Ixrec's Guide to Japanese

Literally means "thing," "fact" or "matter." As a clause ender it may also mean "the act of _ing," "things which _" or "instances/occurrences of _."

• 借金を持つことは変更してない
• The fact that I have a debt is not changing.
• 大統領になることに苦労はある
• There are hardships in (the act of) becoming president.
• 知っていることが多すぎて怖い
• The things that I know are too many, and I'm afraid.
• 試験で満点をとったことはない
• There is no instance of me getting/I have never gotten a perfect score on a test.

Also, this technically isn't relevant, but のこと is effectively an emphatic を to be used after an animate object or when discussing emotions.

Literally "habit." When followed by に it's effectively the same as 事 koto except it implies criticism or blame (often with anger). Otherwise, treat it like an ordinary noun.

• あなたも落ちたくせになんで私を責める?
• You failed too, why are you blaming me?
• 何も知らないくせに俺の有罪を決める?
• I can't decide if I'm guilty when you don't know anything.

Literally "thing" or "person" depending on the kanji. May be either if in kana. Often overlaps with 事 koto.

• この事件に関するものを全部隠さない?
• You must hide all things/people which relate to this incident.
• 信教を持つものだけに救済ある
• Salvation exists only for persons who have faith.

Can also be colloquially shortened to もん, and used as a feminine gobi much like よ in short or long form.

Literally "side" (of a debate or issue) and is effectively the collective noun for 者 mono, meaning it refers to a group or type of people (especially an opinionated one).

• 噂を信じてる側がうるさくなってる
• The ones who believe the rumor are getting louder/more vocal.

All of these literally mean "time." As a clause-ender 時 toki usually means "the time when _." If followed by に it means "at the time when _" or "at the same time as _." 頃 koro is the same, but more likely to indicate a long period of time in the past. うち uchi is more likely to indicate a short period of time near the present. たび tabi is more likely to indicate one of several similar periods of time.

• 大学にいた時を思い出すと懐かしい
• It is nostalgic when I remember (the time) when I was in college.
• 猫が食らい付いた時に鼠はもう死んでいる
• When the cat bit into the mouse it was already dead.
• 小学校にいる頃には問題児だった
• I was a problem child back when I was in elementary school.
• 宿題をやってるうちに妹が悪戯をした
• My little sister played a prank while I was doing homework.
• 家に帰るたびにほっとした気分になる
• Each time I/As I return home, I feel relieved.

The words themselves are pretty easy: "in front" vs. "behind", "before" vs. "after" and "previous" vs. "next." They also mean "before/after" as clause-ending nouns, but for some reason students seem to misinterpret them a lot, so they're listed here. Also, I think 後's "nochi" reading is unique to clause-ending.

• 家を出る前に歯を磨かないとダメ.
• I have to brush my teeth before leaving the house..
• 授業が終わるあと、公園で散歩したい.
• After class ends, I'd like to take a walk in the park..

Literally "intention" or "plan." As a clause ender it means "intent to _," "the thought/belief that _," "to plan/intend on _" or "to think/believe that _ is the case."

• 今年で運転免許を取るつもりです
• I plan on getting my driver's license this year.
• てめらを殺したつもりだった
• I thought I killed you bastards.

Literally "spirit" (see Confusing Vocabulary for its usage in idioms). Overlaps with tsumori. As a clause-ender it means "intent/inclination to _," "to intend on _," "to be in the mood to/for _" or "to feel like _."

• やっと教授と喋る気になった
• I finally became inclined to/felt like talking with my professor.
• 肉を食べる気がない
• I have no inclination to eat/am not in the mood to eat/don't feel like eating meat.

Literally "manner" or "appearance." As a clause ender, with no adjacent particle, it means "it seems to be the case that _."

If you add certain particles, you get similies.

• XようにY means "to Y as if Xing".
• XようなY means "a Y which seems to be X".
• XのようにY means "to Y like an X".
• XのようなY means "a Y which seems like an X".
• Xように can also mean "in order to X" or "so that X may be so".

• ここに車がないようだ?
• It seems there are no cars here.
• 壊れているように怖い音を発した
• It emitted a scary sound as if it was broken.
• すごく痛いような仕草で説明した
• He explained it with mannerisms as if it was incredibly painful.
• 俺はサラリーマンのように働いた
• I worked like a salaryman.
• 死んだ魚のような目で見つめた
• He gazed with eyes like a dead fish.
• 世界が平和でありますよう?
• So the world be at peace. or So that the world may be at peace.

Much the same as 様 you, but it only means "manner," not "appearance." The "as if" and "like a" definitions above apply to 風 fuu as well, but not the others. As a result, particles are much more optional.

• こんな激しい風に終わりたくなかった
• I didn't want it to end in this violent a manner/so violently.

Literally "sake" or "cause." As a clause ender, unsurprisingly, means "for the sake of _," "in order to _" or "as a result of _."

• 基地を守るために撤退せねばならん
• We must retreat for the sake of protecting/in order to protect the base.
• この計画の全ては正義のた?
• All of this plan is for (the sake/cause of) justice.
• 寝過ぎたため、学校に遅れました
• As a result of/Because I overslept, I was late for school.

Literally "effect/result" or "worth/use/avail." As a clause ender, it means the latter.

• 徹夜をする甲斐があったみたい
• It seems it was worth pulling an all-nighter.

Most literally, "a set of circumstances surrounding an action or situation." Sometimes translates to "reason," "circumstance," "way," "meaning," "situation" and so on. When in Japanese you say a 訳 wake ある exists or ない doesn't exist, you mean that there is or is not a plausible reason for something to be the case (the latter may be translated "there's no way"). If there is no explicit verb and the sentence just ends with 訳 wake and maybe a gobi, then it is an explanation of the circumstances surrounding some situation.

• 電車が遅れてる訳を聞きたくない
• I don't want to hear the reason why the train is late.
• 今全員犯人を追ってるわけで誰もいない
• Everyone's chasing the criminal right now so no one's here.
• 月まで飛ぶことができるわけがない
• There's no way you can jump as far as/all the way to the moon.
• 今月だけは違う仕事をしてるわけだ
• Just for this month I'm doing a different job.

Incidentally, the phrase というわけだ is a common way of ending an explanation (especially a long one), and the phrase というわけで is a common way of transitioning from one subject to another.

Most literally, a "state of being" or "tendency of progression." Most often used in conditional statements to mean "given this state/condition/trend" which often translates to "like this," "in this condition," "at this rate," "if this keeps up" or "with the way _ is/are." When it ends a clause, the clause is describing the state.

• このままでは公平な大会にならない
• Given this trend/At this rate it won't be a fair tournament.
• 扉が開いたまま残したことはない
• The door has never remained in an opened state/been left open.

Most literally, "the degree or extent to which an action is performed." Sometimes translates directly to "degree," "extent" or "limit." As a clause ender it can be a standard noun meaning one of those three things. It can also be "no more than _" (especially if ending the sentence) or "to the point that _." Sometimes you'll see a phrase like "[verb]hodo[verb]" which means "[verb] to the extent that [verb]" i.e. "the more _ [verb] the more _ [verb]."

• 殺すほど傷付けるつもりじゃない
• I don't plan on hurting him to such a degree that/so much that he dies.
• 皆が言うほど悪いじゃないよ
• He's not bad to the extent that/as bad as everyone says.
• 高校をギリギリ卒業したほどのものだ
• He's no more than a person who barely graduated high school.
• 働いすぎるほど狂うと思う
• I think the more he overworks, the more insane he'll get.

所為 sei is literally "cause," "reason" or "fault." Identical to the "as a result of _" meaning of 為 tame, except it implies anger or blame. Its opposite, お蔭 okage, literally means "assistance" and also has 為 tame's "result" meaning, but implies gratitude instead.

• 君のせいでこの捜索は無能だった
• This investigation accomplished nothing because of you.
• 俺が勝ったのはコーチのおかげだ
• The fact that I won is because of/thanks to my coach.

Literally "pretense," "appearance" or "behavior." As a clause ender it almost always means "pretending to _" or "acting as if _," and it's often written in katakana when used this way.

• でも恥ずかしかったから気付かないフリをした
• But it was embarrassing so I pretended not to notice.

Literally "situation," often "place" and/or "time." Can also mean "parts that _," "the part when _," "something like _," "what someone looks/acts like when _ing" or refer to a certain "side" of someone. Also, the phrase ところで by itself is roughly equivalent to "speaking of which" in English. Finally, ところ is interchangeable with とこ and どころ.

• 人がいないところでいたくない
• I don't want to be in a place where there are no people.
• 俺が見たところによるといいかもしれない
• Based on the parts I saw/what I saw it might be good.
• 事件が終わったところであいつが現れた
• That guy appeared (at the part) when the incident ended.
• あなたの焦っているところも見たい
• I also want to see what you look/act like when you're under pressure.

