Beginner Japanese

Japanese is written with three scripts at the same time, and hiragana is the one that holds a sentence together. There are forty-six characters, they are entirely regular, and a fortnight of ten minutes a day is enough to learn them cold. The goal of this lesson is not to recognise them when prompted, which is easy, but to read and write all forty-six from memory, which is the thing every later lesson quietly assumes you can do.

Why hiragana comes first

The three scripts divide the labour. Hiragana is a syllabary: each character stands for a sound, not a meaning. It carries the grammar of the language, the verb endings and the small words that mark who did what to whom. Katakana is a second syllabary covering exactly the same sounds, used mostly for words borrowed from other languages, and it is the next lesson. Kanji are the characters borrowed from Chinese, which carry meaning as well as sound, and they arrive properly in lesson nine.

A normal sentence mixes all three, but hiragana is the mortar between the bricks. Strip the kanji out of a text and it merely looks childish. Strip the hiragana out and it stops being Japanese at all. Learners who put this off and lean on romanised Japanese pay twice over: they read at a crawl for years afterwards, and they mispronounce, because the Latin alphabet keeps suggesting English sounds that Japanese does not contain.

The gojūon grid

Hiragana is not an alphabet in a line but a grid, the gojūon or "fifty sounds". Read across for the five vowels, always in the order a, i, u, e, o. Read down for consonant families: everything in the second row starts with k, everything in the third with s. Each character is one consonant plus one vowel, with two kinds of exception: the five bare vowels along the top, and ん at the foot, which is a lone n.

Learn it in grid order, one row a day. That order is not merely traditional: it is the order of every dictionary, every index, every class register and every menu you will ever read.

Four cells break the pattern in sound rather than in writing. し is shi, never si. ち is chi, never ti. つ is tsu, a t and an s pressed together, as at the end of "cats". ふ sits between an f and an h, blown between the lips rather than made with the teeth. The writing is perfectly regular here; it is the consonant that shifts before certain vowels.

Reading your first words

Nothing else is needed to read a real word. Sound out each character in turn, giving every one the same length, and you have it.

やま
yama
mountain

ねこ
neko
cat

さかな
sakana
fish

ひと
hito
person

Two strokes that change the sound

A pair of short strokes at the top right, the dakuten, voices the consonant. A small circle, the handakuten, turns the h row into p. No new shapes to learn, so twenty-five extra sounds cost nothing.

じ and ぢ sound identical, as do ず and づ. In modern spelling the し and す forms do almost all the work, and ぢ and づ turn up in a handful of words only, so treat them as curiosities rather than as choices you have to make.

かぎ
kagi
key

でんわ
denwa
telephone

たべもの
tabemono
food

かばん
kaban
bag

Small ya, yu and yo

Written full size, や ゆ よ are ordinary characters. Written small after a character from the i column, they fuse with it into a single sound: き plus small ゃ is kya, one beat, not two. These are the yōon.

おちゃ
ocha
tea

しゃしん
shashin
photograph

じてんしゃ
jitensha
bicycle

きんぎょ
kingyo
goldfish

Three characters that misbehave

は and へ are read exactly as the chart says inside a word, but each has a second job as a grammatical particle, and in that job it changes. は as a particle is read wa, and へ as a particle is read e. を is stranger still: it is read o, identical to お, and it survives for one grammatical purpose only, so it never turns up inside an ordinary word. Lessons four and six put all three to work. For now simply note that はな is hana, while a lone は standing between two words is wa.

ん has its own quirk: no Japanese word begins with it. That is why the word game shiritori, where each player must start from the last character of the previous word, ends the moment somebody says a word finishing in ん.

What learners get wrong

Almost all early mistakes are pairs of characters that look alike, so learn each pair as a pair rather than meeting the second one by surprise. The worst offenders are ぬ and め, which differ only by the loop at the tail; ね, れ and わ, which share a left-hand upright; る and ろ, again a loop; は and ほ; き and さ; and い beside り.

The second common mistake is treating stroke order as decoration. It is not: correct order is what makes handwriting legible at speed, and it is how you look up a character you cannot yet name. Write with a pencil, slowly, in the order shown on any stroke chart, and the shapes stick in your hand as well as in your eye.

The third is drifting towards English vowels. Japanese has five, and they are pure and short: あ as in "father" but clipped, い as in "machine", う with the lips relaxed rather than rounded, え as in "bed", お as in "for". None of them glides into a second vowel the way English "no" and "day" do.

How to learn them in a week

Take one row a day, five characters, and write each one twenty times while saying it aloud. At the end of the day, cover the chart and write the whole row from the romanised prompts. On day two, do the new row and yesterday's from memory. By day ten you have covered the grid twice.

Then stop drilling characters alone and start reading words. Every word in the vocabulary below, and every example above, is written entirely in hiragana, so nothing is beyond you. Reading real words is what converts slow recall into fluent recognition, and it is the only part of this that transfers to actually reading Japanese.

Vocabulary

Katakana covers exactly the same sounds as hiragana, character for character, and is used for a different set of jobs. That makes it the cheapest lesson in the course: you already know the grid, the row order and the vowel order, so all that is new is a second set of shapes for sounds you can already produce. It is also the script you will meet first in the wild, because menus, shop signs and product packaging are thick with it.

What katakana is for

The main job is gairaigo, words borrowed from other languages, which is a very large slice of modern vocabulary. Anything that arrived in Japan from abroad tends to be written this way: foods, technology, sports, brands. The second job is foreign names, including yours and your country's. The third is onomatopoeia, of which Japanese has an enormous stock.

Beyond that, katakana works rather like italics in English. A writer may use it for emphasis, for a word said in a strange or robotic voice, or for a scientific name of a plant or animal. Because it is visually spiky next to the round hiragana, a katakana word jumps off the page, which is exactly why advertising leans on it so heavily.

The grid again, in new shapes

Same fifty sounds, same order, same logic. Read across for a, i, u, e, o and down for the consonant families.

The dakuten and handakuten work identically: カ becomes ガ ga, ハ becomes バ ba or パ pa. Small ャ ュ ョ combine in the same way, so キ plus small ャ is キャ kya, and シ plus small ョ is ショ sho. Nothing here is a new rule, only a new typeface for an old one.

The long vowel bar

This is the one piece of punctuation that hiragana does not share. A long vowel in katakana is written with a bar, ー, laid horizontally in horizontal text: not a repeated vowel character. The bar holds the sound for one extra beat, and lesson three deals with why that beat matters so much.

コーヒー
kōhī
coffee

ビール
bīru
beer

ケーキ
kēki
cake

タクシー
takushī
taxi

A small ッ does the same work as its hiragana twin, doubling the consonant that follows it and taking a beat of its own.

ベッド
beddo
bed

サッカー
sakkā
football

インターネット
intānetto
internet

Sounds Japanese did not have

Because katakana has to swallow foreign words, it has grown a set of combinations that native Japanese never needed. A small vowel after a full-sized character produces a sound outside the original grid: フ plus small ァ gives ファ fa, テ plus small ィ gives ティ ti, and ウ with dakuten, ヴ, stands in for a v, though many words simply use the b row instead.

ファイル
fairu
file

パーティー
pātī
party

チェック
chekku
check

ジェームズ
Jēmuzu
James

Writing your own name

Japanese syllables are almost always a consonant followed by a vowel, so a foreign word must be reshaped to fit. Three habits cover most cases. A consonant with no vowel after it gains one, usually u, so milk becomes ミルク miruku. A t or a d instead gains o, giving ト and ド, so bed becomes ベッド. And since Japanese has one liquid consonant rather than two, both l and r land in the ラ row: hotel is ホテル hoteru, and light and right are both ライト raito.

Say your name slowly, break it into consonant plus vowel pieces, stretch any long vowel with ー, and write what you hear rather than what you spell. Francisco comes out as フランシスコ, Sarah as セーラ, Ahmed as アハメド. It will feel like a caricature of your name at first. It is not: it is your name in a language with a different sound inventory, and using the Japanese form is what makes you understandable.

Reading it back into English

The reverse trick is worth practising, because it turns a shop sign into free vocabulary. Sound the word out at full length, then strip the vowels that were only added to make the syllables work, usually a stray u or o at the end of a cluster. Restore an l wherever an r sounds wrong, and remember that a long bar stands for a vowel that English writes with two letters or with a silent e.

レストラン
resutoran
restaurant

アイスクリーム
aisukurīmu
ice cream

デパート
depāto
department store

That last one shows a second habit: long borrowings are routinely clipped to four beats or so. デパート drops half of "department store", パソコン compresses "personal computer", and コンビニ is a convenience shop. When a word refuses to decode, try assuming the back half has been cut off.

What learners get wrong

Katakana has two pairs of characters that defeat almost everybody at first, and they are worth ten minutes on their own. シ shi and ツ tsu differ in the angle of the two short strokes, flat and low for シ, steep and high for ツ, and in the sweep of the long stroke, upward from below for シ, downward from above for ツ. ソ so and ン n differ the same way. The trick that works is to remember the direction the long stroke is written in rather than the picture it leaves behind.

The other trap is meaning rather than shape. A borrowed word does not keep the sense it had in English. マンション is a block of flats, not a mansion. パン is bread, from Portuguese, and has nothing to do with pans. A ノートパソコン is a laptop. Read the katakana, guess the English, then check the guess, because a good half of the time the word has drifted.

