This page is intended to give the reader a feel for how the Japanese language is used. This entry is written using romaji for the benefit of English readers. A limited Japanese vocabulary is assumed. The Japanese language  listen is a spoken and written language used mainly in Japan. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Romaji ローマ字 The title given to this article lacks diacritics because of certain technical limitations. ...

Parts of Speech

Japanese parts of speech, although no more complicated than those of other languages, do not fit well into typical labels such as verb, noun, and adjective. The following uses a labeling system loosely based on Eleanor Harz Jorden's book Beginning Japanese -- sufficient for an overview, but not so simplistic as to be misleading. A verb is a part of speech that usually denotes action (bring, read), occurrence (to decompose (itself), to glitter), or a state of being (exist, live, soak, stand). Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice. ... A noun, or noun substantive, is a word or phrase that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance or quality. ... An adjective is a part of speech which modifies a noun, usually making its meaning more specific. ...

Nominals

Nouns: Japanese nouns do not inflect for number, person, or (directly) case. A noun, or noun substantive, is a word or phrase that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance or quality. ...

Tōkyō (Tokyo); mikan (mandarin orange); kuruma (car)

Although there is no true plural in Japanese, a number of nouns (generally those that refer to people) may take one of several collective suffixes. This article is in need of attention. ...

Tanaka-san (Mr. Tanaka), Tanaka-san-tachi (Mr. Tanaka and his group)

A very limited number indicate the collective by reduplication. Reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word, or part of it, is repeated. ...

hito person → hitobito people; hoshi star → hoshiboshi stars

Pronominals: Unlike many other languages, Japanese has no true pronouns; since words that are clear from context are usually elided, there is less need for them. (In general, natural-sounding Japanese tends to avoid the use of nouns that refer to people except when explicitly needed. This is often a point of confusion for beginners.) Pronominals are not grammatically distinct from ordinary nominals: notably, they may take adjectives, which pronouns cannot. In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes a noun or noun phrase with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English. ...

atashi, boku, ore, watashi I; anata, kimi, kiisama, omae you

na-adjectives: These nominals almost invariably have a form of the copula (such as na) following them, to the point where they are often listed in dictionaries with the na included. They are generally adjectival in meaning as well.

heta na unskilled, "bad at"; genki na healthy, energetic; orijinaru na original

Verbals

Verbs: Japanese verbs inflect directly for tense, negation, mood, aspect, politeness, and honorific speech. A verb is a part of speech that usually denotes action (bring, read), occurrence (to decompose (itself), to glitter), or a state of being (exist, live, soak, stand). Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice. ... Grammatical tense is a way languages express the time at which an event described by a sentence occurs. ... Negation, in its most basic sense, changes the truth value of a statement to its opposite. ... In linguistics, many grammars have the concept of grammatical mood, which describes the relationship of a verb with reality and intent. ... In linguistics, grammatical aspect is a property of a verb that defines the nature of temporal flow (or lack thereof) in the described event or state. ...

iku (to go), kuru (to come), iru (existence of animate object, "there is/are"), aru (existence of inanimate object, "there is/are")

-i adjectives: These inflect for tense, politeness, and honorific speech as well (although not aspect or mood, as they are all stative verbs); an -i adjective will always end in -ai, -ii, -ui, or -oi. (Note that there are also stative -u verbs.)

utsukushii beautiful; ii good; sugoi amazing; ureshii happy

Copula: Although the copula is not strictly a verb, most of its forms derive from de aru; it inflects somewhat irregularly, however. It retains an "attributive form", na, used to modify the noun it stands before: however, this form is almost exclusively used after na-adjectives.

Other

Particles: Also called postpositions or joshi, particles show the case of nouns in Japanese: that is, they mark nouns as being the subject, object, indirect object, etc. (English typically uses word order or prepositions for the same effect.) Particles follow the noun they modify. In linguistics, the term particle is often employed as a useful catch-all lacking a strict definition. ... In linguistics, declension is a feature of inflected languages: generally, the alteration of a noun to indicate its grammatical role. ... In grammar, a preposition is a word that establishes a relationship between an object (usually a noun phrase) and some other part of the sentence, often expressing a location in place or time. ...

wa (topic); ga (subject); o (direct object), no (possession), ni (indirect object marker), to, etc.; kara from; made until, as far as; de using, at

Some particles are used after sentences instead:

ka (question marker); yo (exclamatory marker); tte (quotation marker)

Adverbs: Adverbs typically modify the entire sentence, although most Japanese quantifiers (including numbers) are actually adverbs, rather than adjectives as in English. An adverb is a part of speech that normally serves to modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, clauses, and sentences. ...

aikawarazu as always; sukoshi a little, few; mō sugu soon, before long; sō thus, so

Conjunctions: Japanese conjunctions typically either apply to nominals (like English "except") or to predicates (like English "when"), not both (like English "and").

mata wa or (n.); soshite and then, and also (pr.); ga but (pr.)