Arguably the more figurative version of 所 tokoro, meaning "situation" as in "time" or "place" as well as in "position," "role" or "standing." No weird alternate meanings on this one.

• 遊んでる場合じゃないって
• I'm saying this is no time to be playing.
• 社長の場合でミスは許されない
• Mistakes are unforgivable in a company president's position.

Means "more than," but once again backwards compared to English. Also, the thing being compared to may be implied, or entirely unnecessary.

• 猫よりかわいい生き物はないと思う
• I think there is no animal more cute/cuter than a cat.
• より賢い解答を探しています
• I'm searching for a more intelligent answer.

Literally "way" or "option," but its most common usage by far is in comparisons. In Japanese, when you say a 方 hou is [adjective], you almost always mean that whatever's describing the 方 hou is more [adjective] than some other thing (which is either implied or specified with yori). Also, 方 kata after a gerund means "way of _ing" or "how to _."

• 撃ち合いで勝つより目立てず方がいい
• It's more good/better to not stand out than to win in a firefight.
• 科学には詳しい人の方が好ましい
• In science, the knowledgeable person is more desirable.
• 早いほうが勝算高いって言ったよ
• I said the fast option/doing it faster has a higher chance of success.

You've seen these in Grammatical Vocabulary. 筈 hazu is a clause ender just like anything else in this list, but べき beki is an adjectival verb form which attaches to the infinitive/nonpast form, making it a grammatical oddity.

• すぐ帰ってくるはずから待つべきだ
• Since he should come home soon, we should wait for him.

Miscellaneous Clause-Related Issues

If you've been seriously attempting to read source material up to this point, then most of the subsections below will probably cover things you've more or less figured out on your own (consciously or otherwise). My goal in talking about them is not so much to teach you new things, as it is to give you an idea of how well you intuitively understand Japanese, and get you to start consciously thinking about some of the more subtle and complex issues with Japanese grammar (especially in contrast with English) which you might not have noticed.

There are two quick things I'd like to show you to get you thinking about some of the more subtle issues that come up once you can understand multi-clause sentences.

First, the subject of the subordinate clause is not necessarily the noun it modifies. Even the object (if any) doesn't have to be located anywhere in the clause. Instead it may be in a previous sentence or clause, or it may be the "context" denoted by は. Since this is only useful or common during a long conversation where the subjects and objects intended gradually become obvious, there's not much point in giving more than one simple example here:

• 何をあげたらいいと思う？
• What do you think I should give her?
• あげたいもの
• Something you want to give her.

That example should also make it very clear what I meant at the beginning when I said Japanese relies on context and leaves things implied a lot more than English.

Second, consider this sentence: 脱出するものは支援せよといったから行く。 Obviously, there are two subordinate clauses (if you interpret the quote as a clause). However, it is not clear whether the second subordinate clause encompasses the first one or not, giving us two valid but very different meanings:

• "(those who escape [subject] reinforce) said [so] go"
• = "We're going because he said to backup anyone who escapes."
• "(those who escape) [subject] (reinforce) said [so] go"
• = "We're going because the escapees said to back those guys up."

Notice that, without any context, it is impossible to tell which of these two interpretations is correct. Fortunately, in context, it will usually be very easy to tell which meaning is intended.

Also, the distinction between は and が is relevant here, since が is more likely to be found inside a subordinate clause and は less so (though if context, tone of voice or anything else imply the contrary, follow those cues instead). On occasion you may be able to eliminate one or the other option by noticing a particular verb is strictly intransitive.

When a subordinate clause ends in か, and is therefore a question, you don't actually need a noun. In this case the clause represents either the question itself, or its answer. It can also express a possible reason for something described by the next clause. Multiple か ka clauses in parallel usually mean "whether/or"

• あいつが何を知ってるかを調べなきゃ
• What does he know? We must investigate.
• We must investigate what that guy knows.
• 建物が古いか新しいかは関係ない
• Is the building old? New? It's irrelevant.
• It's irrelevant whether the building is old or new.

Interpreting a single tense in a single clause is generally pretty simple, since many of the most basic tenses in Japanese can be accurately equated with basic English tenses. However, the way you interpret tenses of verbs in subordinate clauses can be subtly different. Consider the following sentence:

• 考えるうちに授業が終わった
• Class ended while I was thinking.

Notice that 考える is in nonpast form, even though the act of thinking takes place in the past. The English tense ("was _ing") makes the past-ness explicit. In my opinion, the trick here is: because the 考える is in the subordinate clause, its tense should be interpreted relative to the tense of the main clause. In this case, the "thinking" occurs in the present relative to when the "ending" happened (which means the "thinking" happened at the same time as the "ending"). Since the "ending" is in past tense, that means the "thinking" also happened in the past. If your brain is operating in Japanese then this might make sense. A different example:

• その方程式を暗記したらテストを合格したはず
• If I'd memorized that equation I probably would've passed that test.

合格した is in simple past form despite the fact that no "passing" ever took place. In English we have to use a "would've" to mark the hypothetical status of this act. No further analysis should be necessary, though it's worth explicitly saying that Japanese completely lacks a direct equivalent to "would" because, as you can see, it simply doesn't need one.

Some of the compound particles can be explained a little better once you understand clause-ending nouns. Basically, I think の can be short for 事 koto or もの mono, especially if in a compound particle.

To convince you this works, let's bring in some old examples:

• 読むとすぐに眠るの（こと）は何故
• Why is it that you fall asleep right away when reading something?

• また変なの（もの）が来たみたい
• Looks like another weird thing came.

• 二ヶ月書くの（こと）が危険だけど一つの名作くらい書きたい
• It's dangerous writing for two months straight, but I wanna write at least one masterpiece.

• そんなに綺麗なの（もの）か？
• Is it that pretty?

Similarly, に in a compound particle may loosely resemble 場合 ba'ai or 所 tokoro.

• 私に（の場合で）は蛇が恐ろしい
• For me, snakes are terrifying.

• 科学に（のところ）は詳しい人の方が好ましい
• In science, the knowledgeable person is more desirable.

These are probably the most useful comparisons, but I think most compound particles can be explained (at least in some of their uses) in a similar way if desired.

And now, just for good measure, some examples of painfully long sentences. Because long multi-clause sentences normally only occur deep in context, natural-sounding examples aren't really possible, so I had fun stretching these out until they got ridiculous.

• 週末に宿題を終わせる気だったけどテニス部から期待してる友達が来て、断ることをできなくて、一瞬だけが残ったくせにみんなと遊んでいたわけだと？
• You say the reason was that even though you intended to finish your homework by the end of the week, expectant friends from the tennis club came, you were unable to refuse, and you played with all of them even though there was only one week remaining?

• バカのせいで助けたことはがっかりだが話してる場合じゃないから見つかれてないうちに早く脱出するほうが私達と基地で待っている仲間には最善であるはず
• The fact that we were saved thanks to the idiot is depressing but, since this is no time for talking, the best option for us and our comrades waiting at the base should be to escape faster while they still haven't found us.

• 店に行ったときには彼女に興味がないふりをしたけどリンゴを選んでるところで声をかけられて、そのおかげでするべきやずっとするつもりだったことをほとんどできた
• When I went to the store I pretended not to be interested in her, but I was spoken to (by her) while picking out apples, and thanks to that I was able to do most of the things I should have and had always planned on doing.

• 祖父と住んでいる頃、電力を使いすぎないように電池を切るよりついたままでいいかどうかを良く考えましたって今思えば幼い私には恐ろしいほど影響があったかすごい甲斐があったか
• Back when I was living with my grandfather, I often thought about whether it was better, in order to not use too much power, to leave the lights on rather than turn them off. Thinking about it now, did that have a frightening degree of influence on or was it just incredibly worthwhile for my young self?

That's the end of the main guide. Either review some of the pages you've read, go read a ton more source material, or browse some of the supplementary sections below to see if they'll help

Terminology

• General Terms
• Basic Parts of Speech
• Inflection
• Other Important Terms
• Other Interesting Terms

This section teaches almost nothing about Japanese grammar. Instead, the goal is to quickly introduce you to some basic grammar terms I need to use in the guide in order to explain how Japanese works.

General Terms

Phrase: two or more consecutive words which can be treated as a single unit.

Subject: the word or phrase expressing whatever is performing the action

Predicate: the word or phrase expressing whatever action is being performed

Object: a word or phrase expressing whatever is being acted upon

Clause: a phrase which has both a subject and a predicate. May or may not be a complete sentence.

• Example:
• "My cats like to meow loudly at people."
• Subject:
• "My cats" Predicate: "like to meow loudly" Object: "at people"

Lexical Word: Any word that represents a concept or has a meaning all by itself. Most words in a language are lexical, and they are collectively called a language's lexicon.

Particle: Any non-lexical word, i.e. a word that has no meaning on its own but is only used for grammatical reasons. In English, these are mostly prepositions and pronouns. Exactly what does and does not count as a particle is very debatable.