Finally, do not let the second script wait. Learners often finish hiragana, feel relieved and postpone katakana for months, then find themselves unable to read a menu in a country where a third of the menu is katakana. Learn it now, while the grid is fresh, and the whole thing costs a week.

Vocabulary

Japanese has a small inventory of sounds and a strict sense of timing, which is good news and bad news at once. The good news is that there is very little to learn: five vowels, a modest set of consonants, and nothing like the vowel zoo of English. The bad news is that the timing is not optional. Getting a beat wrong in Japanese does not produce an accent, it produces a different word, and this lesson is about the handful of places where that happens.

Five vowels, held steady

Every vowel in Japanese is short, pure and unchanging from the moment it starts to the moment it stops. あ sits near the a of "father" but clipped short. い is the ee of "machine", again short. う is made with relaxed, unrounded lips, not the pursed oo of "boot". え is the e of "bed". お is the o of "for", cut off before it can glide.

That last point is the one English speakers keep breaking. English vowels slide: "no" drifts from o towards u, "day" from e towards i. A Japanese vowel does not move. Say お and freeze the mouth in position until the sound ends. The same discipline applies inside a word: こえ is a clean お followed by a clean え, two beats, not a diphthong.

Three consonants also need care. The ら row is a single tap of the tongue against the ridge behind the teeth, closer to the middle of English "butter" than to either l or r, and English speakers who substitute an r sound noticeably foreign. ふ is blown between the two lips with no teeth involved, halfway between f and h. つ is a t and an s fused, the sound at the end of "cats", and it is hard only at the start of a word, where English never puts it.

The mora, not the syllable

The unit of Japanese rhythm is the mora, a beat of fixed length, and the writing system marks it for you: one kana is one mora, with small ゃ ゅ ょ folding into the character before them. Every mora takes the same time, whether it is a bare vowel, a consonant plus vowel, ん, or a small っ.

This is genuinely different from English, which stretches stressed syllables and squashes everything else. In Japanese, たまご is three beats of equal weight, not "ta-MA-go". Tap a steady pulse on the table and fit one kana to each tap. That mechanical, even delivery sounds far more natural than an English rhythm laid over Japanese words.

にほんご
nihongo
the Japanese language (four beats)

ともだち
tomodachi
friend (four beats)

しゃしん
shashin
photograph (three beats, because しゃ is one)

A long vowel is two beats

Doubling a vowel does not emphasise it, it holds it for two beats, and that length carries meaning. In hiragana the second beat is written with another vowel character; in katakana it is the bar ー.

おばさん
obasan
aunt

おばあさん
obāsan
grandmother

ゆき
yuki
snow

ゆうき
yūki
courage

Long o is usually written おう rather than おお, which is a spelling convention rather than a sound: おとうさん is otōsan, three long beats and a final ん, and the う is simply how the length is written. Long e behaves the same way, usually written えい, so せんせい is sensei in romanisation but sounds like a held e. The macrons over ō and ū in the romanised readings in this course always mean exactly this: hold the vowel for two beats.

The small っ is silence with a beat

A small っ before a consonant stops the airflow and holds it for one full beat before releasing. Romanised, it shows as a doubled consonant. Skip it and you say a different word.

さか
saka
a slope

さっか
sakka
a writer

おと
oto
sound

おっと
otto
husband

きって
kitte
postage stamp (three beats: き, っ, て)

The physical instruction is to close the mouth on the following consonant early and wait, as in the middle of the English phrase "hot tea" said carefully. The gap is real, measurable and audible, and native listeners rely on it.

ん is a full beat too

ん is never a mere tail on the vowel before it. It is its own beat, and it takes a whole one. しんぶん is four beats, not three, and it sounds wrong at three.

Its pronunciation shifts to suit what follows, without any change in spelling or timing. Before m, b or p it comes out as m, so しんぶん sounds like shimbun. Before k or g it is the ng of "singer". At the end of a word it is a nasal made at the back of the mouth, closer to French bon than to English "bun". None of this needs learning consciously, since the mouth does it by itself, but knowing it explains why the same character sounds different in different words.

Pitch, not stress

English marks a syllable by hitting it harder. Japanese marks it by putting it at a higher pitch, and the pattern is a property of the word. Every mora is either high or low, and once the pitch falls in a word it does not rise again.

Some pairs are separated by nothing else at all. Said with a high first beat and a low second, はし is chopsticks; with a low first and a high second it is a bridge. あめ is rain when it falls from high to low, and a sweet when it rises. かき is an oyster falling, a persimmon rising.

Do not try to memorise the pattern for every word. Do listen for it, copy what you hear, and keep your voice flat rather than adding English stress, which is a bigger giveaway than a wrong pitch. Context resolves nearly all of the ambiguity in practice: nobody eating dinner is confused about the chopsticks.

The vowels that vanish

Between two voiceless consonants, or at the end of a word after one, い and う often lose their voicing and are barely audible. This is regular and it is what makes recorded Japanese sound faster than the kana suggest.

すき
suki
liking, said very nearly as "ski"

した
shita
under, said very nearly as "shta"

です
desu
said as "des", with the u almost gone

The beat is still there, even when the vowel is not. Native speakers keep the timing and drop only the voicing, so copy that: shorten the vowel, but do not swallow the beat.

Vocabulary

With one word and です you can make a complete, polite Japanese sentence, and this lesson is where the kana you have learned start doing work. The pattern is small, it is the foundation of everything that follows, and it lets you introduce yourself, name the objects in front of you and say whose they are. Everything here is written in kana, so you can read every example aloud already.

A sentence in two parts

The basic sentence is a topic, the particle は, a second noun, and です.

わたし は がくせい です
watashi wa gakusei desu
I am a student

たなかさん は せんせい です
Tanaka-san wa sensei desu
Mr Tanaka is a teacher

これ は ほん です
kore wa hon desu
This is a book

The particle は marks the topic: it says "as for this", and everything after it is the comment. Notice that it is written with the character for ha but read wa, one of the three oddities from lesson one. This is the single most common spelling trap in beginner Japanese, and the rule has no exceptions: は standing alone between words is always wa.

Notice also what the pattern does not contain. There is no word for "a" or "the", because Japanese has no articles at all. There is no agreement of any kind: です is the same word whether the topic is you, a friend or a mountain. And the sentence ends with です, because Japanese puts the part that closes a statement at the very end, always.

What です actually is

It is tempting to translate です as "is", and for now that will get you the right English. It is more accurate to call it a polite ending: it attaches to the noun in front of it and marks the whole statement as polite. Its casual equivalent is だ, which you will hear constantly in films and among friends, and which you should not use with strangers.

Two practical consequences follow. First, です carries no meaning of its own about time or number, so わたし は がくせい です is equally "I am a student" and, in the right conversation, "we are students". Second, です is what makes you sound like a polite adult, so use it with anyone you have just met, in any shop, and with anyone senior to you. Dropping it is not casual friendliness, it is a small rudeness.

One more note from lesson three: です is pronounced almost as "des". The u at the end is devoiced and very nearly disappears, though the beat remains.

Leaving out what is obvious

Japanese omits anything the listener can already work out, and the topic is the first thing to go. If it is clear that you are talking about yourself, saying わたし は is unnecessary and, repeated, sounds oddly self-absorbed.

がくせい です
gakusei desu
I am a student

いしゃ です
isha desu
He is a doctor

Both sentences are complete and natural. The English translation has to supply a subject, but the Japanese does not, and context does the rest. This is why あなた, the word for "you", is used far less than English "you": with someone whose name you know, use the name, and otherwise leave it out entirely. Aimed at a stranger, あなた can sound cold or blunt.

の, the particle that joins nouns

の links two nouns, with the second one as the head. The pattern is A の B, and the commonest use is possession.

わたし の かばん
watashi no kaban
my bag

これ は わたし の かさ です
kore wa watashi no kasa desu
This is my umbrella

たなかさん の ともだち です
Tanaka-san no tomodachi desu
I am Mr Tanaka's friend

The order is the reverse of the English apostrophe: the owner comes first, then の, then the thing owned. It goes well beyond ownership, though, and covers almost any relationship one noun can have to another: origin, category, position, membership.

にほんご の せんせい
nihongo no sensei
a teacher of Japanese

とうきょう の ホテル
Tōkyō no hoteru
a hotel in Tokyo

You can chain them, and the chain reads from the outside in, so わたし の ともだち の かばん is my friend's bag. Two links is common, three is pushing it.

これ, それ and あれ

Three words cover pointing at things, and they divide the world by distance from the speaker and the listener rather than into a simple "this" and "that". これ is near me, それ is near you, and あれ is away from both of us.

これ は かぎ です
kore wa kagi desu
This is a key

それ は わたし の ほん です
sore wa watashi no hon desu
That is my book

あれ は ホテル です
are wa hoteru desu
That over there is a hotel

The middle one is the one to watch. If your listener is holding the thing, it is それ even though in English you would say "that", and reaching for これ in that situation is a giveaway.

Names and さん

Attach さん to somebody's name as a matter of course. It works for any gender and any marital status, and it usually goes on the family name, so Mr Tanaka is たなかさん. Using a bare name with no さん is what close friends and family do, and coming from a stranger it is rude.

The rule that catches everyone: never put さん on your own name. When you introduce yourself you are simply たなか. Saying たなかさん です about yourself is the equivalent of announcing "I am Mr Tanaka" while bowing to yourself.

