. (depending on the situation). It's usually pretty easy to understand when it's used. Even though it's just one word, this is a complete and proper Japanese sentence!
Here's one more:
駄目だ！ dame da!
Now, depending on your definition of "word," you could say this is two words, or you could say it is a word and the copula, or you could even consider the word+copula combo to be a single "word." When talking about Japanese, some people consider the copula a word and some don't. Whether you do or not, this is still pretty simple for a sentence. It's translated as things like "It's no use!" "It's broken!" "This doesn't work!" "That's no good!" "This is bad!" etc. etc. etc. depending on the situation. Anyway, this simple phrase is on its own a complete sentence in Japanese.
Now, why am I saying all this?
That's really all you need to make a Japanese sentence are these simple phrases and words. At the heart of every Japanese sentence, you will find one of these phrases. There are only three types of words that can be used as these "cores," and every sentence has one.
These "cores" can be called a variety of things, such as a "predicate" (that's what I hear used the most, it's also the term used in many textbooks like JSL), but it's usually not made clear exactly how important or simple it really is to have these predicates or cores.
And that's all you really need to make a sentence in Japanese. It's especially important to understand that this "core" is here, and it's the driving point of the sentence. Now, you probably want to make more complicated sentences than single words sometimes, so we go to the next step...
STEP TWO: TACK STUFF ON!
After you have established your core/predicate, you just have to tack stuff onto it to make it into what you want. The core part goes at the end, and you build onto it from the beginning. Let's use something to my first example earlier. (The first romanization is literal to the characters, the second is closer to Hepburn, if it differs.)
分かる
wakaru
This sentence simply refers to some kind of "understanding." Depending on the situation, it could mean different things, but for example, if someone asked you if you could understand Japanese, you could answer with wakaru to mean "I understand it." That part alone is a core.
Now, in different situations, we can use this same core to build other sentences.
日本語が分かる
nihongo ga wakaru
Now, all we did was tack on 日本語が nihongo ga. This just makes it more specific to what are core is talking about. Now instead of just saying "I understand," we're saying "I understand Japanese." So in a situation where someone asked "Do you understand any foreign languages?" we could answer this.
Now, I'm not telling you how to use individual particles here, because this is just about the structure of sentences in general. But you always just take the phrase you want and put the particle after it. So if you want to say which language is being understood (which uses particle ga) you just take the language and then put ga after it. Nihongo ga. Pretty simple, right?
So you're pretty much taking a word or phrase and putting the particle after it and making it into a little mini phrase. You can call this a particle phrase or particle set or something (it doesn't really matter what you call it, just know its is its own little phrase).
To make a sentence, all you do is take as many of these little phrases that you need and tack them on to the beginning of the sentence and then throw the core in at the end. All of the phrases will explain what the core is talking about.
So let's say someone asked "Does anyone in here understand any foreign languages?" to a group of people in a room, and you wanted to reply that you understand Japanese. In this case, we will need to specify that you are talking about yourself and not the other people, so we're going to tack on another little phrase that specifies that the wakaru is talking about "self":
私は日本語が分かる
watasi ha nihongo ga wakaru
watashi wa nihongo ga wakaru
Notice that the core, wakaru is still at the end, because we're talking about something being understood. All we did was tack on two things, nihongo ga which says that Japanese is the thing being understood, and now watashi wa which says that "I" am the person that understands.
Of course, not all of our little phrases have to take particles. There are other special phrases that don't use any particles. So like if we want to say that we only understand a little, we can use another phrase...
私は日本語が少し分かる
watasi ha nihongo ga sukosi wakaru
watashi wa nihongo ga sukoshi wakaru
There are plenty of little words and phrases that can modify your core even further. Sukoshi here just says that the understanding is little. When you're using phrases that don't use particles like this, they almost always go right before your core part. But that's something that's easy to pick up.
You can just keep adding all kinds of phrases to clarify your core more and more. You could put a thousand phrases in there if you wanted to. It's good to think of each as little phrases, with a core at the end. Thinking of it that way, all sentences in Japanese are essentially this:
phrase phrase phrase phrase phrase phrase core.
Of course, the number of phrases is up to you. It can be as little as zero (just a core) or as many as over 9000. Seriously, it's just phrases and then a core. That's really easy!!
Trying to think of it like English with words mixed up (so many times I hear people trying to reason it out by saying an English sentence in a weird order like "Tuesday on Mary did John to flowers gave!") is counterproductive and frankly pretty dumb. I mean, read what I just wrote. Doesn't that sound dumb??
You don't want to think of it as some weird set order that's like English but mixed up. It's just phrases and then a core. The phrases give more information about what the core is talking about. Simple!!
In fact, if we're talking about the previous "example" of Mary giving John a present of flowers on Tuesday, think of it like this: What is your core? What is the key action or description you want to describe? You're talking about the giving of a present, right? So your core is going to be giving. The main point of this sentence is to talk about giving. This will often line up with your "main verb" in English, but it's best not to think about Japanese sentences as translations of English ones, but as their own sentences.
So your core is "give." Now, if you just say "Gave!" no one is going to know what you're talking about, so you need to tack on phrases that describe it more. Right now, we just have this:
あげた
ageta
So we know something was given. So now we just need to add details. What was given?
お花をあげた
ohana wo ageta
ohana o ageta
Now we know that flowers (ohana) were the thing that were given. We just tacked on a particle phrase with the thing that was given and the particle we needed. That's great, but we want want more details. How about who is doing this giving?
マリーがお花をあげた
marii ga ohana wo ageta
marii ga ohana o ageta
Yup, same thing. Tacked on a phrase. Now we know Mary did the giving. MORE DETAILS!
ジョンにマリーがお花をあげた
zyon ni marii ga ohana wo ageta
jon ni marii ga ohana o ageta
Yeah, tacked on another phrase. This one says that John is the one who was the recipient of giving. Now we know Mary gave some flowers to John. What's our last detail? You got it...
火曜日にジョンにマリーがお花をあげた
kayoubi ni zyon ni marii ga ohana wo ageta
kayoubi ni jon ni marii ga ohana o ageta
Seems redundant, right? That's because it probably is really easy to you right now. You just add stuff before the core. Simple!! Now, you may be wondering, "How do I know what order to put all that stuff before the core?!"
