Koga City is situated on the westernmost tip of Ibaraki Prefecture, at the confluence of Tone River in the south and Watarase River in the west. The town prospered as an...

9.2. Dialogue 2 In this dialogue, Shô meets two students from overseas. One is a boy from the U.S., and the other is a girl from China. しょう : はじめまして。 Romanization: Ha zi...

9.1. Dialogue 1 I will explain Japanese grammar using dialogues from now on. In the first dialogue, a kid named しょう "Syô" comes home and he has a tea break with his...

8.9. Plants 8.9.1. Flowers I have already explained chrysanthemum and cherry blossom. つつじ tu tu zi Japanese azalea ひまわり hi ma wa ri sunflower ゆり yu ri lily らん ra n...

8.8. Invertebrates 8.8.1. Molluscs All of the molluscs listed here except snails are edible. (Escargots are not so popular in Japan.) たこ ta ko octopus いか i ka squid...

8.7. Vertebrates 8.7.1. The Chinese zodiac You might have heard of the Chinese zodiac. Each year is associated to one of the twelve animals in Chinese custom, and it is...

8.6. Space-time 8.6.1. Directions All of the direction words in Japanese are nouns, while the English words up and down are not nouns. -うえ u e up, upper-ひだり hi da ri...

8.5. Colors First of all, please note that the colors you see on your computer screen are highly dependent on your particular system. Different systems often display...

8.4. Kinship 8.4.1. Kinship reference terms Japanese kinship terms have two categories: reference terms and address terms. The latter is used to call your family without...

8.3. Body parts 8.3.1. Head Kana:あたま Romanization:a ta ma Meaning:head Kana:かお Romanization:ka o Meaning:face Kana:かお Romanization:ka o Meaning:face Kana:め...

8.2. Demonstratives 8.2.1. Three locations Demonstratives are words to point something based on its location. "This" and "that" are English demonstratives. They can also...

8.1. Pronouns You might think learning pronouns after learning verbs and adjectives is strange, because many language courses begin with the pronouns. But as far as...

7.9. Questions 7.9.1. Colloquial questions It is quite easy to ask a question in colloquial Japanese. Simply say a sentence with a raising pitch at the end....

7.8. Emotion markers 7.8.1. Sentence-final particles Japanese has several communication-oriented particles to clarify a speaker's intention. Let's call them emotion...

7.7. Negative forms 7.7.1. Negative forms of verbs First of all, I would like to explain the difference between verbs and adjectives in Japanese. You have learned that...

7.6.1. Relative clauses and verbs A relative clause has a main noun and an explanatory phrase that are combined in a grammatical way, and it has a base structure. For...

7.5. Adjectives 7.5.1. Nonpast forms English adjectives are more similar to nouns than to verbs, and they require the copula be to become predicators. On the other hand,...

7.4. Copula A copula is a special word that combines the subject of a sentence and its description. Copulas are often irregular in many languages. The English word be is...

7.3. Verbs 7.3.1. Group I and Group II Japanese verbs are divided into two groups with different inflection styles. One group is called the Group I verbs, the -u verbs,...

7.2. Topics and focuses The topic and the focus are concepts commonly found in human languages. Topics are old information, which you have already talked about in a...

7.1. Cases and postpositions Cases are markers of the grammatical roles of nouns. In most European languages, inflection of articles, adjectives, and nouns is used to...

6. Greetings English:Hello. / Good afternoon. Kana:こんにちは。 Romanization:Ko n ni ti wa* * This is a single-kana postposition whose actual sound is わ. We later learn it as...

5.5. The months and the days 5.5.1. The months Japanese lost the names of months hundreds of years ago, and now months are called with sequential numbers. After a...

5.4. Decimals and fractions 5.4.1. Decimals The Chinese invented decimals thousands of years ago, and decimals have been commoner than fractions in East Asia for long...