やまださん は にほんじん です
Yamada-san wa nihonjin desu
Ms Yamada is Japanese

わたし の なまえ は アンナ です
watashi no namae wa Anna desu
My name is Anna

What learners get wrong

The three big ones are all interference from English. Do not add "a" or "the", because there is nothing to add them with. Do not treat は as the word for "is", because です does that job and は only marks what you are talking about. And do not reorder the sentence: the noun and です stay welded together at the end, whatever else you put in front of them.

The fourth is politeness rather than grammar. Beginners often mix casual だ into otherwise polite speech because they have picked it up from subtitles. Keep every sentence in です for now, and it will be right in every situation you are likely to meet.

Vocabulary

Japanese marks the job a word is doing with a small word placed after it, called a particle. Two particles, は and が, both sit roughly where an English subject would sit, and choosing between them is the longest-running puzzle in the language. The good news is that a handful of rules of thumb will carry you through almost every sentence you can currently build, and that the rest of the understanding arrives slowly, on its own, from listening.

は marks the topic

は is written with the hiragana は, but as a particle it is always pronounced wa. It marks the topic: the thing the rest of the sentence is about. A clumsy but honest English gloss is "as for".

わたし は がくせい です
watashi wa gakusei desu
As for me, I am a student

やまださん は せんせい です
yamada san wa sensei desu
Mr Yamada is a teacher

これ は ほん です
kore wa hon desu
This is a book

The shape is always the same. You announce what you are going to talk about, then you say something about it. The topic is normally something the listener already has in mind: yourself, the person in front of you, the object you are pointing at.

Once a topic is set, it stays set. That is why Japanese leaves so much out. After わたし は がくせい です, the next sentence can simply be にほんじん です, and everyone knows you are still talking about yourself. Nothing needs repeating until the subject of conversation changes.

が marks the subject

が marks the subject in the narrow grammatical sense: the thing that is, or does, whatever comes next. Where は steps back and frames, が points.

わたし が やまだ です
watashi ga yamada desu
I am Yamada (I am the one you are looking for)

たなかさん が せんせい です
tanaka san ga sensei desu
Tanaka is the teacher (he is the one)

こちら が わたし の うち です
kochira ga watashi no uchi desu
This is my house (here it is)

Read those English translations again and notice that each one carries a small extra weight. が does not just say who; it selects one out of several. English does the same work with stress of voice: "I am Yamada". Japanese does it with a particle instead, which is why Japanese sentences can be spoken flatly and still be precise.

Old information and new information

The most useful single rule of thumb is this: は introduces what the listener already has in mind, and が supplies what they do not.

Put the same two words either side of the two particles and the difference is easy to hear.

やまださん は せんせい です
yamada san wa sensei desu
Yamada is a teacher (here is something about Yamada)

やまださん が せんせい です
yamada san ga sensei desu
Yamada is the teacher (Yamada is the one who is)

In the first, everyone already knows who Yamada is and you are adding a fact. In the second, everyone already knows there is a teacher and you are identifying which person it is. The new part of the sentence is whichever side of the particle the listener did not have.

This is also why question words take が, which you will see in a later lesson. A question word is new information by definition, so it can never be a topic.

は also draws contrast

The second job of は is contrast. Because は lifts something out and holds it up, it often carries a quiet "at least this one" with it.

きょう は やすみ です
kyou wa yasumi desu
Today is a day off (whatever the other days are)

これ は ほん です。それ は ざっし です
kore wa hon desu. sore wa zasshi desu
This is a book. That one is a magazine

あした は しけん です
ashita wa shiken desu
Tomorrow is the exam (as opposed to any other day)

Two は in a row, as in the middle example, is the standard way to set two things against each other. Japanese speakers use this constantly, and it is a large part of why は turns up more often than が in ordinary conversation.

The topic is not always the subject

Here is where the "as for" gloss earns its keep. は never claims that the thing before it is the subject. It claims only that the sentence is about it. That licence produces the most famous sentence in beginner Japanese.

わたし は コーヒー です
watashi wa koohii desu
I will have the coffee

Nobody hears that as a claim that you are made of coffee, because は did not say you were the subject. It said the sentence concerns you, and the sentence goes on to be about coffee. Swap in が and the joke becomes real: わたし が コーヒー です would pick you out of a line-up of drinks.

あした は しけん です
ashita wa shiken desu
Tomorrow, there is an exam

わたし は あした です
watashi wa ashita desu
Mine is tomorrow (in a conversation about appointments)

What learners get wrong

Learners who memorised "が marks the subject" put が on every "I". It is grammatical, but it sounds as though you are permanently correcting somebody about who you are. Use は unless you have a reason not to.

The second common error is reading the particle は as ha. In a word it is ha, as in はち. As a particle it is wa, always, with no exceptions to worry about.

The third is treating は as though it meant "is". It does not mean anything in English. です does the "is" work; は only marks what the sentence is about.

Rules of thumb worth memorising

1. Talking about yourself, or about anything already in play: は.
2. Naming which one out of several: が.
3. Setting two things against each other: は.
4. Genuinely unsure at this stage: は is the safer default, and the error it produces is milder.

The honest part

Those rules will not cover everything, and you should know that now rather than discovering it in a year. は and が interact with grammar you have not met yet: adjectives of feeling, verbs of ability, clauses inside clauses, and the verbs for existence. In some of those, the choice flips. Native speakers make the right choice without being able to explain it, and whole books have been written trying.

Do not wait to understand the pair before you speak. Use は as your default, produce sentences, and when you hear が in a film or a conversation, stop for a second and ask yourself what it was picking out. Understanding here arrives by accumulation, not by rule.

Vocabulary

• わたし (watashi): I, me
• やまださん (yamada san): Mr or Ms Yamada
• たなかさん (tanaka san): Mr or Ms Tanaka
• がくせい (gakusei): student
• せんせい (sensei): teacher
• にほんじん (nihonjin): a Japanese person
• ほん (hon): book
• ざっし (zasshi): magazine
• コーヒー (koohii): coffee
• うち (uchi): house, home
• きょう (kyou): today
• あした (ashita): tomorrow
• やすみ (yasumi): day off, holiday
• しけん (shiken): exam
• こちら (kochira): this one here, this way (polite)

Every sentence so far has ended in です and said what something is. That is a large amount of useful language, but it cannot describe anything happening. This lesson adds verbs, in the polite form you will use with almost everybody, and the one particle you need to point a verb at a thing.

The ます form

In polite Japanese, verbs end in ます, pronounced masu. This is the polite present, and it is the form to learn first: it is what you use with strangers, colleagues, shopkeepers, teachers, and anyone you do not know well.

It covers more ground than the English present. たべます is "I eat", "I will eat" and "I am going to eat", all at once. Japanese does not separate the present from the future here, which is why grammar books often call this the non-past. Context does the separating, usually with a time word.

One rule holds for every Japanese sentence and never breaks: the verb comes last. Everything else in the sentence arrives before it.

を marks the direct object

を is the kana you learned but never used inside a word, and this is why it exists. It appears only as a particle, and it is pronounced o, exactly like お. Its job is to mark the direct object: the thing the verb is done to.

わたし は パン を たべます
watashi wa pan o tabemasu
I eat bread

やまださん は おんがく を ききます
yamada san wa ongaku o kikimasu
Mr Yamada listens to music

わたし は ほん を よみます
watashi wa hon o yomimasu
I read a book

The pattern is topic は, object を, verb. Each noun carries a particle that says what it is doing, and because of that the nouns are not held in place by their position. You could move パン を to the front for emphasis and the sentence would still mean the same thing. The verb, however, stays at the end.

Present, habit and future

The same ます form does all three of these, so the work of pinning down when falls to a time word sitting near the front of the sentence.

まいあさ パン を たべます
maiasa pan o tabemasu
I eat bread every morning

あした ほん を かいます
ashita hon o kaimasu
I will buy a book tomorrow

きょう テレビ を みます
kyou terebi o mimasu
I am going to watch television today

Notice that まいあさ, あした and きょう take no particle at all. Time words of this kind simply stand in the sentence. There is a particle for pinning an action to a clock time, but you do not need it yet.

Leaving out what is obvious

Japanese omits anything the listener can already supply, and the subject is the thing most often left out. Since a sentence with no stated topic is assumed to be about you, the natural way to say "I drink coffee" is three words long.

コーヒー を のみます
koohii o nomimasu
I drink coffee

ざっし を よみます
zasshi o yomimasu
I read magazines

べんきょう を します
benkyou o shimasu
I study

Beginners who insist on わたし は at the front of every sentence sound stilted, in the way that an English speaker who says "I myself personally" sounds stilted. Say it once to establish the topic, then drop it. If you need to make it clear you mean somebody else, name them.

します, the workhorse

します means "do", and it turns a great many nouns into verbs. Take a noun for an activity, put を after it, and add します.

べんきょう を します
benkyou o shimasu
I study

しごと を します
shigoto o shimasu
I work

かいもの を します
kaimono o shimasu
I do the shopping

This is worth knowing early, because it means that any activity noun you learn is immediately a verb as well. Japanese borrows English words this way constantly.

What to watch out for

Not every verb takes an object, and not every verb that takes one in English takes を in Japanese. Verbs of going and coming use different particles, which is a later lesson, and a small group of common verbs mark what looks like an English object with が instead. When you meet a verb, learn the particle that goes with it as part of the word, in the same way you would learn the gender of a noun in French.

The most frequent beginner mistake is spelling the particle as お. The rule is clean: を is only ever the object particle, and it never appears inside a word. If it is part of a word, it is お.