Well, here's a little secret: Word order is not nearly as strict as in English! In English, the word order is very important because that's how we tell the relationship between the words. In the English sentence "Mary gave John flowers." we know that Mary gave the flowers and John received them because Mary comes first and John comes after the "gave" part. But in Japanese, that's not the case.
Remember how we're making all these little particle phrases? Those particles themselves tell us how the phrases connect to the core. When we say marii ga somewhere in our sentence, that ga particle tells us that marii (Mary) is the one who is doing the giving. No matter where we put it in the sentence, it's still going to mean the same thing.
This is why it's good to think of each particle phrase as its own little phrase. In order to figure out what a sentence means, you can look at each little phrase, then look at the core. The particle tells you how the phrase relates to the core. The phrases always relate to the core. So don't get so worried about having a strict order, because those particles just link up to the core.
Now, there are particles that link phrases to other phrases to make a more complicated phrase (like 隣の人 tonari no hito; here the 'no' is linking tonari and hito to make the single phrase tonari no hito). But if you're studying properly, it should be easy to realize which particles do this because their only function is to stick words together like that.
Anyway, let's look at our example again, and separate all the little phrases.
[火曜日に] [ジョンに] [マリーが] [お花を] あげた
[kayoubi ni] [zyon ni] [marii ga] [ohana wo] ageta
[kayoubi ni] [jon ni] [marii ga] [ohana o] ageta
I put all of our phrases in brackets. The structure of this sentence is as follows:
phrase phrase phrase phrase core
Now, let's mix up our phrases.
[マリーが] [お花を] [ジョンに] [火曜日に] あげた
[marii ga] [ohana wo] [zyon ni] [kayoubi ni] ageta
[marii ga] [ohana o] [jon ni] [kayoubi ni] ageta
The structure of this sentence is:
phrase phrase phrase phrase core
And both sentences mean the same thing... Mary gave John some flowers on Tuesday. The order of the phrases does not change the meaning! The core is still there, so we know "gave" was what happened, and because of the particles, we know how each phrase relates to the core, so we can still know which phrase tells who gave, which tells who was given to, which tells when, and which tells what was given.
Now, I'm not saying word order doesn't matter at all. The emphasis can change slightly. Whatever you put first will sound slightly more important than the rest. In English, we emphasize with voice strength and pitch and stuff. In Japanese, word order can help you do this, too. But if you're not emphasizing anything in particular, the word order is pretty free. Sometimes certain things will sound more natural first, or sometimes you will need to use a certain order because you have ambiguous particles or something, but these are cases that, if you understand this simple phrase phrase core structure, you will be able to deal with when you encounter them pretty easily. The point of this article is to get you to understand how simple sentence structure really is in Japanese.
STEP THREE: YOU'RE DONE!!
Yup, that's it! You've now made your sentence. And guess what? You can make every sentence in Japanese in exactly the same way. The only thing that's really left is putting a "sentence particle" or "ending particle" at the end if you need to. There are particles you throw at the end of a sentence in order to change its meaning or nuance or something.
For example, the way to make a question in Japanese is just to put か ka at the end of your sentence. Using the example again, if we threw ka at the end of that flower-giving thing, we'd just end up with "Did Mary give John flowers on Tuesday?" Yup, that's all you have to do. There are other sentences particles that serve other functions, and you probably know them by now.
WAIT, THERE'S A CATCH I BET!
Okay, so you're ready for the big time and you want to make more complicated sentences, or you're having trouble understanding complex sentences in Japanese. It seems like you need to use more than one core, or that a sentence you're reading or hearing has many cores inside it. What's up with that?
Sentences can be made up of more than one sentence. We do this in English, as well, of course. There are a few ways that this happens. A simple one is when two sentences are put back to back and use some kind of conjunction. In Japanese we don't really have conjunctions like we do in English, but we have particles that can link up entire sentences.
For example, if we want to say "I'm studying mathematics, but I don't understand it very well." you could say something like this:
数学を勉強しているけど、よく分かりません
suuzigaku wo benkyousiteiru kedo, yoku wakarimasen
suujigaku o benkyoushiteiru kedo, yoku wakarimasen
This is pretty simple, and I think a lot of people wouldn't have trouble making a sentence like this. Basically we have two sentences, the first is 数学を勉強している suujigaku o benkyou shiteiru (phrase core) and the second is よく分かりません yoku wakarimasen (phrase core). We want to link the two together to make one big sentence, so we link them with kedo which means something like "but." Now we have one big sentence with two cores. Essentially this is just two sentences with two cores, and instead of saying them separately, we just said them with a connecting particle.
I think that's pretty easy though.
You can also link two sentences/cores through the use of -te forms. Like if you want to say that you went to the convenience store and bought some tea, you could say:
コンビに行って、お茶を買ってきた。
Because you want to talk about going (which you could use as a core) and buying (another core), you can use -te form of 行く to lead into the next part since the sentences are related. Note here that it's really just two sentences back to back like before, but instead of linking with a particle, you're using the -te form of your core (all three types of cores have a -te form) to show that the first core begins, exists, or describes something, and then the second core/sentence is somehow related. I'm not going to go into this much, because it's really its own subject, and this is more about simply understanding that the structure is still phrase phrase phrase phrase core, and in this case, you're just putting two sentences back to back. There are other forms of cores (like -reba form and stuff) that can connect sentences together as well. Hopefully here you can see here where the two sentences and cores are.
Anyway, these are still pretty simple sentences, and if you're reading this far because you're wanting to understand really complex sentences, you're probably saying "I know all this! This is easy!" (It is easy, isn't it!) then you're ready for the final note. This is really as complicated as sentence structure gets in Japanese, and you'll realize after I explain it that it's really not that hard or complicated after all:
You can use an entire sentence to describe a word or phrase, and make it into one big phrase. The hardest part is figuring out where these big phrases begin and end, but if you understand the structure I described so far, you should already know the answers. It just might take a second to think about it.
So let's look at an example of a phrase that shouldn't be too hard to understand:
日本語が分かる人
nihongo ga wakaru hito
Here we have an entire sentence, 日本語が分かる nihongo ga wakaru ("understand japanese"), that is followed by 人 hito, which means "person." By putting the core of the sentence directly before hito, that means that the sentence itself describes that hito. So this phrase itself means "person who understands Japanese."
