Review of Japanese grammar

This second season has just come to an end and we are now on our way to tackle the Japanese grammar review. So, if you have followed all the lessons properly, if you have done all the exercises seriously, you are now familiar with most of the particles of the Japanese language. You have mastered at least the most basic uses of these particles. And you could see that all this was not a piece of cake! We’re going to do a quick recap of all the content in this second season.

So, you had over twenty grammar courses, twenty-six vocabulary courses, six geography courses, and eight writing courses. This season has been much denser than the first but at least now you know :

1/ Construct affirmative and interrogative sentences from a verb, thanks to the different grammatical particles.
2/ Organize the different complements of the sentence.
3/ Customize your sentences and nuance the speech in the different relationships between the speaker and the listener.

You also master a much richer, much larger vocabulary in order to broaden the range of sentences you can create. Do not hesitate to read again all the courses of the season, from the beginning to the end, to start again from the beginning. By taking the time to review everything you have already seen, so you will better understand certain small nuances, certain small subtleties and thus better consolidate your knowledge. All of this can only be beneficial for you.

During this season, I didn’t teach you ready-made sentences, I preferred to teach you how to construct a sentence so that you will be able to construct your own sentences. I know I am repeating myself but, as I have often said, it is important to understand how a language works in order to master it better.

We will now move on to the third season which will be titled « The Japanese conjugation ». So, what does that mean?

I told you at the start of season two that there was no conjugation in Japanese. So indeed, it will not be conjugation like what we have in English; but in Japanese the verb, which we know for the moment to put at the end of the sentence, will change form. In season two, we saw the grammar, that is to say everything that comes before the verb since it is always at the end of the sentence.

In season three, we will of course use many verbs in our sentences. There will of course be those that I have already given you to learn by heart during this season but also new verbs that we will discover during the third season. And since we are talking about verbs, here is already a quick list of everything we are going to discover (out of order) :

– The verb groups,
– The polite form,
– The negative form in order to express the negation in our sentences (the equivalent of “don’t / do not / doesn’t / does not” in English),
– The volitive form to express an individual or collective will,
– Several verbal and grammatical forms to express a will, a judgment or a personal impression, a supposition or a rumor,
– Showing a preference,
– And a whole bunch of other things…

I won’t go into more detail here; you’ll see all of this when the time comes.

And so, to express all of these things in Japanese, what’s going to happen with the verb in the sentence? How is he going to behave? Well, in Japanese it will change form, that is, sometimes it will take endings. There is for example an ending to express the negative, another to express the volitive… Unlike French, there is no endings system for each conjugation tense for each personal pronoun according to each group of verbs. However, the Japanese conjugation is not necessarily simpler nor necessarily more difficult but will require some mental gymnastics on your part.

Since we’re talking about it, I’m going to give you a little comparison between how conjugation works in the French language and especially in Romance languages on the one hand, and how conjugation works in Japanese on the other. Well, I know this course is for English speakers but I don’t have any other examples. Don't worry, it’s very easy to understand.

In French, and in other Romance languages like Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and others, the conjugation system is based, as said above, on a system of endings for each conjugation tense for each personal pronoun according to each group of verbs. So, in these languages you learn endings by rote according to conjugation tense, personal pronoun, and verb group. In a language like French, the personal pronoun can NEVER be omitted. Whether you make an affirmative, interrogative, negative sentence…, you can never omit the personal pronoun. So, you always know who is speaking even outside of the context of the sentence. And in languages like Spanish, Portuguese and Italian, the personal pronoun can be omitted since the ending of the verb alone makes it possible to guess who is speaking, in addition to the context of the sentence.

Now, in Japanese, how are things done ? You have groups of verbs, you have endings but only one ending depending on what you want to express (be it the present tense, the future tense, the past tense, the negative, the volitive...), that is to say that the ending will always be the same regardless of the personal pronoun. However, in Japanese, the personal pronoun can be omitted, and it is quite often the case, which means that you’ll have sentences where only the context can let you understand who is speaking.

And there, I have just explained very briefly a first peculiarity and difficulty specific to Japanese conjugation. And this is just a preview. I’m not even talking about the polite form which will be an extra layer to digest.

So, I’m stopping here for the exposition of what to expect in season three, all to tell you that you still have a lot to discover.

I will now give you some tips to improve your Japanese skills. In addition to having fun copying entire lines of katakana, hiragana and kanji onto sheets, you also need to practice speaking. If you are lucky enough to be in contact with Japanese people, take advantage of it. Practice speaking and understanding what the other person is saying to you.