The second mistake is putting the verb where English puts it. たべます パン を is not a sentence a Japanese speaker would produce. Send the verb to the end, every time, and the habit becomes automatic in a week or two.

The third is expecting ます to mean "am doing". わたし は たべます does not describe the mouthful you are chewing right now. For an action in progress you need the て form, which comes later in the course. Until then, ます is safe for both habits and plans.

What you can say now

You can now describe a routine, which is most of what small talk consists of. まいあさ コーヒー を のみます. にほんご を ならいます. あした ほん を かいます. Put a time word at the front, a noun with を in the middle and a ます verb at the end, and you have a working Japanese sentence.

Vocabulary

• たべます (tabemasu): eat
• のみます (nomimasu): drink
• よみます (yomimasu): read
• みます (mimasu): watch, see
• ききます (kikimasu): listen to, hear
• かいます (kaimasu): buy
• かきます (kakimasu): write
• します (shimasu): do
• ならいます (naraimasu): learn
• パン (pan): bread
• テレビ (terebi): television
• おんがく (ongaku): music
• にほんご (nihongo): Japanese, the language
• なまえ (namae): name
• まいあさ (maiasa): every morning

Numbers are the first part of Japanese that pays for itself the same afternoon you learn it. Prices, platform numbers, opening hours, your age, the time you are meeting somebody: all of it runs on a small set of words that almost never change. The system is regular in a way English is not, and the few irregular spots are so common that you will have them by heart within a week.

One to ten

Two of these have alternative readings that you will hear constantly, so learn both from the start.

よん, なな and きゅう are the safe defaults when you are counting on your own or reading a number aloud. し, しち and く turn up inside fixed expressions, above all in times and dates, and you cannot substitute for them there. Four o'clock is よじ and never よんじ, seven o'clock is しちじ, nine o'clock is くじ.

Eleven to ten thousand

Above ten, Japanese simply stacks. Eleven is ten plus one, twenty is two tens, and there are no new words at all until you reach a hundred.

じゅういち、じゅうに、じゅうさん
juu ichi, juu ni, juu san
eleven, twelve, thirteen

にじゅう、さんじゅう、よんじゅう
ni juu, san juu, yon juu
twenty, thirty, forty

ろくじゅうはち
roku juu hachi
sixty-eight

A hundred is ひゃく and a thousand is せん. Ten thousand is まん, and this is the one that trips English speakers, because Japanese groups large numbers in tens of thousands rather than thousands. Twenty thousand is にまん, and a hundred thousand is じゅうまん.

Three combinations change their sound, and you have to know them because they appear in prices every day: three hundred is さんびゃく, six hundred is ろっぴゃく, eight hundred is はっぴゃく. Three thousand is さんぜん and eight thousand is はっせん.

Counters

Japanese cannot count a thing with a bare number. Between the number and the thing sits a counter, a small word chosen to match the kind of object. English does this only in places like "two slices of bread"; Japanese does it always.

つ has its own set of readings that owe nothing to いち, に, さん: ひとつ, ふたつ, みっつ, よっつ, いつつ, むっつ, ななつ, やっつ, ここのつ, とお. It stops at ten, and above that you use じゅういち with no counter at all. It is the counter to reach for when you cannot remember the right one, and it will not sound wrong.

にん is regular except at the bottom, where one person is ひとり and two people are ふたり.

りんご を ふたつ かいます
ringo o futatsu kaimasu
I will buy two apples

ノート を さんさつ かいます
nooto o san satsu kaimasu
I will buy three notebooks

きって を ごまい ください
kitte o go mai kudasai
Five stamps, please

Notice where the counter sits. It follows the noun and its particle rather than standing in front of the noun the way an English number does. りんご を ふたつ is the ordinary shape, and the number floats free of the thing it counts.

Telling the time

Hours take じ and minutes take ふん, which becomes ぷん after some numbers. Half past is はん.

いま さんじ です
ima san ji desu
It is three o'clock

ごぜん くじ はん です
gozen ku ji han desu
It is half past nine in the morning

ごご よじ じゅっぷん です
gogo yo ji juppun desu
It is ten past four in the afternoon

ごぜん is a.m. and ごご is p.m., and they come before the time rather than after it. The irregular hours are the three flagged earlier: よじ, しちじ, くじ. For minutes, いっぷん, さんぷん, よんぷん, ろっぷん, はっぷん and じゅっぷん take ぷん, while にふん, ごふん and ななふん keep ふん.

To pin an action to a time, put に after the clock time. This is the particle lesson six promised you.

しちじ に あさごはん を たべます
shichi ji ni asagohan o tabemasu
I eat breakfast at seven

ごご ろくじ に かえります
gogo roku ji ni kaerimasu
I go home at six in the evening

くじ はん に べんきょう を します
ku ji han ni benkyou o shimasu
I study at half past nine

に goes only on times you could point to on a clock or a calendar. It never goes on きょう, あした, まいあさ or いま, which stand in the sentence with no particle, exactly as they did in the last lesson.

Days and months

Months are wonderfully easy: the number plus がつ. January is いちがつ, seven is しちがつ, and the whole year takes about a minute to learn. The two to watch are しがつ for April and くがつ for September, which use the short readings again.

Days of the month are not easy. The first ten, plus the fourteenth, the twentieth and the twenty-fourth, have their own readings: ついたち, ふつか, みっか, よっか, いつか, むいか, なのか, ようか, ここのか, とおか, and then じゅうよっか, はつか, にじゅうよっか. Everything else is the plain number plus にち. Learn ついたち and はつか now and pick up the rest as you need them.

たんじょうび は しちがつ ようか です
tanjoubi wa shichi gatsu youka desu
My birthday is the eighth of July

What learners get wrong

The commonest error is reading four and seven with よん and なな inside times. よじ, しちじ and くじ are fixed, and a Japanese listener will hesitate over よんじ.

The second is dropping the counter. さん りんご is not a Japanese phrase. If you cannot recall the right counter, use つ and move on.

The third is grouping large numbers in threes because that is how the digits are printed. Read them in tens of thousands instead: 30,000 is さんまん, not thirty せん.

Vocabulary

• いま (ima): now
• じ (ji): o'clock, hour
• ふん (fun): minute
• はん (han): half past
• ごぜん (gozen): a.m.
• ごご (gogo): p.m.
• なんじ (nanji): what time
• がつ (gatsu): month of the year
• にち (nichi): day of the month
• たんじょうび (tanjoubi): birthday
• りんご (ringo): apple
• きって (kitte): stamp
• かえります (kaerimasu): go home, return
• ください (kudasai): please give me
• ノート (nooto): notebook

Asking is how you get the rest of the language for free. Every question you can form is a way of making somebody else supply the word you are missing, and Japanese makes questions cheaper than almost any language you could pick: there is no inversion, no helper verb, and no change to the sentence you already know how to say. You add one kana to the end.

か on the end

Take any statement, polite or plain, and put か after it. That is the entire operation. The word order does not move and the verb stays where it was.

やまださん は せんせい です か
yamada san wa sensei desu ka
Is Mr Yamada a teacher?

コーヒー を のみます か
koohii o nomimasu ka
Do you drink coffee?

あした ほん を かいます か
ashita hon o kaimasu ka
Are you going to buy a book tomorrow?

In writing, Japanese usually ends these with a full stop rather than a question mark, because か has already done the job. You will see both, and neither is wrong. In speech, the pitch rises slightly on か, though nothing like as far as an English question rises.

To answer, you repeat the verb rather than borrowing a helper the way English borrows "do".

のみます か。はい、のみます
nomimasu ka. hai, nomimasu
Do you drink it? Yes, I do

がくせい です か。いいえ、がくせい じゃ ありません
gakusei desu ka. iie, gakusei ja arimasen
Are you a student? No, I am not

The question words

Each of these is an ordinary noun as far as the grammar is concerned. It sits in the slot where the answer would sit, and it takes whatever particle that slot would take.

なに and なん are the same word. It is なん before です and before a counter, なに almost everywhere else. なん です か, なんじ, なんにん, but なに を たべます か.

Where the question word goes

This is the part that feels strange for about a day and then becomes obvious. English drags its question word to the front of the sentence. Japanese leaves it exactly where the answer belongs.

なに を たべます か
nani o tabemasu ka
What are you going to eat?

だれ が きます か
dare ga kimasu ka
Who is coming?

トイレ は どこ です か
toire wa doko desu ka
Where is the toilet?

Compare the answers and the shape is identical. なに を たべます か is answered by パン を たべます, in the same slot, with the same particle. The question is the answer with a hole in it.

Question words take が, never は

Lesson five ended with a promise, and this is it. は marks something the listener already has in mind. A question word is by definition the thing nobody has in mind yet, so it cannot be a topic.

だれ が やまださん です か
dare ga yamada san desu ka
Which one of you is Mr Yamada?

どれ が わたし の かさ です か
dore ga watashi no kasa desu ka
Which one is my umbrella?

なに が しゅみ です か
nani ga shumi desu ka
What is your hobby?

The answer inherits the particle. Asked だれ が きます か, you answer やまださん が きます, not やまださん は きます, because the questioner was picking one person out of several and your answer supplies that one person.

Asking when and what time

いつ is the broad one and asks for a day, a month or a vaguer stretch. なんじ asks for a reading off a clock. Neither takes に, because に belongs to the answer, not the question.

いつ えいが を みます か
itsu eiga o mimasu ka
When are you going to watch the film?

