Japanese Grammar structure can seem confusing and complicated – but it isn’t!
It’s just the way it’s taught.
Right from the start there are some basic secrets you need to know that the textbooks and websites never tell you.
That’s why this course teaches Japanese xxx structure from scratch. It’s not just for beginners. It’s because in order to explain how Japanese really works we have to sweep away all the mental fuzz of textbook “Japanese grammar” and start again with the real thing.
If you’ve already learned some Japanese this course will open your eyes. If you haven’t, it’s the very best way to start.
In this second lesson we are able to get deeper into the Japanese Core Sentence, see how it really works and explain one vital secret that unlocks the real simplicity and regularity of Japanese grammar structure.
This lesson builds on the train metaphor and introduces the all-important “invisible Car” – the mysterious vehicle that takes the mystery out of Japanese grammar structure – because once you know it’s there it isn’t a mystery any more.
1. The practice sentence (can be in full Japanese, hiragana or romaji)
If you use romaji you should place a hyphen between a particle and its noun to show that they are part of the same carriage.
歌を歌う or うたをうたう or uta-wo utau
2. If there is an invisible carriage, please write the sentence a second time showing the zero pronoun and its particle (you can copy-paste the zero symbol from here).
∅が歌を歌う or ∅がうたをうたう or ∅-ga uta-wo utau
3. Give the English meaning (you can put the zero pronoun part in brackets)
(I) sing a song
Note: since there is no singular/plural distinction in Japanese grammar structure, “(I) sing songs” would also be correct.
This is very basic vocabulary that you can use for making simple A is B and A does B sentences after the first lesson. They are all written in hiragana and romaji. Please use hiragana if possible (if you can use any kanji or katakana where appropriate, of course feel free to do so).
This is the last in my nano-series (heh heh) on all those sentences that end in various na, no, ni, combinations.
It can really feel like kana-soup at first can’t it?
Actually they are very easy and self-explanatory once you understand how they really work. The real problem is that because the standard “Western Japanese grammar” texts never explain a few basic facts about Japanese structure they can seem difficult and confusing when they really aren’t.
This is a short lesson on the pronunciation of う and ふ.
And it introduces a very special guest!
I think it matters on more levels than just pronunciation. Thinking that ふ really is “fu”, for example, is one of the things that confuses learners about Japanese structure itself.
Because we need to have a firm grasp of the kana-row relationships in order to grasp the way words are manipulated (or “conjugated” as Western grammar arbitrarily and confusingly designates about half of the process while leaving the other half undesignated).
So I think it will be helpful in more ways than one.
An unusual lesson this time as I was really not well enough to record a normal one and I didn’t want to leave my dear viewers without one. I hope you enjoy Chibi-sensei’s teaching.
I guess the people who find me strange will find her stranger – but that can’t be helped.
And for the people who do like me it’s a little chance to meet the family!
Lots of love to you all – haters and fans alike. But especially the fans – thank you so much for your constant support. It means so much to a poor sick doll!
Godan and ichidan verbs (so-called u and ru verbs) are one of the few areas where Japanese can seem as painful as a European language.
All ichidan verbs end in る (ru) but so do a significant number of godan verbs. So it really is true that you have to know them on a case-by-case basis. And for once even Dolly doesn’t have the One Logical Ring that binds them all.
But wait! Put away those word-lists. There’s still a much smarter way to learn which is much simpler and more effective than rote memorization.
Dolly explains all in this eye-opening seven-minute video.
Japanese sentence-ender particles are rooted in Japanese culture and ways of thinking.
Luckily these cultural implications are easy to understand at a basic level, and once you have that information the particles become easy to understand and to use.
This video goes over the commonest sentence ending particles and shows why they are used, what they imply and how to use them.
Most textbooks and schools teach desu-masu Japanese (teineigo) from the beginning.
This is a bad idea because desu-masu is not basic Japanese structure and it leads to a number of confusions about what basic Japanese structure really is. You can easily learn to put basic Japanese into desu-masu form once you have learned it. But learning that form first is learning upside-down.
This video shows exactly what goes wrong when you learn desu-masu first and how to avoid it.
The WA particle is the most basic part of Japanese and the most misunderstood.
No ni and na no ni are frequently found in Japanese.