The whole grammar

An ordinary Japanese sentence uses three scripts at once: kanji for the words that carry the meaning, hiragana for the grammar around them, and katakana for words borrowed from other languages — 私(わたし)はコーヒーを飲(の)みます has all three. This area takes them one at a time, then looks at the things that only exist in writing: the length marks that change a word, the kana that follow a kanji, and a page with no spaces that can run from top to bottom. Every Japanese sentence on this site carries its reading over its kanji, so nothing here has to wait until the kanji are known.

The first Japanese sentence most people learn is 私(わたし)は学生(がくせい)です, and it already shows the shape of everything that follows: the topic first, marked by は, and the part that matters last. This area builds on that one pattern — asking, denying, linking two nouns, saying "also", pointing at things and places, and saying what is where. None of it needs a single verb ending yet, and all of it is used every day.

English knows who did what to whom from the order of the words: "the dog bit the man" and "the man bit the dog" are different sentences. Japanese knows it from particles — short words placed after a noun that say what the noun is doing in the sentence: は for the topic, が for the subject, を for the object, に for a target, で for the place of an action. Because the particle carries the role, the order of the parts before the verb can change without changing the meaning, and choosing the wrong particle is the mistake that changes it most.

A Japanese verb does not change for person or number: 食(た)べます is "I eat", "she eats" and "they eat". What it changes for is politeness, negation, tense and mood, and it does so by adding endings to a stem. Which stem, and how it is reached, depends on the group the verb belongs to — so the group comes first, then the polite ます-forms and the te-form, and then the plain forms on which almost every later pattern is built.

A Japanese adjective is not an English one with a different spelling. An i-adjective such as 高(たか)い carries its own tense and its own negative — 高(たか)かった is "was expensive", with no verb anywhere — while a na-adjective such as 静(しず)か needs な before a noun and だ or です at the end, exactly like a noun. Everything in this area, from the past tense to adverbs, comparison, "too" and "looks like", comes down to knowing which of the two kinds you are holding.

Once a verb has its te-form, a whole set of constructions opens up. Add ください and it is a request; add いる and it is going on, or has happened and stayed that way; add もいい and it is allowed; add しまう and it is finished — often to the speaker's regret. How the te-form itself is built belongs to the area on verbs. This area is about what is attached to it, and about the ideas English leaves to tone or to an adverb — "in advance", "by mistake", "just to see" — which Japanese puts into the verb. The helper verbs いる, ある, おく, みる, いく, くる and しまう are written in kana when they follow a te-form.

In Japanese a wish is grammatically private. たい and ほしい describe the speaker's own wishes, and somebody else's need a different form, because nobody can report from inside another person. Intentions come in degrees: a thought taking shape (〜ようと思(おも)う), a settled plan (つもり), and a decision announced as made, by you or for you (ことにする, ことになる).

English has one verb for giving and lets the word "me" show the direction. Japanese has three — あげる, くれる and もらう — and the choice depends on who gives, who receives and on whose side the speaker stands. The same three verbs follow a te-form to say who did a favour for whom, which is how Japanese builds gratitude into its grammar. Each of them also has a respectful partner for superiors, customers and strangers, and turned into a question they become the polite way to ask for help.

English has one passive and builds "make" and "let" with separate verbs. Japanese does all of it with endings: られる for the passive, させる for making or letting somebody act, and the two together, させられる, for being made to do something. Each ending turns the verb into a new group 2 verb, so once you can build the form, you can already conjugate it. The harder part is what the forms mean. The Japanese passive is less about turning an object into a subject than about saying who was affected — which is why it can be built on "rain", and why it so often carries a complaint.

English hangs its subordinate clauses after the thing they depend on: "the book that I bought", "I stayed in because it rained". Japanese does the opposite, and does it consistently. A clause that describes a noun stands in front of it, a reason stands in front of its result, and a time clause stands in front of what happens then: 昨日(きのう)買(か)った本(ほん), 雨(あめ)が降(ふ)ったから、家(いえ)にいました. Almost every clause in this area ends in the plain form, followed by a small word that says how it attaches — から, のに, とき, と, ために — and only the verb at the very end of the sentence carries politeness. Once that shape is familiar, long Japanese sentences stop looking like a wall and start looking like a stack of blocks with one verb on top.

English has one word for a condition and leaves the rest to context. Japanese has four, and they are not synonyms: と says that one thing always follows another, ば says what it takes, たら says what happens once something has happened, and なら takes up what has just been said and gives advice about it. Each one is easy on its own. The difficulty is choosing, and the last topic in this area sets the four side by side with a short procedure for deciding. ても, "even if", completes the set.

English shows how sure it is with adverbs — probably, perhaps, apparently — and can leave them out without sounding odd. Japanese builds certainty and source into the end of the sentence, and uses them constantly: a bare statement about what someone else thinks, feels or will do sounds overconfident. Every pattern in this area answers two questions at once: how sure is the speaker, and what is the claim based on — a guess, a known fact, something seen, or something heard. Most of them also share one practical difficulty, which is what comes before them: だ, な, の or nothing at all.

English is polite with words and tone: "would you mind", "sir", a softer voice. Japanese is polite with grammar. Every sentence ends either plainly or with です and ます, and on top of that there is a second layer, 敬語(けいご), in which the verb itself changes depending on who is acting: honorific forms raise the person you respect, humble forms lower you and your side. None of this is optional decoration. Choosing the wrong level is heard at once, the way a wrong tense is heard in English — and at work it is part of the job.

Past the basic forms, Japanese says a great deal through a small number of fixed patterns built from ordinary nouns: わけ (reason), ところ (place), もの (thing), ほど (extent). Each of them has drifted a long way from its dictionary meaning, and none of them translates word for word. This area takes them one at a time, says what each one adds to a sentence, and shows where English pulls a learner towards the wrong one.

At N2 the grammar stops adding new verb forms and starts adding precision. Most of the expressions here say how two facts stand to each other — despite, based on, whereas, precisely because, as soon as — and English speakers usually know the idea already and lack only the phrase. What they do not know is the register: にもかかわらず, に基(もと)づいて and ざるを得(え)ない belong to writing and formal speech, and each one has a plainer neighbour that is used in conversation. Every topic names that neighbour, and says where the two part.

Japanese has a written style that is not simply speech written down. Essays, newspapers, reports and academic writing replace です with である, join clauses with a bare stem instead of the て-form, use the old negative ず, and open sentences with connectives that nobody uses in conversation. None of it is difficult once it has been recognised, and recognising it is what turns a newspaper page from a wall of kanji into a set of familiar sentences.