Basic Parts of Speech

Part of Speech (POS) or Lexical Category: Any term or category used to define what grammatical roles words are capable of fulfilling. The eight generally recognized English parts of speech are: nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections.

Noun: a word denoting a person, place, thing, idea or feeling

Pronoun: a word which acts as shorthand for one or more nouns, usually in order to avoid repeating the noun/listing all the nouns {I, you, he, she, it, they, everyone, someone, each, every}

Verb: a word denoting an action

Adjective (adj.): any word that describes or modifies a noun

Adverb (adv.): any word that describes or modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb. You may have been told all adverbs end in -ly. That's not true.

Adposition (adp.): a word used to attach extra objects to a sentence. All English adpositions are prepositions (they're placed before their objects) while all Japanese adpositions are postpositions (they're placed after their objects).

• Example:
• "I think entertaining music contributes significantly to a video game."

Here "music" and "video game" are nouns, "I" is a pronoun (acting as shorthand for the speaker's name), "think" and "contributes" are verbs, "entertaining" is an adjective describing the noun "music", and "significantly" is an adverb describing the verb "contributes".

Finally, "to" is a preposition attaching the object "video game" to "contributes" (notice that the sentence would still make sense without "to a video game", hence this object is optional and a preposition is needed to attach it).

Conjunction: a word(s) that connects two clauses and/or describes the relationship between them {and, but, if, yet, so, for}

Interjection: a word or short phrase that isn't really part of a sentence, but instead is used as a quick exclamation {ow!, hey!, oh my god!} or as a space filler {um, uh, er…}

Inflection

Inflection: modifying a word to change or add to its original meaning. A word with no inflection whatsoever is called a lemma, and the set of words which can be created by inflecting it are called a lexeme.

Pluralization: the process of changing a singular noun or pronoun {cat, I} into a plural one {cats, we}. This is probably the simplest and most intuitive type of inflection in English.

Declension: the process of changing nouns, pronouns and/or adjectives to incorporate concepts such as tense, person, and mood. English doesn't do this at all, but Japanese does for adjectives.

Conjugation: the process of changing verbs to incorporate concepts such as tense, person, and mood. This can be done either by changing the verb's ending or by adding a helping verb.

Stem: the portion of a verb that normally remains unchanged by inflection/conjugation.

Helping Verb/Auxiliary Verb: a word placed in front of the main verb in order to conjugate it. {be, have, should, must, can, might} Japanese has none of these, and instead allows the verb's ending to be changed in several ways at once.

Tense: the time(s), or period(s) of time during which an action occurs. English and Japanese use most of the same tenses, though they express them differently.

Person: the type of subject performing the action. In English, it states only the subject's relative position to the speaker. Japanese never inflects for person.

Mood: the intent or nature of emotion involved in the statement. Includes concepts like commands, requests, probability, necessity, conditional statements and hypothetical speaking. English moods usually involve helping verbs. Japanese moods are expressed with verb forms and "sentence ending particles".

• Example:
• "If I had defeated him, that wouldn't have happened."

• Tense:
• past perfect tense (happened only in the past) Person: 1st person (the actor is the speaker) Mood: conditional (if _, then _)

I refer to Tenses, Persons and Moods collectively as Verb Forms. When describing Japanese, I rarely find it necessary to explicitly distinguish between the three, so Conjugation just uses the term "forms" constantly.

Other Important Terms

For some reason, these terms come up a lot when explaining differences between English and Japanese.

Phrasal Verb: a specific verb and adposition which, when used together, have a unique meaning. English has a lot of these (to write up, to work through, to fight on, etc). Japanese has a few.

Transitivity: The minimum number of objects a verb needs in order to make grammatical sense. A verb requiring 0 objects is called intransitive (e.g., to run), a verb requiring 1 is called transitive (e.g., to say something), and a verb requiring 2 is called ditransitive (e.g., to give someone something). Adpositions are used to add objects which aren't grammatically necessary.

Demonstratives: words like "this" and "that" which can be pronouns or adjectives (compare "this is blue" to "this flower is blue"). Japanese always uses two separate words, which may be tricky to grasp at first.

Other Interesting Terms

I won't expect you to know any of these since I rarely use them myself (except for a few of the tenses, which I redefine when they come up later), but it's probably good to have heard of them at least once.

Concrete Noun: a word defining a person, place, or thing {America, road, human}

Abstract Noun: a word defining an idea or feeling {psyche, concept, morbidity}

Articles: the words "the," "an," and "a." These are considered adjectives.

Comparative Adjectives: adjectives used to contrast two nouns or noun phrases. In English, these are formed with the adverb "more" or the suffix "-er." Japanese uses ほう and より.

Superlative Adjectives: adjectives used to contrast one noun with ‘everything else.’ In English, these are formed with the adverb "most" or the suffix "-est." Japanese uses もっとも and 一番.

1st person: a grammatical person in which the speaker is the subject {I, me}

2nd person: a person in which the speaker is talking to the subject {you, yours}

3rd person: a person in which the speaker is talking about but not to the subject {he, she, it}

Correlative Conjunction: two or more words that surround the phrase(s) they conjunct. {if…then, both…and, either…or, neither…nor, not only…but…also/too}

Personal Pronouns: pronouns that take the place of a specific noun and serve no secondary grammatical purpose. {I, me, you, he/she, it, we, they, that, those, this, these}

Relative Pronouns: pronouns referring to a previous noun within the same sentence, thereby denoting a subordinate clause. {These events which you were involved in…}

Interrogative Pronouns: pronouns that ask a question. {who, what, when, where, why}

Indefinite Pronouns: pronouns that represent general categories of people or things. {everyone, everything, someone, something, anyone, anything}

Reflexive Pronouns: effectively what personal pronouns look like when "reused" later in the same sentence. {myself, yourself, themselves}

Distributive Pronouns: pronouns that represent one item or person in a group separately from the others. {each, every, the other}

Negative Pronouns: pronouns specifying an indefinite noun that is absent from a certain group. {none, nobody, nothing}

Generic mood: used to make very general statements about a particular class of things

Declarative or Indicative mood: a simple statement of fact, without any special qualifications or implications. Considered the "default" mood in all languages.

Conditional mood: used to speak of an event whose realization is dependent on a certain condition (i.e., hypothetical and ‘if, then’ statements).

Imperative mood: expresses direct commands, requests, and other impositions of will.

Interrogative mood: used for asking questions ("do you" instead of "you do").

Negative mood: expresses a negated action. English negations use the auxiliary "not."

Potential mood: a mood of probability, indicating that in the opinion of the speaker, the action or occurrence is considered likely.

Infinitive: the default or dictionary verb form. In English, it’s "to run," "to be," etc., although the "to" in front is optional.

Gerund: a verb form used as a noun meaning "the action of _ing." For example, "skiing, walking, typing, conjugating, etc." Obviously, English gerunds use the -ing form.

Participle: a verb form that only specifies one grammatical detail (present or past tense), while shifting the designation of other details onto an auxiliary verb, thereby allowing for more complex tenses.

Present Participle: the –ing form with an auxiliary. Used in passive voice and complex tenses. "I am being watched." "I will be watching it when…"

Past Participle: the –ed form with an auxiliary. Used in passive voice and complex tenses. "I was defeated." "I had arrived there when…"

Active Voice: as usual, the subject is the one performing the action.

Passive Voice: instead the action is being done to the subject, not by it. "I was defeated."

Simple Present Tense: an action taking place in the present. "I go to school." In all languages I know, this is also the infinitive.

Simple Past Tense: an action taking place in the past. "I went to class."

Simple Future Tense: an action taking place in the future. "I will go home."

Confusing Vocabulary

• Words with abstract meanings
• Pairs/Triples/etc of words with abstract meanings
• Words which are easily misunderstood due to multiple meanings or uses
• Words having to do with politeness, obligation, etc.
• Words with odd grammatical behavior
• Lists of words or phrases

In the Introduction I cite "several precise but abstract words English lacks" as one of Japanese's major pros. Unfortunately, the flip side of this is that Japanese to English dictionaries are often terrible at defining and unable to adequately explain these words. So, I wanted to make a list of the ones I know are likely to cause you problems sooner or later. While I was at it, I also added a few which are just grammatical oddities, frequently mistranslated or poorly adapted, or otherwise need some kind of clarification. At this point it's basically a list of any word(s) I want to tell you something about.

I've tried to divide the entries into groups based on why I added them.