Interjections: Common to every language. An interjection, sometimes called a filled pause, is a part of speech that usually has no grammatical connection to the rest of the sentence and simply expresses emotion on the part of the speaker, although most interjections have clear definitions. ...

wā! "wow!", are? "huh?", "wha?"; ē to "um, er"; anō "um"

Japanese Basics

The most basic sentence in Japanese consists of a predicate. The predicate must be a verbal, although a copula with a nominal suffices. More frequently, a subject, object, or other additional noun will also be used, but none is required. Note, however, that the In mathematics, a predicate is a relation. ... Broadly conceived, linguistics is the study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ... The word copula originates from the Latin noun for a link or tie that connects two different things. ... See subject (grammar) for the linguistic definition of subject. ... Etymology: The word object comes from the latin word objectum a noun form of objectus which in turn comes from objicere, which means to throw or put something before someone. ...

Examples

 Osoi. late [You're] late. 

 Kirei da. pretty is [It] is pretty. 

 Kore wa hon da. This TOPIC book is This is a book. 

 Kanojo wa utsukushii. She TOPIC is-beautiful The girl is beautiful. 

 Kyou wa amari samuku nai desu. Today TOPIC very cold-NEG-POLITE It isn't very cold today. / Today isn't very cold. 

 Umi wo mimashita. Sea OBJ look_out_on-PAST [I] gazed out at the ocean. 

 Okaasan wa mise ni ikimashita. Mother TOPIC store PLACE_TO went-PAST-POLITE [Her] mother went to the store. 

 Natsu ga kimashita. Summer SUBJ come-PAST-POLITE Summer has come. 

Basic Grammar

The Japanese language is often confusing for Westerners first learning it, since word order and syntax are strikingly different from most European languages. However, the following basic grammatical rules are almost always obeyed.

• A modifying verbal or predicate comes before the nominal it modifies.
  • utsukushii hito (beautiful person)
  • kitanai heya (dirty room)
  • taisetsu na mondai (important problem, lit. "problem which is important")
  • watashi no katta hon [(1p) RELSUBJ buy-PAST book] (the book that I bought)
• Postposition particles (joshi) always come after the word(s) they modify.
  • watashi wa kita (I came)
  • okāsan ni ageta ([I] gave it to mom)

Introductory Conversation

A typical (yet contrived) exchange between two people would look like this: Mr. Hayashi introduces Mr. Tanaka to Mr. Sanger.

 Yamada: Tanaka-san, kochira wa Sangā san desu. Sangaa: Hajimemashite, Sangā desu. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu. Tanaka: Hajimemashite. Ēbīshī no Tanaka desu. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu. Yamada: Sangā san wa Nupīdia no shain desu. 

 Yamada: Mr. Tanaka, this is Mr. Sanger. Sanger: How do you do. My name is Sanger. I'm very glad to meet you. Tanaka: How do you do. I am Mr. Tanaka from ABC Company. I'm very glad to meet you. Yamada: Mr. Sanger is an employee of Nupedia. 

Example of Basic Japanese Sentence structure

Note the importance of the particles, verb tenses, and adjectives.

Mr. Sanger and Mr. Wales eat at a Japanese restaurant.

 Sangaa: Sumimasen, menyū o misete kudasai. Please show us the menu. Ueitoresu: Hai, dōzo. Certainly sir. Here you are. (cont'd): Nomimono wa nani ni nasaimasu ka. What would you like to drink? Weruzu: Bīru o onegaishimasu. I'd like a beer, please. Sangaa: Sukiyaki ni shimasu. I'll have the "sukiyaki". Weruzu: Bīru o ni-hon to sukiyaki o kudasai. Two bottles of beer and some sukiyaki, please. Sangaa: Dezāto wa meron ga ī desu. For dessert we'll have melon. Ueitoresu: Hai, kashikomarimashita. I see (understood). 

Notes

 Vocabulary: ueitoresu - waitress (loanword) sumimasen - excuse me, i'm sorry menyū - menu (loanword) hai - yes (in the sense of "that's correct", or "I agree") nomimono - beverage nani - what hoshii - want (desire an object or outcome) ii - good bīru - beer (loanword) ni - two hon - to count bottles (or any long object) dezāto - dessert (loanword) meron - melon (loanword) 

 X onegaishimasu - please do X for me X kudasai - please give me X 

 Particles: wa - indicates the topic. ga - indicates the topic with de-emphasis on the topic o - indicates the direct object ka - indicates a question to - and 

 Verbs: misemasu - show desu - to be (copula, as opposed to existence) wakarimasu - to understand. 

See also

• Japanese Wikibook
• the Japanese ibook (http://textbook.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese)
• Japanese Dictionary (http://www.online-dictionary.biz/english/japanese) Lookup words, kanji characters, kanji combinations, converter between Romaji and Kana, view kanji in example sentences.
• Nihongo Resources (http://www.nihongoresources.com/grammar/particles.htm) In-depth description of Japanese particles