Now lets say we want to say that Mary gave flowers (yay, flowers!) to the person who understands Japanese. Yeah, dumb example, but hey. Just like before, we're going to use that same old phrase phrase phrase phrase core stuff. Now, instead of saying that Mary gave John the flowers, we're going to take that big phrase we made and put it with the particle ni, just like we did with "John" before, and put it before our same old core of "gave" (ageru). So we end up with this:
日本語が分かる人にマリーがお花をあげた
nihongo ga wakaru hito ni marii ga ohana wo ageta
nihongo ga wakaru hito ni marii ga ohana o ageta
Yup. Does it seem confusing? Hopefully not, but if it does, think about how you got to that point. We still started with our core, ageta ("gave"), and we just tacked on phrases to give more details. Who gave? What was given? Who was it given to? We tacked all those things on. The most complicated part was that we used a bigger and more complicated phrase in there, because we had to say "the person who understands Japanese." (Maybe we saw her giving the flowers but couldn't remember that guy's name. Maybe John understands Japanese but we forgot his name...)
So let's look at it in this way:
[日本語が分かる人に] [マリーが] [お花を] あげた
[nihongo ga wakaru hito ni] [marii ga] [ohana wo] ageta
[nihongo ga wakaru hito ni] [marii ga] [ohana o] ageta
As you can see, the structure is again this:
phrase phrase phrase core.
Of course, one of the phrases is made up of an entire sentence that is describing hito, so that one phrase actually has its own little mini phrases and cores inside of it. But in the grand scheme of the sentence, that whole big string of words is given that one particle ni and just becomes one phrase that describes who was on the receiving end of our core, ageta.
Now, here's another tricky part... word order is starting to matter. If we threw other phrases at the beginning, they might get mixed up with that first core of wakaru that ended up modifying hito. So anything that's going to modify our main core should go after our mini-core that's part of that phrase. That way we don't think that it's part of the phrase, but instead connected to our core.
However, if you use particle は wa for something at the beginning, it lets you know it's connected to the entire sentence and the main core at the end. So if we said マリーは marii wa at the beginning (instead of marii ga) we would be fine, because we would know that Mary is related to the whole sentence and the main core, and we wouldn't get confused and think she was part of that wakaru phrase.
Now, I've been using "verbal" cores in my examples, but all of this stuff applies to cores that use "adjectival" and "nominal" stuff as well.
It's a bit much to chew, thinking about all this at once, and I know this was a bit long and wordy, but when you really think about it... all the sentences ended up just being phrase phrase phrase core, where all the phrases just explained how they were related to the core. That's pretty simple and easy, if you ask me. Sometimes it's just a lot of stacking and building, but it's not hard to figure out.
If you're reading or hearing a sentence, sometimes it can be harder to understand because you're not making the phrases yourself, so you might get confused figuring out where they begin and end.
Here's some tips to help you:
1. Listen/look for particles. Each particle constitutes a phrase. Know that when you hear or read a phrase, it's going to be describing some upcoming core.
2. When you get to the core, realize that all the phrases before it described that core in some way.
3. If that core ends up describing something (like the "person who understood Japanese" above) and then you hear another particle, realize that everything you've heard or read up to this point is one giant phrase, and now you're working toward another core with more phrases. If that's the case, restart from #1. If not, go on...
4. Think about all the phrases you just heard and how the particles told you they relate to the core. There's the meaning of your sentence!
It may sound difficult, but it's really easy. Thinking of sentences as nothing more than phrases that work together to describe a core, you will be able to understand Japanese sentence structure easily with just a bit of practice. Try to notice where phrases are and you will realize that every Japanese sentence is nothing more than phrase phrase phrase phrase core, and sentences back to back like that.
It was wordy, but hopefully if you read all the way through, you'll realize how simple Japanese sentence structure really is. Of course, you can stack up phrases and make complex phrases, but in the end, the basic structure is very easy, and it's just a matter of practice building "big" sentences. But just because a sentence is big doesn't mean it's difficult! It's still the same structure and should still be pretty simple if you can realize where the phrases and core are.
Also note that "core" is simply my word that I used here to describe it. You may hear it called other things like "predicate" other places, or often it will be called nothing at all (because people tend to analyze Japanese sentence structure in some pretty weird ways, especially because they can't get away from comparing it to English or thinking of it in an Englishy way).
Good luck with your Japanese studies and keep working hard! Parse away, my friends!
Three types of sentences...
In Japanese, sentences are organized but can be quite complicated when you start to make complex sentences. However, a sentence can be made by simply using only one word. These single words that can create a sentence are not only sentences themselves, but the core of every Japanese sentence.
Japanese: The Spoken Language refers to these core parts as a "predicate," and I will also refer to them as such. Every Japanese sentence is built around these.
There are three different types of words that can be used to make a predicate. Depending on what textbook or reference you are looking at, they will be organized different ways and called different things, but the best way to view them is by what forms they can take. If you group them that way, you'll always know how to use them in your sentences.
THIS WILL MAKE A LOT MORE SENSE ONCE YOU START MAKING SENTENCES. This is not something you need to memorize or anything now, but it's important to know that there are three types of words. Once you start using Japanese, you'll notice that pretty much every complete sentence can be classed in one of these three ways based on what kind of predicate it has, and when you're making more complex sentences or learning more difficult grammar, it will become much easier if you're able to recognize which of the three forms you are using.
Some people don't even realize there are only three forms and just think they are all "sentences." Or some people don't try to classify words this way, and instead classify them by how they translate into English (so if a word is translated into English as an English adjective, they will call it an adjective in Japanese, even if it's not classified in the same group as other words they're also calling adjectives... :\ I think this is too confusing and makes learning Japanese harder).
Anyway, let's look at these three types. Remember, don't try to memorize this, just look over it, and if you're already familiar with Japanese and making your own sentences, you will know exactly what kinds of words I'm talking about, and you'll be able to realize they fall into these three groups. If you are still new and still lost on how to make sentences, read over it once and just remember that there are important words that will fall into these three groups, and then come back to this later if you need to:
This is a class of words that ends in -u sounds. Most of the time, you will hear these called "verbs." Here are some examples:
分かる wakaru - to understand
行く iku - to go
食べる taberu - to eat
飲む nomu - to drink
泳ぐ oyogu - to swim
These all translate roughly into words that we also call "verbs" in English, but that is not always the case; for example, 見える mieru can easily be translated as "visible." In English, "visible" is not a verb, but in Japanese, this word takes the same form and is used just like those other words that we're calling verbs. This is one reason why I think it's better to not think of them as translations of English.