Words with abstract meanings

• 付く
• 加減
• 折角
• 適当
• 仕方ない
• させてもらう
• っていうか
• 贅沢
• 割り切る
• かかる

There are a lot of different "tsuku"s out there written with different kanji, but like most homonyms a decent dictionary is all you really need. This one is special because it is so vague and so common. Most literally, it means "to attach." Very few uses are markedly more popular than the countless others, so here are those few plus a bunch of random ones:

• 顔に付く
• = to attach to the face = to be on/stuck to one's face
• 名前を付く
• = to attach a name to something = to give something a name/to decide on a name
• 近付く= 近く付く
• = to attach oneself to the vicinity of = to approach/get close to
• 気付く= 気が付く
• = one's spirit attach = to realize/notice something (see 気 ki idioms)
• 嘘を付く
• = to attach a lie = to lie about something
• 思い付く
• = to think and attach = to attach one's thoughts to = to think of/hit upon something
• 凍り付く
• = to freeze and attach = to be frozen/stuck to something
• 火が付く
• = fire attaches to something = something catches fire
• 元気付く= 元気を付く
• = to attach liveliness/energy = to become cheerful/get well again

This is an excellent of something you probably don't "get" yet, and will only "get" once you've been working with Japanese for a very long time. Hopefully this saves you at least a little frustration.

Literally "degree" (just like 程 hodo), though it's virtually never used to mean that. Its current usage is always in the phrase いい加減 which is literally "good degree" or "moderation." This can mean exactly what it looks like in the typical line いい加減にしなさい "do it in moderation" i.e. "stop overdoing _" or "do less of _" which is often used much like the English "cut it out already."

But just to be incredibly annoying, いい加減な＿ always means "a _ lacking in moderation" despite there being absolutely nothing to even imply a negative in that phrase. I can't really explain this at all except by pointing out that English has some equally perplexing flip-flops (see "bad boy," "goody two-shoes," any vulgar interjection, etc.).

It's also common to use いい加減 like an adverb to imply the action is long overdue, usually in tandem with a modal implication or どう phrase. For instance, いい加減逃げれば？ would usually mean "Shouldn't you just (give up and) run away already?"

Literally something like "circumstances conducive to doing _." Depending on context, translations (once an obligatory だから or なので or something is added) may include "since/while we're all here," "given the circumstances," "might as well," etc. Note that this is always used when leading into an additional activity on top of whatever the speaker et. al. are already doing or planning on doing.

Most literally, "appropriate." Sometimes that means what it looks like. But when used to mean "appropriate to the immediate situation," then it confuses the hell out of English speakers.

In that case, it describes something which is "based on gut feelings/instincts/snap judgments rather than genuine thought/consideration/analysis." In a comedic sense it means improvisation, ad libbing or lying to be funny, but in a more serious sense it can also mean saying something you don't really mean. The latter is the harder to understand, so to give an example: a girl you have no interest in asks you out, but because you don't want to make her cry you (適当に) agree to go out with her anyway, regardless of the fact that this will just make her cry more later when you two break up.

Also 仕方がない, しようがない, and しょうがない. These all literally mean "there is no way/means of preventing/fixing something." The most accurate adaptation might be "it can't be helped," "there's no choice," "there's no other way," "we can't do anything about it," and so on depending on context.

This is the -te morau form of the causative form, both of which you should be familiar with. What makes this weird is that "to have you let me _" not only rarely makes any sense but actually means something like "to do _ despite not asking/knowing/caring if you're okay with it." Sometimes this can be adapted with a phrase like "I'll have to use your _" or "I'll just let myself _" or "I'll take the liberty of _", but sometimes it's just dropped.

Technically this is a compound particle, but it's harder to explain than most, so it didn't really fit into Compound Particles. The only real good way to explain it is through an (underlined) example like this:

Japanese:
• 読みが遅かったって言うか、よく解らなかった

Hyperliteral:
• "Would I say my reading was slow? I didn't really understand it."

Literal:
• "I guess you could say I was reading slowly, but it's better to say I didn't really understand it."

At least, that's how I interpret it literally, since using "say" that way helps establish the connection to what っていう normally means. You may also see this shortened to something like てか or つか.

Literally, this means "luxury". Most of the time, it's used to refer to someone wishing/asking/hoping for something they could never realistically obtain/achieve, especially if what they already have obtained/achieved should be more than enough to satisfy them. For instance, if your soccer team spends years training hard to beat a rival team, and you finally manage to defeat them 3-1, and you're mumbling to yourself about how you shouldn't have let them score a single goal, that's an extreme case of 贅沢.

Most literally, "to divide by cutting", i.e. cut a part out of a whole. When meant concretely, this is as easy as it looks. Abstractly, it's more like "to cut off one's emotions from an event or decision". Cutting emotions off an event means something like "getting over", "getting past" or "moving on from" that event. Cutting emotions off from a decision means not letting your emotions get in the way of making the right choice. If portrayed positively, this often means being "decisive", but if portrayed negatively, this often means being "cold" or "calculating".

Incidentally, the use of this word assumes the person "has emotions" to cut off in the first place. If someone who simply doesn't care about human life chooses to sacrifice people for some noble cause, that's not 割り切り no matter how right the decision was.

MuvLuv Alternative has a lot of good examples of this word. For instance, when one character angrily asks whether they should simply abandon their "Storm Vanguard" and focus on the mission if he gets separated from the rest of the squad, another says "well yeah, that's the risk of being in that position", and the protagonist is impressed by her 割り切り.

This is one of those verbs that has such a ridiculous vairety of disparate meanings that attempting to list or learn them all is probably a waste of time. So here is a very short list of the meanings I think are actually worth memorizing, either because they're very common, or they're the ones least likely to be conveniently implied by nearby nouns.

• to hang/be suspended from/over/across
• to take time/cost money
• to get caught on something
• to fall for/into a trap
• (a device) to be activated/running/engaged

Pairs/Triples/etc of words with abstract meanings

• 先 saki vs 元 moto
• ちゃんと chanto and 一応 ichiou
• 余裕 yoyuu, 容赦 yousha and 余地 yochi
• 調子 choushi and 様子 yousu
• 漫才 manzai (突っ込む tsukkomu and ボケる bokeru)
• 通じる tsuujiru and 伝わる tsutawaru

These two kanji have several meanings, but they're always opposites of each other. Every meaning of one is the opposite of one of the other's. The best generalized definition I can come up with is that 元 moto is "point A" and 先 saki is "point B" along some literal or figurative line. Specific cases include:

1) The line is time:
• 元 means original, origin, or former
• 先 means future, result or progression

2) The line is a plan or procedure:
• 元 means beginning or start
• 先 means destination, objective or what comes next

3) The line goes from the rear to the front of an object or along a physical path:
• 元 means base, source or root
• 先 means tip, head or end

4) The line defines a direction someone/something is looking or pointing:
• 先 means the direction/area/object they're/it's indicating

The weird one: 先 can also mean "just now."
• This is the one that's really hard to work into a general definition, but it's at least (barely) possible to reconcile this with mine by combining cases 1 and 3 and saying that the "tip" of the "timeline" is the most recent event on it.

I believe ちゃんと chanto most literally means "like you're supposed to." Possible adaptations may use phrases like "doing it right," "properly," "as expected," "correctly," "without any huge mistakes," etc.

一応 ichiou is pretty much the negation of that, so it roughly means "not exactly like you were expected/supposed to do it," though for some reason it's more difficult. Depending on the context, the precise meaning may be more like "technically," "kind of," "in a way/sense," "despite evidence to contrary," "I know what it looks like," etc.

The best general definition for 余裕 yoyuu is, "more of something than is absolutely necessary." That something can be food, money, time, room, space, stamina, brainpower, options, resources, etc, and it's often more than one of those things. The word can also refer to the attitude that results from having this excess, namely a sense of pride, superiority, overconfidence, or a disposition to bide one's time, enjoy it to the fullest, and/or rub it in people's faces.

On the other hand, 容赦 yousha is basically 余裕 yoyuu given to you by some other animate party. 容赦 yousha itself may translate to leniency, mercy, tolerance, forgiveness, etc. To clarify: in a context where 余裕が無い means "you'll have no second chances," 容赦がない might mean "I'm not giving you any second chances."

余地 yochi is essentially 余裕 yoyuu but without the subjective/psychological meanings. So 余地 yochi can refer to money, time, room, space, options, resources, etc. but not to stamina, brainpower, pride, superiority, overconfidence. For some reason, 余地 yochi is particularly popular when referring to a sort of logical space of possibilities. For instance, when a certain claim is completely ruled out by hard evidence, we say there is no longer any 余地 yochi left for that claim to "exist" in.

Both of these words basically mean "how one is/things are doing." 調子 choushi is more likely to refer to a change/trend over time, while 様子 yousu is more likely to refer to the immediate state of affairs. As a result, 調子 choushi can translate to way, trend, manner, progression, state of health, while 様子 yousu can translate to appearance, state, situation, etc. This is not as easy to learn as I make it sound.

Often defined as "comic dialogue," though it specifically refers to what in English is called a "double act." That means a stand-up comedy duo with a ボケ boke (or "funny man," who acts stupid) and a 突っ込み tsukkomi (or "straight man," who comments on the stupidity). The double act itself is important only because it is insanely common in Japanese pop culture (interestingly, the protagonist/narrator is almost always the 突っ込み tsukkomi) and because the words for the two parts of it are verbs which are very hard to explain outside of this context.

