Japanese grammar

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Pronouns

Adjectives

Tae Kim - Adj grammar
2 types: i adj and na adj
i adj ends in i, can be directly put in front of the noun to describe

na adj all adjectives not ending in i and exceptions require na as suffix before a noun.

Abverbs

Tae Kim - Adverbs

Create Adverbs from Adjectives

Nouns and Adj negation

2 rules to negate nouns and adjectives; for the polite form, add desu to the end of the sentence.

The negative form of nouns and adj is similar grammatically to i adj, and thus cannot use da with the negative.

Particles overview

Topic Particles

Tae Kim
ha [wa] as for; used to indicate a new topic that can be named for the conversation

mo as well, also; inclusive topic particle

Identifier particle

ga identifies or seeks to identify an unknown, or a particular thing among all possibilities, literally translated to "the one that".

Sentences can be restructured to express the same meaning without ga.

Ending particles

Tae Kim
ne used when the speaker is seeking agreement and confirmation, by adding a tone of "right?" or "isn't it?"

yo used when the speaker wants to stress something to the learner, by adding a tone of "you know?"

yone combined

kana I wonder maybe, casual

Tae Kim - Male or Female Speech Tone

Nouns properties particle

Tae Kim - no
no particle can describe nouns with nouns, to express ownership, membership, property, etc. Important to remember the order of the modification, literal translation would be "of" with reverse order.

no can replace the noun entirely when understood by the context.

Particles listing nouns

List multiple nouns
to group multiple nouns together in a complete list.

ya and toka more casual can list multiple nouns, but implying the list is incomplete, and is a sample among a larger list.

ka can list several options with multiple nouns, meaning "or".

Particles seeking explanations

Tae Kim - Explanations and expectations
no added to the end of the sentence to seek or provide an explanation; for nouns and na-adj, you need to add nano.

When parts like da or desu follows no noda, nodesu, the no is replaced with n to make pronunciation easier -> nda and ndesu; if not replaced, considered old-fashioned.

Various degrees of explanation and expectation

Particles with verbs

Tae Kim - Verb Particles
wo [o] particle used to designate the direct object of a verb.

to with, used to describe an action done with someone or something

ni at, in, to, on; designate the direct target of an action on time, location, persons

de describe the content or the means of the action taking place, the context

he [e] specifically used to indicate a direction of motion verbs like "to go" or "to send", usage covered by ni

Question

Tae Kim
mo with question words to include or exclude "everything"

demo with question words to indicate "any"

ka the question marker with question words to indicate "some"

Verbs overview

Tae Kim - Verbs overview

Tae Kim - Verb types

Desire verb forms

Tae Kim - Desire and Volition
To describe what someone or something wants to do, verb stems to be attached with -tai, essentially changing the verb into an i-adj.

Volition verb forms

one of the usage: let's, shall we

Polite volitional verb form: stem-mashou

Verb clauses

Tae Kim - Verb clauses - a complete sentence must end either in a real verb or state-of-being.

Verb clauses as adjectives

For clauses ending in a na-adj, attach na as suffix to describe a noun.

Verb clauses as nouns

Conjunctions

Tae Kim - Conj
kedo, ga

kara, node

noni

You can leave out either side of a conjunction structure if understood by context, e.g. kara.

If you leave the first part out, you still need to add desu, da, or na just as if the first sentence was there.

You can even leave out both parts of a conjunction structure as seen below

Numbers and Counters

Tae Kim - Basic numbers and age

Tae Kim - Telling Time