Anyway, you can tell these words by some distinct features:
1. They all end in an "-u" sound. They can end in u, ku, su, tu/tsu, mu, ru, gu, or bu.
2. They all are able to take a 'desumasu' form that ends in ます masu.
3. They all are able to conjugate in ways that end in た ta or だ da, and the masu form can likewise become a ました masita/mashita form.
Of course, you don't have to worry about what all of that means right now... but the point is mainly that just because a word ends in an u sound doesn't mean it is this 'verbal' type of word. But all verbals can do those things (and more things), so that's how you can tell that's the kind of word you're dealing with.
This is another type of word that can make a sentence and be a predicate. They are words that end in an 'i' sound. Sometimes you will hear these called "adjectives," but like the "verbs," they will not always translate into adjectives in English. Sometimes you will also hear other words called adjectives that are not these. But we're just talking about the way the words are formed and used here.
Here are some examples:
やさしい yasasii/yasashii - kind, nice
美しい utukusii/utsukushii - beautiful
いい ii - good, nice, okay, etc.
赤い akai - red
These words share some distinct features:
1. They all end in い i.
2. They all can take a 'desumasu' form that is simply made by adding です desu.
3. They all can conjugate in a way that ends in かった katta, and the desumasu form ends in かったです kattadesu.
Like I said before, the point is just to note that not every word that ends in i is in this group, but any word that fits those 3 key points is part of this group.
This last class is a bit harder to define because the words don't all share many common properties. They can look like pretty much anything. While they often refer to names and nouns, sometimes they refer to concepts and even concepts that, when translated, are descriptive and can be called "adjectives" in English; however, the point here is that in order to make a sentence with these words, you will always use them in the same way.
Here are some examples:
日本 nippon - Japan
人 hito - person
お茶 otya/ocha - tea
愛 ai - love
ラーメン raamen - ramen (type of noodle)
These words all share a single distinct feature:
1. To make a sentence with these, you add the copula. Standard form of this is だ da and the desumasu form of this is です desu.
And that's all you really need to know about this group for now. While it is not important for simply using them as predicates and making sentences, note that words that are organized in structure this way are separated into two groups. They, most of the time, are used the same, but in rare cases you will have to choose between using no or na with them. Some people and texts will classify the na words as "adjectives" and then have complicated rules for what to do with "adjectives" since they are really using two completely different types of word classes under the same one title of "adjective."
It is a lot easier, in my opinion, to classify all of these words in this "nominal" class since they almost always work exactly the same way, and only in that one certain case where they will be used ever-so-slightly differently. Grouping them with the adjectival class I mentioned earlier is confusing because they are used in completely different ways, and are structurally not related to each other... Japanese people do not classify them all in this "adjective" group like some people try to do in English, because they simply are not the same kinds of words.
But if you ever hear people talking about "na adjectives" that seem to be a part of this group, that is what they are talking about. Those words are still in this group :)
Don't worry! This isn't some list of rules you need to worry. It's just important to know that there are these three groups of words that are used to make predicates and sentences. You don't have to use the names I came up with here (I use the naming conventions that JSL uses because I'm just used to that). You can, for example, call them "u words," "i words," and "da words" if you want :)
Just know that these three groups will ALWAYS work in the same way. Anything in one group will always work the same as anything else in the same group when it comes to forming a sentence and making a predicate. Thinking of them in these three groups will really help your understanding of Japanese.
This will all make sense the more you study Japanese, and you'll start to see these three groups stand out and notice their patterns. Realizing that the three groups are there early is a great way to lay a solid foundation for yourself :)
That's all you need to know, that there are these three groups :) When you learn new words, you'll start to find it's easy to figure out if they're in one of these three groups, even though this all may seem intimidating and confusing right now. And if you're already into your studies, you might realize that everything is much more simple than you thought with just these three groups to worry about. :D Have fun and keep studying!
Japanese: The Spoken Language refers to these core parts as a "predicate," and I will also refer to them as such. Every Japanese sentence is built around these.
There are three different types of words that can be used to make a predicate. Depending on what textbook or reference you are looking at, they will be organized different ways and called different things, but the best way to view them is by what forms they can take. If you group them that way, you'll always know how to use them in your sentences.
THIS WILL MAKE A LOT MORE SENSE ONCE YOU START MAKING SENTENCES. This is not something you need to memorize or anything now, but it's important to know that there are three types of words. Once you start using Japanese, you'll notice that pretty much every complete sentence can be classed in one of these three ways based on what kind of predicate it has, and when you're making more complex sentences or learning more difficult grammar, it will become much easier if you're able to recognize which of the three forms you are using.
Some people don't even realize there are only three forms and just think they are all "sentences." Or some people don't try to classify words this way, and instead classify them by how they translate into English (so if a word is translated into English as an English adjective, they will call it an adjective in Japanese, even if it's not classified in the same group as other words they're also calling adjectives... :\ I think this is too confusing and makes learning Japanese harder).
Anyway, let's look at these three types. Remember, don't try to memorize this, just look over it, and if you're already familiar with Japanese and making your own sentences, you will know exactly what kinds of words I'm talking about, and you'll be able to realize they fall into these three groups. If you are still new and still lost on how to make sentences, read over it once and just remember that there are important words that will fall into these three groups, and then come back to this later if you need to:
"Verbal" class
This is a class of words that ends in -u sounds. Most of the time, you will hear these called "verbs." Here are some examples:
分かる wakaru - to understand
行く iku - to go
食べる taberu - to eat
飲む nomu - to drink
泳ぐ oyogu - to swim
These all translate roughly into words that we also call "verbs" in English, but that is not always the case; for example, 見える mieru can easily be translated as "visible." In English, "visible" is not a verb, but in Japanese, this word takes the same form and is used just like those other words that we're calling verbs. This is one reason why I think it's better to not think of them as translations of English.
Anyway, you can tell these words by some distinct features:
1. They all end in an "-u" sound. They can end in u, ku, su, tu/tsu, mu, ru, gu, or bu.
2. They all are able to take a 'desumasu' form that ends in ます masu.
3. They all are able to conjugate in ways that end in た ta or だ da, and the masu form can likewise become a ました masita/mashita form.