ボケる bokeru literally means "to grow senile," so you can pretend this means "to have a senior moment" to explain why it more often means "to do something inexplicably and comically stupid."

突っ込む tsukkomu literally means "to thrust/plunge into something" or "to stab/jab at something." It is not too hard to explain its colloquial usage as "to stab/attack the gaps in someone's reasoning/behavior." This is the more common of the two verbs, and usually much harder to adapt well, so here are a few options: to attack, to criticize, to counter-argue, to point out problems, to burst someone's bubble.

Both of these words share a meaning best defined as "to convey/get across." 伝わる tsutawaru usually has a subjective object, i.e. to convey a feeling, emotion or idea. 通じる tsuujiru usually takes something more objective, i.e. to convey an idea, plan, message. The repetition of "idea" is intentional, since that roughly describes where the two words overlap. 伝わる tsutawaru can also mean to circulate or pass down. 通じる tsuujiru can also mean to have in common or to make sense.

Words which are easily misunderstood due to multiple meanings or uses

• 挨拶 aisatsu
• 聞く kiku
• いる iru and ある aru
• 知る shiru
• いい ii and 悪い warui
• 済む sumu

This is often defined just as "greeting" or "farewell", but in reality it means "ritual phrase", which includes certain greetings and farewells, plus some other stuff. Admittedly, it is often fine to translate it as "greeting", but don't forget what it really means. There's a short list of ritual phrases farther down.

Means either "to hear/listen" or "to ask." It always means one of the two, never both, and you have no way of knowing which except for the fact that only one of them will make any sense. Some writers will use this kanji trick to help clarify: 聴く kiku usually means "to listen" and 訊く kiku usually means "to ask."

By now you probably know of 居る iru as in "to be," which is an ichidan verb. There's also 要る iru as in "to be needed," which is a godan verb. 要る is only ever used in its infinitive and negative forms, so remember that いらない is "to be unnecessary" while いない is "to not be."

There's also 入る for "to enter" (though it's usually in set phrases or read as hairu instead), 射る for "to shoot with an arrow" (context should make it exceedingly obvious when this is being used) and three or four other kanji for "to fry/boil/roast" (again, context), but it's mostly the top two you need to keep in mind.

As for ある aru, there's a popular myth that いる iru is for animate objects and ある aru for inanimate (I think some textbooks are to blame). While there is a tendency for this to be the case, the real distinction is that いる iru is the default word for "to be" while ある aru is an alternative slightly closer to "to exist", and there simply is no hard rule to tell which one is "correct." Much of the time both are valid, even if one is slightly more natural. It's kinda similar to the は vs. が problem.

You probably already recognize this word as "to know" or something similar. However, dictionaries all seem to omit the alternate meaning "to care." This meaning is almost always used in one of two ways:

知るか can be
• "do I know?"
• but is often a masculine way of saying "do I care?" or "how would I know?"

知らない can be
• "I don't know" but is often a feminine way of saying "I don't care!"
• but is often a feminine way of saying "I don't care!"

Also, this seems to be exclusive to when the speaker is angry, so you could easily argue it doesn't count as a separate definition but just an idiomatic usage. Just to be clear: in most contexts "to care" is handled by 構う kamau instead.

You probably know that these mean "good/fine/okay" and "bad". What you might not have known is that some of the alternate meanings/uses those words have in English also apply to their Japanese counterparts. First, in English "I'm fine" or "It's okay" can be a polite way of saying "I don't want/need that". The same is true of いいよ and similar phrases (as well as stuff like 結構です). Second, in English the slang "my bad" can be used for "sorry", and 悪い happens to do the same thing in Japanese. But 悪い goes even farther, and crosses over into sentences where English speakers would normally say "thank you" rather than "sorry".

Literally "to end/finish/complete," and technically that's all it ever means. The reason it's worth mentioning here is because whenever you say "to end without _ing" in Japanese you might actually mean "to not have to _." For example, この事件を殺さずに済ませる is literally "to make this incident end without killing" and likely means "to end this incident without having to kill." Both translations are about equally valid in this example, though there will be times when only one of the two makes any sense.

Words having to do with politeness, obligation, etc.

• 世話 sewa
• 迷惑 meiwaku
• 面倒 mendou
• 困る komaru
• 勝手 katte

世話 is literally "help," "assistance," or "looking after." The reason this deserves a mention here is the popular phrase 世話になる or "to be/become someone who is looked after." Notice the passive voice coming from (apparently) nowhere. What this phrase really means is "to impose upon someone," and some form of it is almost invariably said whenever someone feels they are obliged to someone else. This is sometimes best translated using "thank you" or "I appreciate what you've done for _."

The converse (?) of 世話になる is 迷惑をかける. While the former means having someone else help you with your problems, the latter means to cause problems for someone else. Aside from the literal (which is often accurate), it is sometimes best to translate this using "I'm sorry" or "I apologize for what I've done to _."

面倒を見る means "to look after/take care of someone." This one can pretty much always be translated literally, but I'm mentioning it for completeness' sake, and because other uses of 面倒 are hard to explain without knowing this phrase.

Simply "to be troubled." This refers to any sort of emotional discomfort/malaise/puzzlement as well as actually having a problem that needs solving. Forms of 困る komaru (especially causative) can behave a lot like the phrases above, but can often be translated literally, e.g. 人を困らせるな "don't trouble people."

It can be as simple as "selfish," though it often refers to specific selfish actions which either directly disobey someone else's will or are done with blatant indifference toward someone else's will. Hence it should often be adapted using "without" and an additional verb based on what action would have negated the selfishness, e.g. 勝手に出るな might be "Don't leave without telling/asking me."

Words with odd grammatical behavior

The words themselves are effortless, but grammatically speaking they behave very oddly. They're both -i forms of the verbs 好く and 嫌う, but at the same time they seem to be -na adjectives, since it's perfectly normal to see 好きじゃない, 嫌いだった, etc. Fortunately, other forms of the verbs are normal.

Lists of words or phrases

• 気 ki idioms
• Deceitful Loanwords
• Love Words
• どう dou Phrases
• Some Ritual Phrases

気 ki literally means "spirit" or "air." You may be more familiar with it as the Chinese word 気 qi or the martial arts concept of ki/qi/chi/life energy/whatever flowing through your body, which is actually a very good image to help you understand the word in Japanese.

There are dozens of common, standardized and idiomatic phrases using this word; probably more than any other word in the language has. It's certainly the hardest list of expressions for a Westerner to master (see this entry for a very thorough list), which is why I want to list some literal meanings and equivalent English phrases here for the most common ones. Also, I believe that checking how much of this list makes intuitive sense to you is a good way of gauging how far you're getting with your Japanese overall.

気にする
• = "to do _ in one's spirit"
• → "to be something/exist in one's mind"
• → "to worry/think/care about something"

気になる
• = "to become one's spirit"
• → "to become part of/get into one's mind"
• → "to be intrigued/annoyed by"

気に入る
• = "to enter one's spirit"
• → "to take a liking to"

気に食わない
• = "to not eat in one's spirit"
• → "to be indigestible to one's mind"
• → "to dislike/be offended by"

気がする
• = "for one's spirit to do _"
• → "to have a feeling/inkling that"

気が入る
• = "one's spirit will enter something"
• → "to put effort into/focus on something"

気が付く= 気付く
• = "one's spirit will attach to something"
• → "to notice/realize something"

気が済む
• = "one's spirit will end/finish with something"
• → "to be/become satisfied with something"

気が散る
• = "one's spirit will scatter"
• → "to be distracted"

気が抜く
• = "one's spirit will come out"
• → "to lose motivation/focus/energy"

気を抜く
• = "to take out one's spirit"
• → "to remove one's worries/cares"
• → "to relax"

気を遣う
• = "to use one's spirit"
• → "to think/worry/care about someone else"

気のせい
• = "the fault of one's spirit"
• → "one's imagination"

気のない＿
• = "a _ of no spirit"
• → "a _ lacking in energy/interest"
• → "an indifferent/half-hearted _"

Kind of a random topic, but definitely worth mentioning. By now you've noticed that Japanese has a lot of loanwords from English, that they are usually written in katakana, and that they pretty much mean the same thing they did in our language, although they may exclude or add an alternate meaning.

There are also some loanwords whose usage bears little or no resemblance whatsoever to English. It's easy to get confused by them, especially if your dictionary chooses to be misleading and just throw the English word back at you.

A few good examples:

• テンション
• tension refers to a person's attentiveness/reactiveness/perkiness/energy level
• メール
• mail always refers to e-mail or text messaging, never physical mail
• マンション
• mansion actually refers to a large apartment complex
• ピンチ
• pinch always refers to the state of being "in a pinch" or "in trouble," never the physical act of pinchi

Japanese has a lot of them. I would like to list a few.