なんじ に あさごはん を たべます か
nanji ni asagohan o tabemasu ka
What time do you eat breakfast?

たんじょうび は いつ です か
tanjoubi wa itsu desu ka
When is your birthday?

That last one takes は quite legitimately, because the birthday is old information and いつ is the new part. The rule is not that questions take が; it is that the question word does.

Asking how much and how many

いくら is money and only money. For counting things you use いくつ, or the counter with なん in front of it: なんにん for people, なんまい for flat things, なんぼん for long things.

これ は いくら です か
kore wa ikura desu ka
How much is this?

りんご を いくつ かいます か
ringo o ikutsu kaimasu ka
How many apples are you buying?

なんにん です か
nan nin desu ka
How many people?

Asking why, and softening it

どうして asks for a reason. It is a plain word and carries no rudeness in itself, but a bare どうして です か can land hard, in the way a bare English "why?" can. In a shop or with somebody you have just met, most speakers soften a question by trailing off rather than by adding words.

どうして にほんご を ならいます か
doushite nihongo o naraimasu ka
Why are you learning Japanese?

これ は どう です か
kore wa dou desu ka
How about this one?

おなまえ は
onamae wa
Your name, please?

That last shape, a topic with は and nothing after it, is one of the most useful things in the lesson. Set the topic and stop, and the listener fills the rest in. It is polite, short, and it works with anything: おしごと は, たんじょうび は, にほんご は.

What learners get wrong

The first mistake is moving the question word to the front out of English habit. なに を たべます か is right; を なに たべます か is not a sentence.

The second is putting は on the question word. だれ は きます か is wrong every time. Use が.

The third is answering はい to a negative question and expecting it to mean what English means. Asked たべません か, はい agrees with the question as asked, so it means "correct, I do not". Answer with the verb instead of the bare particle and the ambiguity disappears.

Vocabulary

• なに (nani): what
• だれ (dare): who
• どこ (doko): where
• いつ (itsu): when
• どうして (doushite): why
• どう (dou): how
• いくら (ikura): how much
• いくつ (ikutsu): how many
• どれ (dore): which one
• はい (hai): yes
• いいえ (iie): no
• かさ (kasa): umbrella
• おなまえ (onamae): your name
• しゅみ (shumi): hobby
• きます (kimasu): come

Japanese is written with three scripts at the same time, and you already have two of them. Hiragana and katakana each carry a fixed set of sounds and nothing else, so a kana tells you how to say something but never what it means. The third script, kanji, works the other way round: a character carries a meaning, and how you pronounce it depends on the word it happens to be sitting in.

Why a third script

Japanese is written without spaces between words, so something has to show a reader where one word stops and the next starts. Kanji do that job. Content words are written with kanji, the grammatical glue around them stays in hiragana, and the eye picks out the shape of a sentence from the alternation of dense characters and light ones. A sentence written entirely in kana is perfectly legal and noticeably slower to read.

Kanji also pull apart words that sound alike. Japanese has a small stock of syllables and a great many homophones: かみ is paper, hair and god, and only the written form tells you which one is meant. There is a longer-term payoff too. Once you recognise a few dozen characters, words you have never met start to explain themselves, because you can read their parts.

Two kinds of reading

Characters came to Japan from China carrying both a meaning and a Chinese pronunciation. Japanese already had its own spoken word for most of those meanings, and rather than choose between them, the language kept both. That is why nearly every kanji has two families of reading.

The on reading (音読おんよみ) is the imported one, a Japanese approximation of how the character sounded in Chinese a very long time ago. The kun reading (訓読くんよみ) is the native Japanese word the character was matched to. 山やま means mountain either way: read さん it is the borrowed sound, read やま it is the ordinary Japanese word for the thing.

A rule of thumb gets you a long way here. A kanji standing on its own, or trailed by hiragana, is usually read with its kun reading. Two or more kanji packed together are usually read with their on readings.

A character standing alone

When a single kanji is a whole word by itself, reach for the kun reading first.

これは本ほんです kore wa hon desu This is a book

あれは川かわです are wa kawa desu That over there is a river

あの人ひとはだれですか ano hito wa dare desu ka Who is that person?

Characters in a compound

Push two characters together and the reading usually flips to the on side. 日にち plus 本ほん gives 日本にほん, the origin of the sun, which is what the country calls itself, and adding 人じん makes a person of that country. 大だい plus 学がく is a big place of learning, so a university, and 生せい on the end makes one of its students.

たなかさんは日本人にほんじんです tanaka-san wa nihonjin desu Tanaka is Japanese

私わたしは大学生だいがくせいです watashi wa daigakusei desu I am a university student

やまもとさんは先生せんせいです yamamoto-san wa sensei desu Yamamoto is a teacher

Personal names are the great exception to all of this. They mix the two kinds of reading freely, and a surname nobody has seen before can genuinely stump a native speaker, which is why business cards so often print the reading in kana above the characters.

The kana tail

Verbs and adjectives change their endings, and a character cannot change shape, so the changing part is written in hiragana straight after the kanji. That trailing kana is called okurigana. In 読よみます the character carries the meaning "read" and the reading よ, while みます is the polite ending you already know. The kanji holds the meaning still while the tail does the grammar.

私わたしは本ほんを読よみます watashi wa hon o yomimasu I read books

たなかさんはてがみを書かきます tanaka-san wa tegami o kakimasu Tanaka writes a letter

まいばんテレビを見みます maiban terebi o mimasu I watch television every evening

When there are more than two

Some characters collect readings the way an old house collects furniture. 生せい is the worst offender you will meet early on: せい in 学生がくせい, しょう in a handful of older compounds, and a whole family of native readings in the verbs for living and being born. 本ほん is ほん in 日本にほん and in the word for book, but もと in the surname やまもと.

The way through is not to memorise readings in lists. Learn words, and let the readings arrive attached to them. After a hundred words the pattern starts to feel obvious, and you find yourself guessing new compounds correctly without being able to say why.

Your first kanji

Each character below is shown with one common reading over it. The two reading columns give the fuller picture, and a bracketed tail marks where okurigana would begin.

Write each of them by hand a few times before moving on. Strokes run top to bottom and left to right, and a character built in the standard order simply looks right in a way that a copied shape does not.

Vocabulary

Twenty-four characters is not many, and yet they already cover the numbers, the days of the month, a good handful of nouns and the stems of three verbs. From here on, words appear in kanji with the reading printed above them, so you are never stuck. Next you will take the verbs you have and move them into the past, and into the negative.

Every polite verb you have met so far has been sitting in one corner of a small square. The ending ます is only one of four, and the other three are just as regular: swap the ending and you have moved the sentence into the negative, into the past, or into both at once. Nothing else in the sentence changes. The particles stay put, the word order stays put, and the verb still comes last.

The four forms

Take the ます off a verb and you are left with the stem, the part that never changes. 読よみます has the stem 読よみ, and every polite form of that verb is the stem plus one of four endings.

That is the whole system, and it works for every verb in the language without exception. Once you can hear the stem, you can produce all four forms of a verb the first time you meet it.

Notice the top form is labelled non-past rather than present. Japanese draws its line between what has already happened and what has not, so 読よみます covers what you do habitually and what you will do tomorrow alike. Only ました commits you to something finished.

Saying no: ません

The negative ending replaces ます entirely. There is no extra word for "not" and no helper verb like English "do".

私わたしは肉にくを食たべません watashi wa niku o tabemasen I do not eat meat

たなかさんはコーヒーを飲のみません tanaka-san wa koohii o nomimasen Tanaka does not drink coffee

今日きょうはテレビを見みません kyou wa terebi o mimasen I am not going to watch television today

The last one shows the non-past doing future work. Nothing in the verb says tomorrow or today; the time word does that, and the verb only tells you the thing has not happened yet.

Saying it already happened: ました

For the past, the ending is ました. Japanese leans on time words much more heavily than English does, and a sentence usually opens with one.

昨日きのう本ほんを読よみました kinou hon o yomimashita I read a book yesterday

先週せんしゅう映画えいがを見みました senshuu eiga o mimashita I watched a film last week

今朝けさ朝あさごはんを食たべました kesa asagohan o tabemashita I ate breakfast this morning

Both at once: ませんでした

The past negative is the longest ending in beginner Japanese and the easiest to build, because it is simply the negative with でした stuck on the end. If you can say ません you can say ませんでした.

昨日きのうは晩ばんごはんを食たべませんでした kinou wa bangohan o tabemasen deshita I did not eat dinner yesterday

先週せんしゅうはてがみを書かきませんでした senshuu wa tegami o kakimasen deshita I did not write any letters last week

今朝けさ新聞しんぶんを読よみませんでした kesa shinbun o yomimasen deshita I did not read the newspaper this morning

Any of the four forms takes か on the end to become a question, exactly as the plain ます form did.

昨日きのう映画えいがを見みましたか kinou eiga o mimashita ka Did you watch a film yesterday?

The same square for です

です has its own set of four, and they are less tidy, so they are worth learning as fixed items rather than as a pattern.

The negative has a more formal twin, ではありません, which is what you write and what you say in a speech or a report. じゃ is simply ではrun together in speech, and it is what you will hear in ordinary conversation. Both are polite; ではありません is the stiffer of the two.