Of course, you don't have to worry about what all of that means right now... but the point is mainly that just because a word ends in an u sound doesn't mean it is this 'verbal' type of word. But all verbals can do those things (and more things), so that's how you can tell that's the kind of word you're dealing with.
"Adjectival" class
This is another type of word that can make a sentence and be a predicate. They are words that end in an 'i' sound. Sometimes you will hear these called "adjectives," but like the "verbs," they will not always translate into adjectives in English. Sometimes you will also hear other words called adjectives that are not these. But we're just talking about the way the words are formed and used here.
Here are some examples:
やさしい yasasii/yasashii - kind, nice
美しい utukusii/utsukushii - beautiful
いい ii - good, nice, okay, etc.
赤い akai - red
These words share some distinct features:
1. They all end in い i.
2. They all can take a 'desumasu' form that is simply made by adding です desu.
3. They all can conjugate in a way that ends in かった katta, and the desumasu form ends in かったです kattadesu.
Like I said before, the point is just to note that not every word that ends in i is in this group, but any word that fits those 3 key points is part of this group.
"Nominal" class
This last class is a bit harder to define because the words don't all share many common properties. They can look like pretty much anything. While they often refer to names and nouns, sometimes they refer to concepts and even concepts that, when translated, are descriptive and can be called "adjectives" in English; however, the point here is that in order to make a sentence with these words, you will always use them in the same way.
Here are some examples:
日本 nippon - Japan
人 hito - person
お茶 otya/ocha - tea
愛 ai - love
ラーメン raamen - ramen (type of noodle)
These words all share a single distinct feature:
1. To make a sentence with these, you add the copula. Standard form of this is だ da and the desumasu form of this is です desu.
And that's all you really need to know about this group for now. While it is not important for simply using them as predicates and making sentences, note that words that are organized in structure this way are separated into two groups. They, most of the time, are used the same, but in rare cases you will have to choose between using no or na with them. Some people and texts will classify the na words as "adjectives" and then have complicated rules for what to do with "adjectives" since they are really using two completely different types of word classes under the same one title of "adjective."
It is a lot easier, in my opinion, to classify all of these words in this "nominal" class since they almost always work exactly the same way, and only in that one certain case where they will be used ever-so-slightly differently. Grouping them with the adjectival class I mentioned earlier is confusing because they are used in completely different ways, and are structurally not related to each other... Japanese people do not classify them all in this "adjective" group like some people try to do in English, because they simply are not the same kinds of words.
But if you ever hear people talking about "na adjectives" that seem to be a part of this group, that is what they are talking about. Those words are still in this group :)
So what does this all mean?! It seems useless and complicated...
Don't worry! This isn't some list of rules you need to worry. It's just important to know that there are these three groups of words that are used to make predicates and sentences. You don't have to use the names I came up with here (I use the naming conventions that JSL uses because I'm just used to that). You can, for example, call them "u words," "i words," and "da words" if you want :)
Just know that these three groups will ALWAYS work in the same way. Anything in one group will always work the same as anything else in the same group when it comes to forming a sentence and making a predicate. Thinking of them in these three groups will really help your understanding of Japanese.
This will all make sense the more you study Japanese, and you'll start to see these three groups stand out and notice their patterns. Realizing that the three groups are there early is a great way to lay a solid foundation for yourself :)
That's all you need to know, that there are these three groups :) When you learn new words, you'll start to find it's easy to figure out if they're in one of these three groups, even though this all may seem intimidating and confusing right now. And if you're already into your studies, you might realize that everything is much more simple than you thought with just these three groups to worry about. :D Have fun and keep studying!
Saturday, April 16, 2011
The fate of daily Japanese...
Well, I've had quite a busy week. Concerts weddings, vacations, ahahah. I've come to the realization that Daily Japanese is going to be quite difficult for the time being, so I think it's going to transform into the all-new and exciting WEEKLY JAPANESE!
I'll try to update with a new and interesting phrase or knowledge to add to your repertoire of Japanese every Thursday or Friday (not sure on the day yet). Outside of that, I'll try to keep updating as usual with all kinds of things. Here are some things you can look forward to in the coming week or two:
- Japanese sentence structure made easy (for intermediate/advanced learners)
- A look at the three different "types" of sentences (for beginners)
- Review of a cool online tool for kanji studies and how to use it most effectively
- How to use WWWJDIC sites effectively (for beginners)
- A gaming review of a game that allows you to practice almost everything!
And after I get a bit more of the "beginner" articles down, I might start with "lesson" articles that detail more basic structures and concepts that help in getting a solid foundation in Japanese.
Since this blog doesn't have very many readers yet, I hope you can pass the word along to help me out. I'd love to get some feedback to help create a great center for advice and learning for beginners and self-studiers and anyone looking to learn Japanese :)
I'll try to update with a new and interesting phrase or knowledge to add to your repertoire of Japanese every Thursday or Friday (not sure on the day yet). Outside of that, I'll try to keep updating as usual with all kinds of things. Here are some things you can look forward to in the coming week or two:
- Japanese sentence structure made easy (for intermediate/advanced learners)
- A look at the three different "types" of sentences (for beginners)
- Review of a cool online tool for kanji studies and how to use it most effectively
- How to use WWWJDIC sites effectively (for beginners)
- A gaming review of a game that allows you to practice almost everything!
And after I get a bit more of the "beginner" articles down, I might start with "lesson" articles that detail more basic structures and concepts that help in getting a solid foundation in Japanese.
Since this blog doesn't have very many readers yet, I hope you can pass the word along to help me out. I'd love to get some feedback to help create a great center for advice and learning for beginners and self-studiers and anyone looking to learn Japanese :)
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Gaming Japanese: Learn Japanese with Super Smash Bros.!
Hello everyone, and welcome to another blog about learning Japanese through gaming. Last time I talked about the ability to use Pocket Monsters to practice kana reading and recognition in a natural setting. Today we will talk about a game that you can actually pick up in the United States easily.
It's a fairly famous game, and you may know it already. This game is Super Smash Bros. Melee. It's the second game in the Super Smash Bros. series, made for the Nintendo Gamecube console. Since it's a Gamecube game, you can also play it on your Wii (but you will need Gamecube controllers to play!)