恋 koi and 愛 ai both mean romantic love, but they make a distinction English often leaves implied. 恋 koi tends to mean short-term, shallow, infatuated love, while 愛 ai tends to mean long-term, deep, married couple-type love. It's common for this distinction to be explicitly mentioned (恋じゃなくて愛だ), so you need to understand it.

恋愛 ren'ai is the general term for love, encompassing both 恋koi and 愛 ai (as you can tell from the kanji) and sometimes even more kinds. You usually use this word when talking about the concept of love itself rather than any specific instance of one person falling for another.

好き suki, gerund of 好く suku, refers to liking/loving someone. You may recall the word "to like" in English has a certain ambiguity as to whether it means friendship, love between family, or actual romantic love. 好き suki has it too. 嫌い kirai is its opposite, meaning disliking/hating someone.

憧れる akogareru and 惚れる horeru both mean "to be attracted to/by _," and, interestingly enough, seem to imply that the emotion (romantic or otherwise) is caused by how the other person acts/behaves.

憧れる akogareru is more likely to mean "to admire/look up to" or "to have a crush on" than actual love, while 惚れる horeru is more likely to mean "to fall in love with/be charmed by." It's probably worth mentioning that 一目惚れ hitomebore is how the Japanese say "love at first sight."

Not many of them, and none are particularly hard, but they're so incredibly common it's worth trying to explain them instead of simply listing meanings like with the 気 idioms.

1) どうでもいい

= "however (it turns out), good" = "good no matter what" = "it doesn't matter how". It can almost always be translated with some form of "doesn't matter." But to help it make more sense, imagine whatever came before it ended with ＿は (which it often does) so that you get "In the context of _, no matter what, it's fine" i.e. "it's fine no matter what happens to _/how _ works out."

2) どうすればいい

= "if I do how, good?" = "It would be good if I did what?" = "What should I do?" Again, often best assumed to have a ＿は so that it becomes "it would be good if I did what about _/in the context of _/when _ comes up" or "What should I do about _?"

3) ＿てどうする

is a particularly interesting usage of the conjunctive -te, literally meaning "_ and do what?" or "What would you do after _ing/accomplish by _ing?". Usually the intent is along the lines of "Why would you (want to) _?" or "What was the point in _ing?"

4) ＿すればどう or ＿したらどう

are literally "If/when you do/did _, what/how?" which if rearranged very slightly produces "How about you do _?" or "What if _ happens?", and these are pretty accurate definitions. However, the intent behind this is often closer to "Why not _?"

5) どうせ

acts like an adverb or transition, and is always at the beginning of a clause. The etymology is extremely similar to どうしても (since せ is an old form of する), but the intent of どうせ＿ is more like "(it doesn't matter anyway since) you're still going to _" or "_ is still true" or "_ will turn out to be true".

• おはよう or おはようございます
• "good morning"
• literally "it is early" (not sure about this)

• 今日は (こんにちは)
• "good day" or "good afternoon"
• literally "this day is"; also the は is read "wa"

• 今晩は (こんばんは)
• "good evening"
• literally "this evening is"; also the は is read "wa"

• 左様なら (さようなら) or さらば
• "goodbye" or "farewell"
• sayounara is literally "if that is so"

• お休み (おやすみ) or お休みなさい
• "good night"
• literally "rest"

• 行(い)ってきます
• said by someone leaving the house
• literally "I'll be going"

• 行(い)ってらっしゃい
• said to someone leaving the house
• literally "be on your way"

• 只今 (ただいま) or 只今戻(もど)りました
• said by someone returning to the house
• literally "I just now returned"

• お帰り (おかえり) or お帰りなさい
• said to someone returning to the house
• literally "coming/come home"

• お邪魔します (おじゃまします)
• said by someone entering another's house
• literally "I'll be a bother"

Additional Topics

• Phrasal Verbs
• Formal Verbs
• Persistent 古語 kogo
• Dialects
• 関西弁 Kansai-ben or 大阪弁 Osaka-ben

As the title implies, this is just a short list of things I think are worth listing or explaining, but don't really fit in anywhere else. At the moment it's extremely short, so there's almost certainly something obvious I've forgotten to include, on top of the fact that I don't know very much about non-Kantou dialects yet (though as of v2.3 my kogo knowledge is decent).

Phrasal Verbs

There are very, very few phrasal verbs in Japanese, so what follows is probably close to a comprehensive list.

Formal Verbs

Several Japanese words have a very specific formal (and longer) synonym, as shown below. For some reason, most of the "ru" verbs below have an irregular -i form ending in "i" not "ri," which even doubles as a soft command. So, expect to see a fair amount of らっしゃい, 下さい and the like.

Persistent 古語 kogo

古語 kogo is a general term for old forms of Japanese, in contrast with modern Japanese. There's a supplemental section all about it since, like many other languages, learning a little about old Japanese helps with understanding modern Japanese. This is partly because it helps explain a lot of the modern language's quirks, but also because most native speakers know a few things about old Japanese and are thus prone to using them even in otherwise modern Japanese. The goal here is to list those things, so you can avoid getting thrown off by them even if you don't care about learning old Japanese.

Before I can simply list all the bits worth knowing, there is one grammar detail that needs explaining. In old Japanese, instead of a single infinitive/nonpast form, there was a separate "predicative form" for verbs/adjectives meant to end a sentence, and an "attributive form" for verbs/adjectives at the end of a clause/phrase meant to describe a noun. The predicative form is the default/infinitive/dictionary form.

• All adjectives end in し in their predicative form, and either き or かる in their attributive form. Thus it's quite common to see adjectives ending in き for no apparent reason. This is also why ない can become なし or なき, and いい/よい can be よし. Adjectives also have a command form ending in -are, though so far なかれ is the only use of this I've seen in modern Japanese.
• The old negative form is -a/-i -zu. Its attributive form is either -zaru or -nu, and its -i form is either -zari or -zu. That is pretty confusing, but all you need to remember is that -zu/-zari/-zaru/-nu are all old ways of indicating negation that modern speakeres may still use.
• -zu is often used just like -nai, but it can also be used with the に particle in a way that's best translated using the word "without".
• -zaru is mainly used in the expression ＿ざるを得ない meaning "unable to not _".
• べき was originally the predicative form of べし. Its negative form is べからず. Also, in old Japanese べし meant a lot more than just "should/ought". Specifically, it indicates likelihood/volition/intent/obvious truth/recommendation/order/possibility. Again, when a modern speaker uses this it's usually very obvious which of these are intended, so don't let it scare you.
• The ancient -a yu form (later replaced by -a ru and -i raru) is both a potential and a passive form. It's probably the origin of the modern words いわゆる (passive of "to say" → said to be → the so-called) and あらゆる (able to exist → all _s which can exit → various/many/all kinds).
• The phrase 言わんばかり is the -a mu/n form (in this case, it's like a volitional form) plus the old ばかり (which means ほど or ぐらい). It's almost always correct to translate it as "as if to say".
• The -i つつ form means "continue _ing", "repeatedly _" or "_ alongside/while _ing".
• The old version of ば, both as a particle and as part of the -eba form, means "since/because" (like から). Nowadays it means "if".
• ごとく means what らしい and みたい do nowadays. However, like -i tsutsu, there are still some authors who use ごとく a lot. You may also see its attributive form ごとき.
• にて can mark place/time (like に), means/method (like で), someone's situation/status (like として), or a cause/reason (like から). Don't let the multiple meanings scare you, it's usually very obvious which is intended.
• なり and たり are just old gobi.
• のみ is pretty much identical to だけ.
• だに means "if nothing else", "at the very least", "not even _ much less _".
• As you may have noticed, modern Japanese has some confusing/redundant verbs such as 言わす and 合わす which seem to be just causative versions of 言う and 合う. The old causative form was in fact -asu instead of -aseru, so this redundancy is just the result of those verbs being so common their old causative forms had a lot of inertia.

Dialects

Unfortunately, I am not very knowledgeable about dialects. But I can list several things distinctive of Kansai-ben which, I feel, is enough to make the vast majority of lines in that dialect comprehensible. I'll expand this if I ever I get the chance to study dialects properly.

For the record, the 関東弁 Kantou Dialect or 東京弁 Tokyo Dialect is the one I've been teaching you.

• や replaces だ, and やん replaces じゃん
• There's the new gobi ねん
• The -te iru (-teru) form is replaced by a -te oru (-toru) form with identical meaning
• Negative verbs now end in ん or へん
• Past negative verbs now end in んかった or へんかった
• ほんとう is replaced with ホンマ
• いかん is replaced with あかん
• いい is replaced with ええ
• すごい/すごく is replaced with ごつい/ごっつ
• The -i form (possibly with the i/e sound elongated) can be a soft/feminine command form
• The -i form (possibly with the i/e sound elongated) followed by な can be a soft/feminine negative command form

That should be enough to make sense out of any random Kansai you come across. There are of course dozens of other minor differences, but the ones listed above are among the most likely to throw you off or genuinely confuse you since they involve forms/particles/words you would never see otherwise.