あの人ひとは学生がくせいじゃありません ano hito wa gakusei ja arimasen That person is not a student

昨日きのうは休やすみでした kinou wa yasumi deshita Yesterday was a day off

たなかさんは先生せんせいじゃありませんでした tanaka-san wa sensei ja arimasen deshita Tanaka was not a teacher

The one trap here is the past. でした is the past of です, and there is no such word as ですた. Equally, the past negative is built on the negative, never on でした, so じゃありませんでした is right and でしたじゃありません is not a Japanese sentence at all.

Answering with the form you were given

A short answer in Japanese repeats the verb rather than borrowing a helper the way English borrows "did". Asked 食たべましたか, you answer はい、食たべました or いいえ、食たべませんでした. There is no equivalent of "yes, I did", so the habit of echoing the verb in the right form is worth building now, while the verbs are short.

Vocabulary

Four endings and one irregular verb have roughly doubled what you can say, because every verb you already knew now works in four tenses instead of one. The next step is to describe the things in your sentences rather than only name them, which means adjectives, and Japanese has two kinds.

Japanese has two kinds of adjective and they behave so differently that it is best to think of them as two separate parts of speech that happen to share a job. One kind conjugates like a verb and carries its own past and negative. The other does not conjugate at all and leans on です for everything. Learn which is which as part of each word, in the same way you learned which particle goes with a verb, and the rest of this lesson is mechanical.

Telling them apart

An い adjective ends in い in its dictionary form: 高たかい, 安やすい, 新あたらしい, 大おおきい. That final い is not part of the root; it is the ending that will change when you conjugate.

A な adjective ends in anything at all, and takes な when it sits directly in front of a noun: 静しずかな, 有名ゆうめいな, 便利べんりな, 元気げんきな. Dictionaries list them without the な, so you will see 静しずか on its own and have to remember what it is.

The trap is the small group of な adjectives that end in い anyway. きれい, きらい and 有名ゆうめい all look like い adjectives and none of them is one. They conjugate with です and never by changing the い, and they take な in front of a noun: きれいな部屋へや. There are only a few, so hold them as exceptions from the start.

In front of a noun

Both kinds sit in front of the noun they describe, exactly where an English adjective sits. い adjectives attach directly. な adjectives need their な.

高たかい本ほんを買かいました takai hon o kaimashita I bought an expensive book

静しずかな部屋へやです shizuka na heya desu It is a quiet room

新あたらしい車くるまを見みました atarashii kuruma o mimashita I saw a new car

That な is the whole reason for the name. Drop it and 静しずか部屋へや is not Japanese. Add it where it does not belong and 高たかいな本ほん is not Japanese either.

い adjectives conjugate

Here is where an い adjective stops looking like an English adjective and starts looking like a verb. The final い comes off and an ending goes on. です is added at the end for politeness, but it carries no tense of its own.

このカメラは高たかいです kono kamera wa takai desu This camera is expensive

昨日きのうは寒さむくなかったです kinou wa samuku nakatta desu It was not cold yesterday

映画えいがは面白おもしろかったです eiga wa omoshirokatta desu The film was interesting

One adjective refuses to follow the pattern. いい, meaning good, conjugates from its older form よい: よくないです, よかったです, よくなかったです. いかったです does not exist. This is the only irregular adjective in the language, and it happens to be one of the most common words in it.

な adjectives borrow from です

A な adjective does not change shape at all. Everything happens in です, and the four forms are the ones you already learned in lesson ten for nouns.

この町まちは静しずかです kono machi wa shizuka desu This town is quiet

駅えきは便利べんりじゃありません eki wa benri ja arimasen The station is not convenient

先生せんせいは元気げんきでした sensei wa genki deshita The teacher was well

Read those and notice that the adjective is doing nothing. 静しずか is 静しずか in all four sentences, and every scrap of grammar is carried by the ending after it. This is why it helps to think of な adjectives as nouns: 静しずかです is built exactly like 学生がくせいです.

Joining two adjectives

To put two descriptions together, the first one takes a linking form and the last one takes the ending. い adjectives change い to くて. な adjectives take で.

この部屋へやは広ひろくて明あかるいです kono heya wa hirokute akarui desu This room is spacious and bright

静しずかで便利べんりな町まちです shizuka de benri na machi desu It is a quiet and convenient town

安やすくておいしいです yasukute oishii desu It is cheap and tasty

You cannot join them with と. と links nouns and only nouns. Using it between adjectives is one of the first mistakes an English speaker makes, and it is immediately audible.

What learners get wrong

The biggest single error is conjugating な adjectives as though they were い adjectives, usually because the word ends in い. きれいくない is not a word; きれいじゃありません is. If you are unsure which type a word is, look at whether it needs な in front of a noun. That な is the test.

The second is putting です in the middle. 高たかいですかったです comes from thinking です carries the past. It does not for い adjectives. The tense lives in the adjective and です only makes it polite, which is why 高たかかったです is right and 高たかいでした is wrong.

The third is dropping な when the adjective is in front of a noun but keeping it when it is not. 静しずかな部屋へや needs the な; 部屋へやは静しずかです must not have it.

Vocabulary

Two conjugation tables and one irregular word are the whole of Japanese adjectives, and they will not grow. What comes next is the form that connects verbs to each other in the same way くて and で connect adjectives, and it is the busiest piece of grammar in the language.

The て form is the single most useful thing in beginner Japanese, and it is the only piece of the grammar that asks you to memorise a table. Almost everything ahead of you is built on it: requests, actions in progress, permission, prohibition, sequences of events. It has no tense and no politeness of its own, which is exactly why it can sit under all of that. Get it now, drill it until it is automatic, and the next four lessons cost you almost nothing.

Three groups

Every Japanese verb belongs to one of three groups, and the て form rule depends on which. You need to be able to sort a verb before you can conjugate it.

Group 2 is the easy one to spot. Its ます form ends in えます or います where the sound before ます is an え or い sound belonging to the stem: 食たべます, 見みます, 起おきます, 寝ねます, 教おしえます. The て form is the stem plus て, with nothing else to think about.

Group 3 contains exactly two verbs, します and 来きます, and they are irregular. Their て forms are して and 来きて.

Group 1 is everything else, and it is where the work is. Its て form depends on the last kana of the stem, the kana sitting immediately before ます.

The group 1 rules

Five rows, and they cover every group 1 verb in the language. Say them aloud in that order until the sequence itself is memorable. Many learners chant the い, ち, り row first, because it is the largest.

Working through some real ones, stem by stem:

買かいます, stem 買かい, ends in い, so って: 買かって. 待まちます, stem 待まち, ends in ち, so って: 待まって. 帰かえります, stem 帰かえり, ends in り, so って: 帰かえって. 読よみます, stem 読よみ, ends in み, so んで: 読よんで. 遊あそびます, stem 遊あそび, ends in び, so んで: 遊あそんで. 聞ききます, stem 聞きき, ends in き, so いて: 聞きいて.

There is exactly one exception in the whole of group 1. 行いきます, to go, ends in き but does not take いて. Its て form is 行いって, following the って row instead. That single word is the only thing in this lesson you have to learn as a special case, and it is common enough that you will not forget it.

Sorting a verb into its group

This is where most of the difficulty actually lies, because the rules only work if you have identified the group correctly. Two tests do almost all the work.

If the sound before ます is an え sound, it is group 2 with no exceptions: 食たべます, 教おしえます, 寝ねます.

If the sound before ます is an い sound, and that is most verbs, it could be either. 見みます and 起おきます are group 2; 買かいます, 帰かえります and 聞ききます are group 1. There is no rule that separates them, so learn the group along with the verb, exactly as you learn its particle. 帰かえります is the classic trap: it looks like a group 2 verb to many beginners, but it is firmly group 1, which is why it becomes 帰かえって and not 帰かえりて.

Linking actions with て

The first use of the て form, and the one that tells you what it really is, is joining verbs. Put a verb in its て form and the sentence keeps going. Only the final verb carries tense and politeness, and it decides for all of them.

朝あさごはんを食たべて、学校がっこうに行いきます asagohan o tabete, gakkou ni ikimasu I eat breakfast and go to school

本ほんを買かって、家いえに帰かえりました hon o katte, ie ni kaerimashita I bought a book and went home

音楽おんがくを聞きいて、勉強べんきょうをします ongaku o kiite, benkyou o shimasu I listen to music and study

Look at the second one. Nothing in 買かって says the buying happened in the past. 帰かえりました says it, and the て form takes its tense from there. This is the whole logic of the form: it is a verb with the tense removed so that something else can supply it.

The order is not free. Actions come in the order they happened, always, and Japanese has no way of saying "I went home after buying a book" using this structure with the clauses reversed.

て as "and so"

The same construction often carries a light sense of cause, in the way English "and" sometimes does. Nothing in the grammar changes; only the reading of it.

お金かねがなくて、買かいませんでした okane ga nakute, kaimasen deshita I had no money, so I did not buy it

映画えいがを見みて、泣なきました eiga o mite, nakimashita I watched the film and cried

Adjectives join in the same way, using the くて and で forms from the last lesson, which is not a coincidence. くて is the て form of an adjective, and the two constructions are the same construction.

What learners get wrong

The first mistake is conjugating from the dictionary form when you only know the ます form, or the reverse. Work from the ます form for now: take ます off, look at the last kana of what remains, and apply the row.

The second is forgetting that the group 1 rules depend on that final kana and nothing else. Learners who half-remember the table apply いて to everything, and 飲のみて and 買かきて come out. The final kana of the stem is the only thing that decides. み takes んで because the sound before it is a nasal; き takes いて; there is no verb-by-verb memorisation to do once the group is known.