The game is a party-platformer-fighting game (it's hard to describe, really!) in which you play as a cast of Nintendo characters from many popular game series. In addition to this, you collect "trophies" (called "figures" in Japanese) as you play that give you information about various characters, objects, and worlds from all kinds of Nintendo games. There are hundreds of these to collect and read!
They look like this:
And you may notice that picture has Japanese text, and there's a lot there to read. Imagine hundreds of these little trophies with interesting trivia about your favorite games, all there ready for you to practice Japanese while you play a fun game.
Well, here's the exciting part, you can actually buy the Japanese version in the North American region, without needing a Japanese Wii or Gamecube to play! That's because the Japanese version is actually included in the North American release!
Within the game's options menu, you have the ability to change the game into Japanese. All of the text and voices will now be their Japanese counterparts! Be warned that once you do this, even the menus will be in Japanese, so if you don't know Japanese well at all, make sure you memorize the menus or have a dictionary handy so you can figure out how to change it back and navigate your way through the game.
There is a lot of reading and interesting trivia to be read in this game. And you can buy it on Amazon.com easily for under $20. Because the game is old now, you might have trouble finding a new copy, but used copies are abundant since it was a huge hit and sold millions of copies.
This game is great for seeing Japanese written naturally for a native audience, and it's on an interesting subject. Also, because it's often about game characters and worlds, there will be a lot of words in katakana, so you can practice your reading of kana in a natural setting. Over the kanji there are furigana (little characters that show you the reading), so you can look up kanji very easily (without having to look up radicals and stuff) or recognize words that you may know that you didn't know the kanji for. All of this while learning all about your favorite games, even down to obscure characters from obscure games that you may have never heard of before. There is a ton of content in this game, so it can keep you entertained for a long time, and it can let you practice Japanese all the while. The more you play, the more trophies you unlock to read and practice with.
I think it's a great game to play just for fun, and it has a lot of Japanese to read, too. And since a lot of people have a Gamecube or Wii, and the game is cheap and can be easily bought in the US, it shouldn't be too hard to pick up for under $20 with no extra costs to play. That's pretty cheap and easy to get your hands on a Japanese game :)
It's a fairly famous game, and you may know it already. This game is Super Smash Bros. Melee. It's the second game in the Super Smash Bros. series, made for the Nintendo Gamecube console. Since it's a Gamecube game, you can also play it on your Wii (but you will need Gamecube controllers to play!)
The game is a party-platformer-fighting game (it's hard to describe, really!) in which you play as a cast of Nintendo characters from many popular game series. In addition to this, you collect "trophies" (called "figures" in Japanese) as you play that give you information about various characters, objects, and worlds from all kinds of Nintendo games. There are hundreds of these to collect and read!
They look like this:
And you may notice that picture has Japanese text, and there's a lot there to read. Imagine hundreds of these little trophies with interesting trivia about your favorite games, all there ready for you to practice Japanese while you play a fun game.
Well, here's the exciting part, you can actually buy the Japanese version in the North American region, without needing a Japanese Wii or Gamecube to play! That's because the Japanese version is actually included in the North American release!
Within the game's options menu, you have the ability to change the game into Japanese. All of the text and voices will now be their Japanese counterparts! Be warned that once you do this, even the menus will be in Japanese, so if you don't know Japanese well at all, make sure you memorize the menus or have a dictionary handy so you can figure out how to change it back and navigate your way through the game.
There is a lot of reading and interesting trivia to be read in this game. And you can buy it on Amazon.com easily for under $20. Because the game is old now, you might have trouble finding a new copy, but used copies are abundant since it was a huge hit and sold millions of copies.
This game is great for seeing Japanese written naturally for a native audience, and it's on an interesting subject. Also, because it's often about game characters and worlds, there will be a lot of words in katakana, so you can practice your reading of kana in a natural setting. Over the kanji there are furigana (little characters that show you the reading), so you can look up kanji very easily (without having to look up radicals and stuff) or recognize words that you may know that you didn't know the kanji for. All of this while learning all about your favorite games, even down to obscure characters from obscure games that you may have never heard of before. There is a ton of content in this game, so it can keep you entertained for a long time, and it can let you practice Japanese all the while. The more you play, the more trophies you unlock to read and practice with.
I think it's a great game to play just for fun, and it has a lot of Japanese to read, too. And since a lot of people have a Gamecube or Wii, and the game is cheap and can be easily bought in the US, it shouldn't be too hard to pick up for under $20 with no extra costs to play. That's pretty cheap and easy to get your hands on a Japanese game :)
Daily Japanese: April 10, 2011 - "I don't know."
Hi again, everyone, and welcome to today's daily Japanese. Today we're going to learn about an important word that you will be using in everyday Japanese.
分かる wakaru
If you're studying on your own, chances are you've heard this word plenty. Often it translates to things like "to understand." Let's learn a little bit more of this word.
First, look at the kanji that is used to write it: 分
Now, kanji are not pictograms, and you shouldn't look at them as pictures most of the time, but the kanji used in wakaru is literally a 刀 katana (Japanese war sword) cutting through something (see the split wood above the "sword"?)
Of course, wakaru doesn't mean to cut through things, but this kanji is also used to mean things like "divide." The idea behind wakaru is that, in your head, you are "cutting up" or dividing information into understandable parts -- you are making your brain able to comprehend information.
The reason I'm bringing up this word is because its dictionary definition can be misleading. It's always better to pick up words by hearing their usage rather than seeing a translation and assuming they are used the same way.
I was inspired to write this post again after playing UNLIMITED:Saga and realized this a mistake a lot of beginners and self-study students can make.
A lot of times, when you want to say "I don't know," you will use 分からない wakaranai. If you were to use a dictionary, you would probably come up with 知らない siranai/shiranai; however, often it is a lot more natural to use wakaranai instead.
In the opening of U:Sg (Laura's quest), Laura is asking Henri why there are people after him, who they are, if they are bandits or hired, etc. To her questions, he answers simply 分かりません wakarimasen each time. He's saying this not because he's claiming not to understand her questions, but he's saying that he doesn't know the answers -- he doesn't understand the meaning behind his chasers' actions.
But it's used in all kinds of situations. Usually if someone is asking you "how" or "why," even if in English you would answer "I don't know," you would answer wakaranai in Japanese.