The thickest, frequently-occuring Kansai dialect I've personally encountered in manga/anime/etc is that of Sket Dance's main heroine Himeko, so I would read some of that if for some reason you really want to learn basic Kansai.

Old Japanese

• Introductory Stuff
• Why 中古語 Chuukogo?
• What Has and Hasn't Changed
• Kana, Particles and Vocabulary
• Interesting Vocabulary
• Changes to the Kana
• Common Particle Meanings
• Case Markers and 語尾 Gobi
• Grammatical Words
• Verbs
• Verb Categories
• The Jodoushi Model
• List of Chuukogo Verb Forms
• Example(s)

This page is extremely incomplete and unreliable because I'm not yet capable of reading old Japanese. In fact, this is mostly here for my own sake. Putting together what I know into some guide-like form helps me retain and organize the knowledge better. But since it's not total crap, and you guys might learn something from this, I might as well upload it.

Pretty much all the information here comes directly from the books I've been using to study old Japanese, along with some "supplementary research" (browsing Japanese wikipedia articles) to fill in the details. One of the books is a ridiculously informative dictionary for old Japanese, complete with grammar guide, and the other is an edition of the Tale of Genji which includes the original text, a modern translation and lots of translation notes. Just to be clear, neither book contains any English, which is part of the reason me translating and repackaging the information here might be of some use to someone.

This page is written on the assumption that you have little to no difficulty reading modern Japanese, or "Kinseigo", since I'll be defining things in terms of modern Japanese whenever it's convenient.

Introductory Stuff

The history of the Japanese language has four stages:

• 上代（じょうだい）日本語 - Old Japanese,
• 中古（ちゅうこ）日本語 - Early Middle Japanese,
• 中世（ちゅうせい）日本語 - Late Middle Japanese,
• and of course 近世（きんせい）日本語 - Modern Japanese.

To avoid any risk of ambiguity, I'll be referring to these as Joudaigo, Chuukogo, Chuuseigo and Kinseigo throughout this page. I'll use the adjectives "ancient" to imply Joudaigo, "old" to imply Chuukogo and "modern" to imply Kinseigo. Also, anything on this page marked with an asterisk (*) is unique to Joudaigo. Also, up until recently, Japanese had a literary form called 文語（ぶんご） which was separate from the spoken form, or 口語（こうご）.

This page is primarily about Chuukogo, for various reasons. First, 文語 is extremely similar to Chuukogo, so many modern-day Japanese speakers still have some familiarity with features of Chuukogo, which causes them to pop up in otherwise modern Japanese every so often.

Second, Japanese literature took off in the Heian period, when Chuukogo was being used, so most classics of Japanese fiction are written in Chuukogo (like the Tale of Genji) or Chuuseigo (like the Tale of Heike), which is much closer to Chuukogo than the others. For comparison, the most famous works written in Joudaigo are the Kojiki (mythology), Nihon Shoki (history) and Man'youshuu (poetry).

Third, to oversimplify things a bit, Joudaigo relied on a system of phonetic kanji called man'yougana, which was later used to develop the kana we're familiar with (in fact, man'yougana means "the kana used by the man'youshuu"). So even if you're more interested in Joudaigo, it seems like it might be better to learn Chuukogo (or maybe Chinese?) first and then transition to Joudaigo.

For obvious reasons, most of the sections below will be listing facts unique to Chuukogo. So before all that, I'll give a very rough semi-accurate summary here of what aspects of Japanese seem to have changed between Chuukogo and Kinseigo, and which haven't.

Chuukogo uses the same kana and kanji, but adds two kana (ゐ wi and ゑ we) and introduces several additional cases of alternate kana pronunciations (in Modern Japanese the only case is は being read wa).

The major meanings of the basic particles are the same in both. は and が still mark subjects, を still marks objects, で still marks means/method, と still marks quotes, か still marks questions (though now や does too), the annoying mess of meanings に has is basically the same, etc. In fact, all the particle meanings I would consider difficult are unchanged, so adapting to Chuukogo's particles is relatively easy.

Several particles have additional meanings in Chuukogo. For instance, は and を are now also sentence enders, の can also mark subjects.

There are a few particles which fell out of use after Chuukogo, like にて and やは, but these are outnumbered by more familiar particles.

A lot of the grammatical words in Chuukogo will look familiar, and many will also have similar meanings. A handful will be brand new though (including ones like なる which don't look new at all).

With Chuukogo's particles, grammatical words and verb forms, there is a much stronger tendency for a given meaning to be expressable in several different ways (there are about eleven ways to mark the cause or reason for an event), and for a single particle/word/form to have several different meanings at once (as you can see below, べし has seven meanings). To say it more pessimistically: there's a lot more needless overlap, and a lot more frustrating ambiguity.

A very large chunk of the vocabulary is the same, once you get used to alternate spellings caused by the alternate pronunciations and different conjugation system (e.g. かひなし is the same as 甲斐ない).

Of course, there's also a lot of vocabulary that changed significantly. In my experience, the familiar meanings of these words simply don't make sense in context, which should be enough of a clue to look them up.

Somehow, there seem to be almost no words that have sort of the same meaning but just changed in some subtle way to confuse you (many did change subtly, but so far not in ways that misled me at all).

The way clauses work is, as far as I can tell, essentially the same. The problem is that Chuukogo seems more fond of leaving lots of subjects and objects implicit (apparently referring to people by name was rude in the imperial court, so for all I know this issue might be unique to the Tale of Genji). Also, many of its particles, verb forms and transition words often act as if there's an implicit 事 or 状態 or ように or some other noun or phrase following them. Thus, it's much harder to "guess" how the clauses fit together even though the basic rules are the same. The most common implicit nouns/phrases for a given particle/form/word will be mentioned as part of its definition in the lists below.

The syntactic nature of verb forms is very similar. By that I mean that conjugating still consists of changing the last letter of a verb, attaching a suffix, and possibly repeating with the last letter of that suffix.

However, the majority of the verb forms you're familiar with don't exist in Chuukogo, and most of the verb forms in Chuukogo don't exist in Kinseigo. One exception is the -i form. Also, compound verbs were just as common back then as they are now.

A partial exception is the -eba form. I say partial because it's no longer a conditional form. Instead of "if _ then _", it now means "because" or "therefore". It's extremely common, so get used to this fast.

As mentioned on the Conjugation page, the jodoushi model of verb conjugation (the one the Japanese themselves use) is much better for explaining Chuukogo than the gaijin model you're used to, so I'll be introducing it below.

Chuukogo adjectives end in し in their default form, not い.

Also, Chuukogo verb forms tend to be noticably shorter on average, which is a major cause of the aforementioned overlap. For instance, the -a nu (negative) and -i nu forms (past tense, sorta) are spelled identically on 一段 and 二段 verbs. It gets worse when these forms are themselves conjugated: an -i te form might be a conjunctive -te, or it could be a form of the -i tsu form (another past tense, sorta). Surprisingly, it's not that hard to deal with this, but doing so often requires looking at what comes before and after each part of the conjugated verb, which is probably not how you're used to identifying forms. For instance, a conjunctive -i te would have no further inflections, whereas the -i tsu form changed to -i te must be followed by something (and yes, it's possible to derive most of that claim directly from the information I give below).

Kana, Particles and Vocabulary

There are also some words which miraculously manage to have almost exactly the same set of meanings in both old and new Japanese. 色 is one example. I might try listing some of these later.

First, the easy one: The ゐ wi and ゑ we hiragana actually get used, so remember them.

Now, remember how each kana has exactly one pronunciation, with the exception of は being read wa when it's a particle? Chuukogo has a lot more exceptions. Fortunately, most of the exceptions are reasonably intuitive: はひふへほをづぢゐゑ may be read as わいうえおおずじいえ respectively. I'm pretty sure there are a few others, but that covers the vast majority. As a quick example, the old way of writing 思います is 思ひたまふ, which would be read 思いたまう. Thankfully, conjugation doesn't add any complications to this. For instance, たまふ（たまう） has forms like たまはず（たまわず） and たまへば（たまえば）.

Finally, this isn't really a change to the kana, but it'll probably save you some headaches if I tell you about this now. There are a few kana, like で and だ, which you're used to seeing only as particles or in verb stems. But in Chuukogo, there are dzu-type verbs like 出づ（いづ） and まかづ which can conjugate to things like 出だぬ or まかでたまふ.

To deal with overlap efficiently, I'm going to use some Japanese terms for particularly common meanings.

1) 感動語尾 - a sentence ending particle used when the speaker is emotionally moved by the action (by the way, I made this one up, it's not a real Japanese term).

2) 逆説 - the word for "contradictory conjunction". In English these include "but", "however", "despite", "although", etc.