The third is voicing the wrong ending. んで is voiced and って is not, and swapping them gives you 飲のんて or 買かっで, both of which are unpronounceable to a Japanese ear. Keep the pairs together: ん always with で, っ always with て.

The fourth is treating 行いきます as regular. It is 行いって, not 行いいて.

Drilling it

Do not read this lesson and move on. Take ten verbs you know, write their ます forms in a column, and produce the て form of each without looking. Then check. A learner who can do the whole list in under a minute has cleared the largest single obstacle in beginner Japanese, and everything from lesson thirteen onward becomes a matter of adding one word to a form you can already build.

Vocabulary

Five rows, two irregular verbs and one exception are the entire て form. The next lesson spends all of it, adding ください for requests and います for actions in progress, and after that the form simply keeps paying out.

The て form you built last lesson does almost nothing on its own, and that is exactly its job: it is a hook, waiting for something to hang off it. This lesson hangs two very useful things off it. Add ください and you can ask for what you want. Add います and you can describe what is going on at this moment. Between them they turn a list of dictionary verbs into a language you can actually use in a shop, a station or a conversation.

Asking for something: てください

Take the て form and add ください. That is the whole rule.

ちょっと待まってください chotto matte kudasai Please wait a moment

もう一度いちど言いってください mou ichido itte kudasai Please say that once more

ここに名前なまえを書かいてください koko ni namae o kaite kudasai Please write your name here

Notice that the rest of the sentence behaves normally. を still marks the object, に still marks the place. Only the verb ending changes.

ゆっくり話はなしてください yukkuri hanashite kudasai Please speak slowly

A warning about strength. English "please" is soft, but てください is closer to a polite instruction than a plea. A teacher says it to a class, a doctor says it to a patient, a station announcement says it to you. Among equals it is perfectly normal for small favours, but pointing it at your boss can sound like you are giving orders. Two habits fix this. Start with すみませんが, and drop ちょっと in front of the verb, which shrinks the request to something trivially small.

すみませんが、ちょっと手伝てつだってください sumimasen ga, chotto tetsudatte kudasai Sorry, but could you give me a hand

ください also works on its own, with no verb in front of it at all. Put a noun and を before it and you are asking to be given the thing. This is what you say across a counter, and it is probably the single most useful sentence pattern in the whole lesson.

これをください kore o kudasai I will take this one, please

水みずをください mizu o kudasai Some water, please

Keep the two patterns apart in your head. A noun takes を before ください, an action takes the て form and no を at all. Saying 待まちますをください is the sort of mistake that comes from mixing them.

Asking someone not to

For the opposite, use the plain negative, the ない form you met when you learned negatives, and add でください.

ここで写真しゃしんを撮とらないでください koko de shashin o toranai de kudasai Please do not take photographs here

心配しんぱいしないでください shinpai shinai de kudasai Please do not worry

窓まどを開あけないでください mado o akenai de kudasai Please do not open the window

Things in progress: ています

Attach います to the て form instead, and the action becomes ongoing. This is the closest Japanese has to "I am doing".

今いまごはんを食たべています ima gohan o tabete imasu I am eating right now

雨あめが降ふっています ame ga futte imasu It is raining

子こどもたちは公園こうえんで遊あそんでいます kodomotachi wa kouen de asonde imasu The children are playing in the park

Only います changes when you make the sentence negative or past. The て form in front of it never moves.

姉あねは働はたらいていません ane wa hataraite imasen My older sister is not working

昨日きのうの夜よる、本ほんを読よんでいました kinou no yoru, hon o yonde imashita Last night I was reading a book

In relaxed speech the い disappears and you hear 食たべてます, 待まってます. Recognise it, and keep the い in anything you write.

States that stay

Here is the part that trips up nearly every beginner. With some verbs, ています does not mean "in the middle of doing" at all. It means the action already happened and its result is still true. The verb points at a moment of change, and ています describes the world after that moment.

東京とうきょうに住すんでいます toukyou ni sunde imasu I live in Tokyo

姉あねは結婚けっこんしています ane wa kekkon shite imasu My older sister is married

先生せんせいの電話でんわ番号ばんごうを知しっています sensei no denwa bangou o shitte imasu I know the teacher's phone number

None of those is a progressive. 結婚けっこんしています is not "she is getting married", it is "she got married and still is". 住すんでいます is where you live, not where you are moving in today. In fact 住すみます on its own sounds oddly like a plan rather than a fact, so for where you live, ています is the ordinary choice rather than a fancy one.

知しっています hides one more trap. Its negative is not 知しっていません but 知しりません. There is no state to describe when you do not know something, so Japanese simply says the verb did not happen.

道みちを知しりません michi o shirimasen I do not know the way

Habits, too

The same ています covers what you do regularly, in the sense of what you are currently doing with your life.

銀行ぎんこうで働はたらいています ginkou de hataraite imasu I work at a bank

毎朝まいあさコーヒーを飲のんでいます maiasa koohii o nonde imasu I drink coffee every morning

So one form does three jobs: this instant, a lasting result, and an ongoing habit. Context sorts them out, and the verb itself tells you which reading is even possible. Verbs describing a stretch of activity, like 食たべます or 読よみます, give you the progressive. Verbs describing an instant change, like 結婚けっこんします or 持もちます, give you the state.

Vocabulary

You can now ask for things and describe what is happening, which covers a surprising share of everyday speech. Next you will send yourself somewhere, and learn which particle carries you there.

Three small particles carry almost all of the movement in Japanese, and learners mix them up for months because English hides the distinctions inside one word. English says "to the station", "at the station" and "by train" without ever noticing that the first is a destination, the second a stage for an action and the third a tool. Japanese marks all three separately, and once you see the split it is difficult to unsee.

Getting there: に and へ

The verbs of movement are 行いきます, to go, 来きます, to come, and 帰かえります, to return home. Their destination takes に or へ.

学校がっこうに行いきます gakkou ni ikimasu I go to school

友ともだちが家いえへ来きました tomodachi ga ie e kimashita A friend came to my house

六ろく時じに家いえに帰かえります roku ji ni ie ni kaerimasu I go home at six

That last sentence has に twice doing different work: once for the time and once for the destination. Japanese is quite happy with this, because the particle takes its meaning from the noun in front of it.

Watch the reading of へ. As a particle it is pronounced e, never he, which is a leftover from older spelling. Whether you write に or へ hardly matters here: に is the everyday choice and points squarely at the arrival point, while へ leans a little towards the direction of travel and sounds slightly softer, which is why it turns up on signs and in polite writing. Any sentence above works with either.

How you got there: で

The means of transport takes で.

電車でんしゃで行いきます densha de ikimasu I go by train

バスで会社かいしゃに行いきます basu de kaisha ni ikimasu I go to the office by bus

飛行機ひこうきで日本にほんへ行いきました hikouki de nihon e ikimashita I went to Japan by plane

The question word is 何なんで, which is how you ask someone how they are getting somewhere.

何なんで駅えきに行いきますか nan de eki ni ikimasu ka How are you getting to the station

One exception matters. Walking takes no で, because your feet are not a vehicle. Use 歩あるいて, the て form of 歩あるきます, sitting in front of the verb.

歩あるいて帰かえりました aruite kaerimashita I walked home

Where it happened: で again

The same で marks the place an action is performed. This is the meaning that collides with に in learners' heads, and the fix is a single question: is the place the target of the movement, or the stage for an activity?

図書館としょかんで勉強べんきょうします toshokan de benkyou shimasu I study at the library

駅えきで待まっています eki de matte imasu I am waiting at the station

公園こうえんで写真しゃしんを撮とりました kouen de shashin o torimashita I took photographs in the park

So 学校がっこうに行いきます, going to the school, but 学校がっこうで食たべます, eating at the school. Putting で in front of 行いきます is the classic error, and it happens because English "at" and "to" both feel available. Movement verbs never take で for their destination.

Going somewhere in order to do something

Drop the ます from a verb and put に before 行いきます, and you have said why you are going.

買かい物ものに行いきます kaimono ni ikimasu I am going shopping

映画えいがを見みに行いきました eiga o mi ni ikimashita I went to see a film

友ともだちに会あいに行いきます tomodachi ni ai ni ikimasu I am going to meet a friend

The stem is what is left when ます comes off: 見みます becomes 見み, 食たべます becomes 食たべ. Nouns describing an activity, like 買かい物もの or 勉強べんきょう, slot in directly.

People are destinations too

に does not only point at places. With 会あいます, to meet, the person you are meeting is treated as the target you are heading towards, so they take に rather than を.

駅えきで先生せんせいに会あいました eki de sensei ni aimashita I met the teacher at the station

That sentence uses both particles in their proper roles at once: で for the stage, に for the target. English "meet with" is a useful reminder, and 先生せんせいを会あいました is simply wrong.

Who with, from where, how far

Three more pieces finish the picture. と marks the person you go with, から the starting point, まで the end point.

家族かぞくと旅行りょこうに行いきます kazoku to ryokou ni ikimasu I am going travelling with my family

家いえから駅えきまで歩あるきます ie kara eki made arukimasu I walk from home to the station

一人ひとりで来きました hitori de kimashita I came alone

That last で is worth noticing: 一人ひとりで is a set phrase, "by oneself", built from the same particle of means.

The particles at a glance

Vocabulary

Two habits will keep you out of trouble. Before you choose a particle, ask what the noun is doing in the sentence rather than what the English preposition was: a place you arrive at takes に, a place you act in takes で. And remember that で covers means of every kind, not just vehicles, so it is also the particle for the tool you write with and the language you speak in.