The dictionary translation of "to know," 知る siru/shiru, is about knowing in the sense of being familiar with things. Like how you "know" a person, "know" of a place, or "know" a fact. It's used for that kind of "know." Of course, in the case where someone asks you a question about how or why and you absolutely don't know the answer, you can say siranai/shiranai, but if you're not using it with someone who knows you well or you are casual with, it can have a nuance of something like "I don't know (and I really don't care)." unless you say it just right. Often, it's what little kids will say when their 1st grade teacher asks them a question and they don't want to answer because they don't feel like being in school. It's like "Why would you even ask me that? How could I possibly know?" That kind of feeling is carried in siranai/shiranai.
When you're talking about knowing someone or knowing a fact, you can use siru/shiru, but when you're talking about "knowing" anything else, I'd say it's safe to say wakaru first.
Even still, though, in a lot of situations, people still will use wakaru to state that they don't know something.
A lot of times when I see people asking for the title of a song (like, they've heard a song but don't know the name), they will state their request by saying 曲名が分かりません kyoukumei ga wakarimasen, meaning "I don't know the (song) title."
When you want to say you don't know Korean, you would say 韓国語がわからない kankokugo ga wakaranai, which means by a dictionary that you don't "understand" Korean, but it's the same way that you would say you don't understand/speak/know Korean. If someone is speaking Japanese to you, but you aren't good enough to understand them, you can say すみません、日本語分かりません。 Sumimasen, nihongo wakarimasen. This would mean "Sorry, I don't speak Japanese." A lot of people who were using a dictionary would try to say something like 話せない hanasenai, but this isn't very natural (and you're talking about understanding their speech in your apology, not your ability to speak... although it is true that you're not able to speak back. But if you're saying your response in Japanese, even if that's all you know, you do technically have that ability to speak, so it would be weird to say that.)
Check out these Google instructions that teach you how to look up the spelling of words when you don't know the spelling. 分からない単語の正しいスペル wakaranai tango no tadasii/tadashii superu is a phrase that refers to not knowing the spelling of a word, not that you don't understand the word, even though a dictionary would translate wakaranai to "don't understand."
The main point here is that wakaru, although a dictionary will say "to understand," is used to mean "know" in the sense that we use it in English, among many other things, and it's important to listen out for it and pick it up this way. A lot of times when you want to use what we would say as "know" in English, it's better to use wakaru instead of siru/shiru or other words.
And since we're talking about the word, another important use of wakaru is receiving directions or information. When someone has explained something to you or told you to do something, you can say 分かった wakatta to confirm that you understood what was said. It means kind of like "got it" or "ok," though literally means "understood." But you will hear this a lot, so listen for it, too.
分かる wakaru
If you're studying on your own, chances are you've heard this word plenty. Often it translates to things like "to understand." Let's learn a little bit more of this word.
First, look at the kanji that is used to write it: 分
Now, kanji are not pictograms, and you shouldn't look at them as pictures most of the time, but the kanji used in wakaru is literally a 刀 katana (Japanese war sword) cutting through something (see the split wood above the "sword"?)
Of course, wakaru doesn't mean to cut through things, but this kanji is also used to mean things like "divide." The idea behind wakaru is that, in your head, you are "cutting up" or dividing information into understandable parts -- you are making your brain able to comprehend information.
The reason I'm bringing up this word is because its dictionary definition can be misleading. It's always better to pick up words by hearing their usage rather than seeing a translation and assuming they are used the same way.
I was inspired to write this post again after playing UNLIMITED:Saga and realized this a mistake a lot of beginners and self-study students can make.
A lot of times, when you want to say "I don't know," you will use 分からない wakaranai. If you were to use a dictionary, you would probably come up with 知らない siranai/shiranai; however, often it is a lot more natural to use wakaranai instead.
In the opening of U:Sg (Laura's quest), Laura is asking Henri why there are people after him, who they are, if they are bandits or hired, etc. To her questions, he answers simply 分かりません wakarimasen each time. He's saying this not because he's claiming not to understand her questions, but he's saying that he doesn't know the answers -- he doesn't understand the meaning behind his chasers' actions.
But it's used in all kinds of situations. Usually if someone is asking you "how" or "why," even if in English you would answer "I don't know," you would answer wakaranai in Japanese.
The dictionary translation of "to know," 知る siru/shiru, is about knowing in the sense of being familiar with things. Like how you "know" a person, "know" of a place, or "know" a fact. It's used for that kind of "know." Of course, in the case where someone asks you a question about how or why and you absolutely don't know the answer, you can say siranai/shiranai, but if you're not using it with someone who knows you well or you are casual with, it can have a nuance of something like "I don't know (and I really don't care)." unless you say it just right. Often, it's what little kids will say when their 1st grade teacher asks them a question and they don't want to answer because they don't feel like being in school. It's like "Why would you even ask me that? How could I possibly know?" That kind of feeling is carried in siranai/shiranai.
When you're talking about knowing someone or knowing a fact, you can use siru/shiru, but when you're talking about "knowing" anything else, I'd say it's safe to say wakaru first.
Even still, though, in a lot of situations, people still will use wakaru to state that they don't know something.
A lot of times when I see people asking for the title of a song (like, they've heard a song but don't know the name), they will state their request by saying 曲名が分かりません kyoukumei ga wakarimasen, meaning "I don't know the (song) title."
When you want to say you don't know Korean, you would say 韓国語がわからない kankokugo ga wakaranai, which means by a dictionary that you don't "understand" Korean, but it's the same way that you would say you don't understand/speak/know Korean. If someone is speaking Japanese to you, but you aren't good enough to understand them, you can say すみません、日本語分かりません。 Sumimasen, nihongo wakarimasen. This would mean "Sorry, I don't speak Japanese." A lot of people who were using a dictionary would try to say something like 話せない hanasenai, but this isn't very natural (and you're talking about understanding their speech in your apology, not your ability to speak... although it is true that you're not able to speak back. But if you're saying your response in Japanese, even if that's all you know, you do technically have that ability to speak, so it would be weird to say that.)
Check out these Google instructions that teach you how to look up the spelling of words when you don't know the spelling. 分からない単語の正しいスペル wakaranai tango no tadasii/tadashii superu is a phrase that refers to not knowing the spelling of a word, not that you don't understand the word, even though a dictionary would translate wakaranai to "don't understand."