You must develop your capacity to understand in real time what your interlocutor is telling you. When a Japanese person says a sentence to you, you need to be able to understand it immediately because the other person, once he finished a sentence, moves on to another sentence and so on.

This is a totally different exercise from writing whole sentences on a sheet of paper. Usually when you write on a piece of paper you have time to think before you write, but when chatting with a real Japanese (or ideally a Japanese at least) everything has to go really fast. You have to understand and respond immediately.

Don’t hesitate to ask the other person to correct you if you make mistakes, and above all, don't worry if you do. It does not matter! As said on the FAQ page, there aren't thirty-six solutions. You must strive to take the first step. You will make mistakes, it’s inevitable, but it’s part of learning. So have no fear, ridicule has never killed anyone.

If you don’t have the ability to talk to a Japanese on a daily basis or with someone who is studying the Japanese language with you, there are a few things you can do to compensate. For example, you can think in Japanese as much as possible in your head. When you turn on the light by pressing a switch, when you open / close the door or when you cook rice in your pressure cooker, when you put your cake inside the oven…, everything you do, everything you see, you think it in Japanese in your head. This will inspire you to create sentences.

One last thing : I guess a lot of you have already started reading manga and watching anime in the Japanese language, or maybe even listening to songs in Japanese. And of course, you try to understand what you read and what you hear. This is all great, I think it’s a good move, however don’t try to go too fast. Focus on everything we have seen together and strive to create hundreds of sentences every day within the limits of what we have learned so far to make sure you have mastered everything we have seen together during these first two seasons.

Finally, concerning the vocabulary. If ever you have no vocabulary, if you ever do not know the vocabulary phrases you'd like to create, find it! It is imperative that you seek it out because it is very important for you that you have the autonomy, the initiative to look for the vocabulary words that you lack and that you need to create your sentences.

In my vocabulary courses, I did not put all the words of the Japanese language for you, that is obviously impossible. I try to put as much as possible with a lot of explanation on some to help you understand how these words were created, in order to help you remember them better. However, when you don’t know how to say a word, look for it, learn it, and then you can stand on your own feet. If you lack the vocabulary words, even if you master the full syntax, you will be unable to tell the sentences you want to say.

Following this review, you will find, as at the end of season one, several vocabulary lessons. After the last vocabulary lesson, you will have the opportunity to jump straight into season three. However, I have prepared several exercises that will lead you to call upon everything you have learned so far. You will also learn a little more vocabulary there. Be aware that the vocabulary you learn there will potentially be reused in exercises in season three. So I strongly advise you not to skip it.

In these exercises, you will of course reuse vocabulary that you have already studied ; you will also find many proper nouns : city names, Western and Japanese first and last names, sometimes even Korean. Moreover, you will have names of American states and American cities that will come up regularly, so knowing this, you know what you have to do. I now consider that you know perfectly well how to write any foreign proper names in katakana and that you master enough kanji to easily recognize Japanese first and last names. Concerning the latter, you will have many in the Japanese to English translation exercises. By the way, don’t forget the mnemonic tricks :

– In Japanese, the Japanese family name is always placed before and the given name after.
– Japanese surnames are purely Japanese in the majority of cases.

Also, be aware that, unless I’m mistaken, there are no Japanese first names that can have more than one possible pronunciation. This will make your life easier.

Then, there is rarely more than one way to formulate a sentence in Japanese. I have tried to give you in English sentences that can only be translated in one way. Sometimes, I will give you certain indications. If I want you to use one adverb rather than another, for example.

Also note that, in the English to Japanese translation exercises, I may give you sentences to translate where it is possible to use a word or its synonym, and in the correction, instead of putting all the possible words between 【・】, I only give you one word. Par souci de simplification. For example, the verb “to sleep” in Japanese can be written . or .. Both are equal, but in the correction, I will only use one. Sometimes, the katakana version of certain words is used more than their kanji version. As much, I will use one or the other in the correction. If I wrote an animal name for example in kanji and you, in katakana, it does not matter. The sentence remains correct.

This review is now complete, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you. Thank you for being on my site, for paying attention to my work and I hope that everything you have discovered has made you want to continue the adventure. So, thank you very much.

With that, it’s time to end this second season and I will meet you for the start of the third season. Very soon, I hope.

Do your homework properly everyone. And thank you.