日本語にほんごで話はなしてください nihongo de hanashite kudasai Please speak in Japanese

With all of this you can say where you went, how you got there, who you went with and what you went for. Next you will stop moving and describe what is where.

Japanese has two verbs for "there is", and which one you pick depends on what you are talking about. あります is for things that do not move themselves: books, buildings, money, time. います is for things that do: people, animals, anything with a will of its own. English makes no such distinction, so this is a choice you have to make consciously at first, and it is the single most reliable way for a listener to spot a beginner.

The basic pattern

Put the place first with に, then the thing with が, then the verb.

部屋へやに猫ねこがいます heya ni neko ga imasu There is a cat in the room

机つくえの上うえに本ほんがあります tsukue no ue ni hon ga arimasu There is a book on the desk

教室きょうしつに学生がくせいがいます kyoushitsu ni gakusei ga imasu There is a student in the classroom

Notice that the new thing being introduced takes が, not は. This is the same rule you met when は and が were first pulled apart: が presents something the listener does not yet know about, while は takes something already on the table and comments on it. That is why the pattern flips when you already have the thing in mind and want to say where it is.

本ほんは机つくえの上うえにあります hon wa tsukue no ue ni arimasu The book is on the desk

田中たなかさんは会社かいしゃにいます tanaka san wa kaisha ni imasu Mr Tanaka is at the office

Both orders are correct, and the difference is what the sentence is answering. XにYがあります answers "what is there?". YはXにあります answers "where is it?".

Words for where

Location words are nouns, and they attach to another noun with の. 机つくえの上うえ is literally "the desk's top", and the whole phrase then takes に.

銀行ぎんこうは駅えきの前まえにあります ginkou wa eki no mae ni arimasu The bank is in front of the station

かばんの中なかに財布さいふがあります kaban no naka ni saifu ga arimasu There is a wallet in the bag

犬いぬは車くるまの下したにいます inu wa kuruma no shita ni imasu The dog is under the car

間あいだ needs two nouns, joined by と.

銀行ぎんこうと駅えきの間あいだにあります ginkou to eki no aida ni arimasu It is between the bank and the station

Asking where something is

The question word is どこ, and it slots straight into the position the place would occupy.

トイレはどこにありますか toire wa doko ni arimasu ka Where is the toilet

田中たなかさんはどこにいますか tanaka san wa doko ni imasu ka Where is Mr Tanaka

In shops and stations you will more often hear the shorter トイレはどこですか, using plain です, and it means the same thing. Both are polite. The version with あります sounds a shade more careful, and it is the one to practise, because it forces you to keep making the choice between the two verbs.

Not there, and was there

Both verbs behave normally in the negative and the past, which you already know how to build.

部屋へやに誰だれもいません heya ni dare mo imasen There is nobody in the room

冷蔵庫れいぞうこに何なにもありません reizouko ni nani mo arimasen There is nothing in the fridge

昨日きのう、家いえに友ともだちがいました kinou, ie ni tomodachi ga imashita A friend was at my house yesterday

Those first two sentences show a useful pairing: 誰だれも and 何なにも take a negative verb and mean nobody and nothing. Never mix them, 誰だれもありません is not a sentence.

The mistake everyone makes

Using あります for a person is the error to guard against, and it happens because English "there is" gives no warning. 先生せんせいがあります says roughly that a teacher exists as an object, which is as strange in Japanese as it sounds in English.

The test is not grammatical gender or animacy in the biological sense, it is whether the thing moves under its own power. So:

• People, dogs, cats, fish, insects: います
• Books, cars, trees, buildings, mountains: あります

Plants take あります even though they are alive, because they stay put. A parked car takes あります, but a taxi with a driver in it can take います when you are thinking of it as a vehicle in motion looking for a fare. Robots and dolls sit on the boundary and speakers disagree, which is a sign that the rule really is about self-propelled motion rather than biology.

Having, and abstract things

あります stretches beyond physical objects. Anything you possess or have scheduled uses it, and here the thing takes が while the person, if mentioned, takes は.

時間じかんがありません jikan ga arimasen I do not have time

明日あした、テストがあります ashita, tesuto ga arimasu There is a test tomorrow

私わたしは車くるまがあります watashi wa kuruma ga arimasu I have a car

います does the same job for relationships, since the thing possessed is a person.

兄あにが二人ふたりいます ani ga futari imasu I have two older brothers

Vocabulary

One more thing worth knowing about these two verbs: they are the reason the て form section from two lessons ago works at all. The います in 食たべています is this います, and the state it describes is the state of an action being under way. Japanese keeps reusing a small number of pieces, and this is a good example of one earning its keep twice.

You can now describe a room, give directions to a shop and say what you have. One lesson remains, and it is about what you like and what you want.

Everything in this lesson runs on one idea, and if you take only that away you will still be ahead of most beginners. When Japanese says you like something, want something or can do something, the thing is not the object of a verb. It is the subject of a description, and it takes が. English hides this because it uses ordinary transitive verbs: "I like coffee", "I want water". Japanese says something closer to "as for me, coffee is pleasing". Get が in place and these patterns are easy. Reach for を and you will sound wrong every single time.

Liking: 好すき

好すき is a な adjective, not a verb, which is why it behaves the way it does. The thing liked takes が, and the person doing the liking, if you name them at all, takes は.

コーヒーが好すきです koohii ga suki desu I like coffee

私わたしは音楽おんがくが好すきです watashi wa ongaku ga suki desu I like music

妹いもうとは犬いぬが好すきじゃありません imouto wa inu ga suki ja arimasen My younger sister does not like dogs

Because it is a な adjective it takes な in front of a noun, and it makes its negative and past exactly like every other な adjective you have met.

好すきな食たべ物ものは何なんですか suki na tabemono wa nan desu ka What food do you like

The family runs from 大好だいすき, love, through 好すき, down to 嫌きらい, dislike, and 大嫌だいきらい, hate. 嫌きらい looks like an い adjective and is not: it is な, and its negative is 嫌きらいじゃありません.

納豆なっとうが大嫌だいきらいです nattou ga daikirai desu I hate natto

上手じょうず, good at, and 下手へた, bad at, work identically, with が on the skill.

姉あねは料理りょうりが上手じょうずです ane wa ryouri ga jouzu desu My older sister is good at cooking

Wanting a thing: ほしい

欲ほしい, usually written ほしい, is an い adjective meaning wanted. Again the thing takes が.

新あたらしいパソコンがほしいです atarashii pasokon ga hoshii desu I want a new computer

時間じかんがほしいです jikan ga hoshii desu I want time

何なにがほしいですか nani ga hoshii desu ka What do you want

Being an い adjective, it makes its negative by swapping い for くない: ほしくないです, I do not want it.

There is a restriction that catches people out. ほしい describes an inner feeling, and Japanese does not let you assert somebody else's inner feelings flatly. So ほしいです is about you, and ほしいですか asks about the listener. For a third person you need a hedge, and the easy one you already own is ています attached to ほしがります.

弟おとうとは自転車じてんしゃをほしがっています otouto wa jitensha o hoshigatte imasu My younger brother wants a bicycle

Note that this version takes を, because ほしがります really is a verb. That is the exception that proves how consistent the rest of the system is.

Wanting to do: たい

To say you want to do something, take the stem, the part left when ます comes off, and add たい. The result is an い adjective, so it conjugates like one.

日本にほんに行いきたいです nihon ni ikitai desu I want to go to Japan

何なにか食たべたいです nanika tabetai desu I want to eat something

今日きょうは働はたらきたくないです kyou wa hatarakitaku nai desu I do not want to work today

The object of a たい sentence may take either を or が, and both are correct. が pulls the focus onto the thing itself and is the slightly older, more emphatic choice; を keeps the ordinary feel of the verb. 水みずが飲のみたいです and 水みずを飲のみたいです both mean you want a drink of water. The same third-person restriction applies, and the same fix: たがっています.

Being able to: できます

できます means can do, and the ability takes が.

日本語にほんごが少すこしできます nihongo ga sukoshi dekimasu I can speak a little Japanese

運転うんてんができますか unten ga dekimasu ka Can you drive

For a whole action rather than a skill noun, use the dictionary form of the verb plus ことができます. The dictionary form is the shape you look a verb up under, 読よむ for 読よみます and 食たべる for 食たべます, and こと turns that action into a thing you can be able to do.

漢字かんじを読よむことができます kanji o yomu koto ga dekimasu I can read kanji

全然ぜんぜんできません zenzen dekimasen I cannot do it at all

全然ぜんぜん, at all, always pairs with a negative, in the same way 何なにも did last lesson.

Vocabulary

Where you have got to

Sixteen lessons ago you could not read a syllable. You can now write both kana, sound out a hundred kanji with their readings, and say what something is, what it is like, what you did, where you went, what you are doing right now, what is where, and what you like, want and can do. That is the ground the N5 level covers, and more importantly it is enough to hold a slow, real conversation with a patient speaker.

What is missing is not more grammar so much as more room. Every pattern here has a plain, casual counterpart used between friends, and a politer register used with customers and superiors, and moving between the three is what makes speech sound natural rather than textbook. The connectives that join sentences into paragraphs are next, as is the far larger stock of kanji that turns reading from decoding into reading. Keep meeting the language in things made for people rather than for learners, and let the patterns you have here carry you.