Essential Grammar
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Grammar you must know
We have learned the basic foundation of the Japanese language. Now that we have a general knowledge of how Japanese works, we can now extend that by learning specific grammar for various situations. This section will go over what is considered to be essential grammar for basic practical Japanese. You will begin to see fewer literal translations in order to emphasize the new grammar now that you (should) have a good understanding of the basic fundamental grammar. For example, in sentences where the subject has not been specified, I might simply specify the subject in the translation as 'he' even though it may very well be "we" or "them" depending on the context.
This section starts with transforming what we have learned so far into a more unassuming and politer form. In any language, there are ways to word things differently to express a feeling of deference or politeness. Even English has differences such as saying, "May I..." vs "Can I...". You may speak one way to your professor and another way to your friends. However, Japanese is different in that not only does the type of vocabulary change, the grammatical structure for every sentence changes as well. There is a distinct and clear line differentiating polite and casual types of speech. On the one hand, the rules clearly tell you how to structure your sentences for different social contexts. On the other hand, every sentence you speak must be conjugated to the proper level of politeness. In section 3, we will cover the polite version of Japanese, which is required for speaking to people of higher social position or to people you are unfamiliar with.
This section will then continue to cover the most useful major types of grammar in Japanese. For this reason, we will learn the most common conjugations such as the te-form, potential, conditional, and volitional. The latter sections are in no particular order and neither does it need to be. The grammar that is presented here is essential which means that you have to learn it all anyway and learn them well.
- Polite Form and Verb Stems - Covers the fundamental difference between polite and casual types of speech. Goes over rules of conjugation for the polite form.
- Addressing People - Covers how to address people by properly according to their title or station. Also covers the various types of pronouns and their appropriate uses.
- The Question Marker - Covers how to clearly indicate a question in polite form. Also discusses the use of the question marker in other contexts.
- Compound Sentences - Learn how to chain several sentences into one. Introduces the ever useful te-form.
- Other uses of the te-form - Learn how to express a continuing action or state using the te-form.
- Potential Form - Goes over how to express the ability to do something.
- Using する and なる with the に particle - Goes over some useful expressions with 「する」 and 「なる」.
- Conditionals - Explains how to express things and events that occur on a given condition. Comp sci majors, you'll want to read this section!
- Expressing "must" or "have to" - How to say that you must or must not do something. Also covers how you say you don't have to do something.
- Desire and Suggestions - Goes over how to express desire and make suggestions. A must-read for getting dates in Japan!
- Using Quotations - Learn how to express your thoughts and quote others using quoted subordinate clauses.
- Trying or attempting something - Try out things or make an attempt to do something using this grammar.
- Giving and Receiving - Learn how to give and receive using 「あげる」、「やる」、「くれる」、and 「もらう」.
- Making requests - Learn how to make requests using 「～ください」、「～なさい」、「～ちょうだい」、and the command (imperative) form.
- Numbers and Counting - Explains numbers and various counters for counting.
- Wrapping up section 4 and more gobi - Wrap up what we've learned in this section and finish up with gobi.