The main point here is that wakaru, although a dictionary will say "to understand," is used to mean "know" in the sense that we use it in English, among many other things, and it's important to listen out for it and pick it up this way. A lot of times when you want to use what we would say as "know" in English, it's better to use wakaru instead of siru/shiru or other words.
And since we're talking about the word, another important use of wakaru is receiving directions or information. When someone has explained something to you or told you to do something, you can say 分かった wakatta to confirm that you understood what was said. It means kind of like "got it" or "ok," though literally means "understood." But you will hear this a lot, so listen for it, too.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Daily Japanese: April 08, 2011 - Yes & No
Hello, friends! Welcome to another daily helping of random Japanese stuff that you can incorporate into your Japanese right away naturally :)
Today we're going to talk about various ways to say yes and no. You'd be surprised that it's not as simple as it seems, but it's also not that difficult.
Let's start out with what you will usually see in a dictionary:
はい hai is the proper word for "Yes."
いいえ iie is the proper word for "No."
I say "proper" because they are more formal words. While you can certainly use them in casual situations, too, they definitely sound more polite and stiff than their casual counterparts. Consider how it sounds when someone says "Yes." instead of "Yeah." in English. It is a good idea to use these forms when you are talking to someone of a higher position than you (boss, teacher, senior, etc.) or when you are writing formally.
ええ ee is a more casual form of "Yes." (like "Yeah.")
いや iya is a more casual form of "No."
These are used a lot more often casually in everday speech than their polite counterparts. You can use them politely, as well. You can use them in polite situations and with strangers and things. They are probably the most commonly used in regular speech.
うん written un is said like an "nn" or "mm" sound. It is even more casual than ee.
ううん written uun is said like two nn sounds back to back. The first one is higher pitched.
These are very casual, a lot like saying "uh-huh" in English to mean "yes."
These are the most common ways that people say yes and no in Japanese. There are all kinds away you can affirm and negate, of course, but these are simple "yes" and "no" phrases that you can use exactly like you would use them in English, as a type of interjection-like word.
One thing to note is that when asked questions, Japanese people always answer yes or no based on the question asked. So if someone asked "Are there no drinks left in the fridge?" a proper reply would be "Yes, there are no drinks." The "yes" part means "Yes, you are right." If you say "No, there are no drinks." It would not make any sense in Japanese and would be confusing.
Another thing you will notice is that people say "yes" in Japanese to signify that they are listening and understand you. It is not uncommon for a Japanese person to answer "Yes" to any question you ask before giving their answer. When they do this, it means that they followed what you said, but they're not actually answering "Yes" to anything. In fact, even if the answer is "No," someone may say "Yes" before the "No" to show that they understood the question. It would be natural for you to practice doing this as well.
You may also notice that Japanese people may constantly say ee and un while listening. They are not trying to interrupt you; this is a way to show that they are following what you're saying as you say it.
I think the best way to learn these is to pick them up through listening to natural speech. Try watching talk shows and things like that to see people talking naturally rather than following a script.
Here's a video of the music talk show "Utaban." In this show, the hosts interview various musical acts. In this episode, they talk to a very large girl group with many memebers. Notice the uses of all three hai, ee, and un in their speech. Notice how the hosts often go un un un as they listen and follow the girls. Note how the young girl interviewed first in this clip answers the question about her school grade with ee. See what other instances of the "yes words" you can find.
Try to listen for them everywhere, and try to incorporate them into your own Japanese. It will sound very natural and native-like if you copy those kinds of examples :)
Also note there may not be a Daily Japanese tomorrow because my band is giving a concert :)
Today we're going to talk about various ways to say yes and no. You'd be surprised that it's not as simple as it seems, but it's also not that difficult.
Let's start out with what you will usually see in a dictionary:
はい hai is the proper word for "Yes."
いいえ iie is the proper word for "No."
I say "proper" because they are more formal words. While you can certainly use them in casual situations, too, they definitely sound more polite and stiff than their casual counterparts. Consider how it sounds when someone says "Yes." instead of "Yeah." in English. It is a good idea to use these forms when you are talking to someone of a higher position than you (boss, teacher, senior, etc.) or when you are writing formally.
ええ ee is a more casual form of "Yes." (like "Yeah.")
いや iya is a more casual form of "No."
These are used a lot more often casually in everday speech than their polite counterparts. You can use them politely, as well. You can use them in polite situations and with strangers and things. They are probably the most commonly used in regular speech.
うん written un is said like an "nn" or "mm" sound. It is even more casual than ee.
ううん written uun is said like two nn sounds back to back. The first one is higher pitched.
These are very casual, a lot like saying "uh-huh" in English to mean "yes."
These are the most common ways that people say yes and no in Japanese. There are all kinds away you can affirm and negate, of course, but these are simple "yes" and "no" phrases that you can use exactly like you would use them in English, as a type of interjection-like word.
One thing to note is that when asked questions, Japanese people always answer yes or no based on the question asked. So if someone asked "Are there no drinks left in the fridge?" a proper reply would be "Yes, there are no drinks." The "yes" part means "Yes, you are right." If you say "No, there are no drinks." It would not make any sense in Japanese and would be confusing.
Another thing you will notice is that people say "yes" in Japanese to signify that they are listening and understand you. It is not uncommon for a Japanese person to answer "Yes" to any question you ask before giving their answer. When they do this, it means that they followed what you said, but they're not actually answering "Yes" to anything. In fact, even if the answer is "No," someone may say "Yes" before the "No" to show that they understood the question. It would be natural for you to practice doing this as well.
You may also notice that Japanese people may constantly say ee and un while listening. They are not trying to interrupt you; this is a way to show that they are following what you're saying as you say it.
I think the best way to learn these is to pick them up through listening to natural speech. Try watching talk shows and things like that to see people talking naturally rather than following a script.
Here's a video of the music talk show "Utaban." In this show, the hosts interview various musical acts. In this episode, they talk to a very large girl group with many memebers. Notice the uses of all three hai, ee, and un in their speech. Notice how the hosts often go un un un as they listen and follow the girls. Note how the young girl interviewed first in this clip answers the question about her school grade with ee. See what other instances of the "yes words" you can find.
Try to listen for them everywhere, and try to incorporate them into your own Japanese. It will sound very natural and native-like if you copy those kinds of examples :)
Also note there may not be a Daily Japanese tomorrow because my band is giving a concert :)
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