3) 原因助詞 - the words for "cause/reason" and "particle". Basically, any particle which (like the modern から) may mark the cause or reason for an action later in the sentence (I also made this one up).

• は is basically the same, though may be used to add emphasis, or as a 語尾 (without 感動).
• も is basically the same, though it's also a 感動語尾.
• を still marks objects, though sometimes it's a bit closer to と or から than you might be used to. It's also a 感動語尾.
• に has all the same meanings as before, plus it's now a 原因助詞. When used at the end of a clause, it can be a 逆説.
• へ is basically the same
• と is basically the same, though it can also be used to list phrases for a comparison (＿と＿と...)
• な has nothing to do with adjectives anymore, but its negative command meaning still exists, and it's also a 感動語尾.
• の and が have all the same meanings they do in Kinseigo. But they also have each other's meanings (this was a big WTF moment for me). For instance, が can denote possession, and の can mark subjects. There are also some cases where it's easier to interpret an old の or が by assuming an implicit ように, もの or こと comes next.
• から and より also have all the same meanings plus each others'. Of course, they're pretty close in Kinseigo already, so this isn't too bad. They also have a new meaning of "through".
• や and やは mark questions. In addition, the question may be a rhetorical one with an implicit negative answer (＿か？いや、ないだろう）. や can also act either like よ/な, or like やら/など. I don't know how to differentiate between these uses yet.
• か can mark questions or be a 感動語尾. かな is strictly a 感動語尾. かは strictly marks questions, possibly rhetorical ones with negative answers.
• よ is basically the same as its modern usage.
• ぞ is still a 語尾, though it can also be used to provide emphasis earlier in the sentence.
• なり and たり are ordinary 語尾 if the verb is conjugated, otherwise なり has a different meaning (see next section).
• にて can mark place/time (like に/"at"/"on"), means/method (like で), someone's situation/status (like として), or cause/reason (so it's a 原因助詞).
• After a noun or clause, して marks means/method (like で), or a person or group of people who perform an action or are used to perform an action (sometimes overlaps with で).
• After an adjective or a verb in its -i form, して is a 逆説, a 原因助詞, can mean "and", or mark a state/situation.
• *ゆ and *よ can mean "through", "more than", から, or mark a beginning (in space or time). *ゆり is similar.

First, the ones that are relatively easy to define.

Don't worry about the little "conjugation" parts for now. They'll be explained a few sections later. Last but not least, here are the tricky ones.

らむ/らん denotes present actions the speaker knows about secondhand, or is guessing are happening. This may also mark the cause of the action in the next clause. If the speaker does know about it firsthand, this asks why it's happening. Compare to -i けむ/けん below.

らし indicates an inferred cause of or reason for some event the speaker perceives directly.

なり indicates an event inferred from noises or voices the speaker heard, or something they know through hearsay.

べし indicates likelihood/volition/intent/obvious truth/recommendation/order/possibility. Seriously, it can be any of those.

まじ is the negative of べし, so it indicates unlikelihood/non-volition/non-intent/obvious falsehood/prohibition/negative order/impossibility.

り denotes actions that are complete, but whose effects persist (like ～て・ある). Since there are weird restrictions on when this form can and can't be used, the -i たり form (same meaning) is much more popular.

べし should look very familiar because its predicative form べき and to a lesser extent its negative form べからず (and べし itself) are still present in Kinseigo. Obviously, it has dropped a lot of those meanings over the past several centuries. I also suspect the modern まい form has a lot to do with まじ.

I don't know for sure how you're supposed to tell the difference between all the meanings of べし and まじ, but I suspect it's very similar to what you do with the -a mu form described below.

Verbs

Before, I defined "verb type" as the letter a verb ends in by default, which determines how its other forms are spelled. A "verb category" is a set of rules determining these spellings based on type. In Kinseigo, 一段 ichidan and 五段 godan are the only verb categories, and all 一段 ichidan verbs are -ru type anyway, so categories just weren't that important before.

In old Japanese, we have the categories 一段 ichidan, 二段 nidan and 四段 yondan (as far as I can tell 三段 sandan doesn't exist). Technically, 一段 and 二段 are each split into "upper" and "lower" categories depending on whether the stem's last vowel is i or e respectively. This doesn't actually affect how the verbs conjugate, so I will ignore it and write lots of "i/e"s instead.

There are also small categories for irregular verbs. カ変 is short for カ行変格活用 "k-sound irregular conjugation", meaning any irregular verb starting with か, け, き, こ or く (though the only verb actually in this category is く). Likewise, there are サ変, ナ変 amd ラ変 categories. Kinseigo has these categories too, but so few verbs are in them that it's usually not worth mentioning.

Also, adjectives are split into ku-type and shiku-type. In Kinseigo, it's often said there are i-adjectives and na-adjectives, but the vast majority of na-adjectives are really just nouns with a particle after them, so they kinda don't count. In Chuukogo, nari-type and tari-type adjectives are the same way, so I will be ignoring these.

Now, as promised, I'll tell you the model that the Japanese use to explain Japanese verb conjugation. Long story short: everything that can be conjugated has exactly six basic forms. Depending on the verb/adjective/whatever, some of these forms may have no spellings (i.e. they can't be used at all) or multiple spellings (which are interchangeable), but usually it's one spelling each.

The Connective and Command Forms should be extremely familiar. The Incomplete Form is a bit odd, but similar enough to things you're familiar with that it shouldn't take long to get used to. The Conjunctive Form may look very odd now, but once you look at the itty-bitty table for it below, you should grasp it very quickly. Just so you know, the jodoushi model for Kinseigo refers to the 已然形 as the 仮定形 or "Hypothetical Form".

The introduction of the Attributive Form is probably the weirdest part, largely because in modern Japanese the Predicative and Attributive Forms are completely identical. For instance, the old verbs す and く had Attributive Forms する and くる, and nowadays we refer to those verbs as する and くる since their Predicative Forms have been phased out.

Because of this strong "only six forms" premise, we can give a concise and complete description of verb/adjective/whatever's conjugation by simply listing those six forms in the correct order. For instance, the six forms of す are せ (incomplete), し (connective), す (predicative), する (attributive), すれ (conjunctive), and せよ (command). In my Chuukogo dictionary, and many other books about Japanese written in Japanese, it's common to to list these in an extremely concise form such as: （せ・し・す・する・すれ・せよ）. In fact, I already put similar lists underneath some of the "grammatical words" listed above.

Now, why am I calling this the "jodoushi" model? Because most of the things you're used to calling "forms" are the result of attaching either a 助動詞 jodoushi or a particle to one of the six basic forms. A jodoushi is any non-lexical word (i.e. "particle" in the broadest sense) that can itself conjugate to the six forms. Thus all of the "grammatical words" above that I attached a list of conjugations to are actually jodoushi. For the rest of this page, "particle" specifically means non-lexical words that don't conjugate (though hopefully that was already part of your intuitive definition).

For instance, in Kinseigo, what we've been calling the "negative form" is actually the result of attaching ない (a jodoushi) to the Incomplete Form (走らない = 走ら + ない), and what we've been calling the "hypothetical form" is actually the result of attaching ば (a particle) to the Hypothetical Form (行けば = 行け + ば). As a direct result, the grammar guide that came with my Chuukogo dictionary was essentially just a list of particles and jodoushi.

Okay, we're finally done with the conceptual foundation, so we can move on to some real conjugation. Since there's only six forms now (and I'm no longer treating verb types separately since I'm sure you can deal with that by now), there's no reason not to just throw up a complete conjugation table.

This particular table is a heavily altered version of one I stole from wikipedia. I bring that up only because, if you want to learn more about the jodoushi model itself, separately from Chuukogo, that link is a good starting point.

Within the jodoushi model, I use "verb form" to refer to certain combinations of one of the six basic forms with either a particle or a jodoushi. Specifically, I mean those combinations where the particle/jodoushi must be attached to a verb (not a noun) conjugated to a specific non-infinitive form (so べし, まじ, etc don't count). That may sound a little confusing and arbitrary, but this matches the intuitive distinction between "grammatical words" and "verb forms" that I've used in the main guide, so it's worth using here too.

Only three of the non-infinitive verb forms actually apply here. The 終止形 doesn't count because it's the infinitive form, and I ruled that out. The 命令形 doesn't count because nothing attaches specifically to it (of course some particles can come after it, like と, but those can come after anything). The 連体形 doesn't count because every particle that attaches to it also attaches to nouns (in fact, when you see a "clause-ending particle" in old Japanese, it's often a good idea to assume an implied noun).

So, using my (purportedly intuitive) definition of "verb form", all complex forms are based on 已然形, 未然形 and 連用形. This should be very comforting, since the 未然形 and 連用形 are analogous to the -te and -i forms you're used to, and the 已然形 only makes two extremely specific and easy to remember forms. Let's get 已然形 out of the way first.