Tag Archives: particles

Short quiz on basic Japanese particle usage

(Update: I liked making particle quizzes so much I made a whole book of them, you can read all about it here) Writing posts about Japanese is fun and all, but one of the reasons I started this blog was because I like teaching, and have had some experience myself teaching a different topic at… Read More »

Japanese expression 「ならではの」(nara de wa no) – a lump of particles with an interesting meaning

Being really into the grammar aspect of languages, when I first began studying Japanese I read any grammar-related book I could get my hands on. Particles, little words that pack a great deal of meaning, are integral to Japanese and also alot of fun to learn. Usually one starts with something simple like “を” (‘wo’,… Read More »

Japanese particles: で (de) vs に (ni)

I this post I’d like to compare the two Japanese particles で and に, both which are used very frequently in everyday Japanese. I’m not going to do a thorough treatment of either particle covering all possible uses (there are many for both), but I’ll summarize a few of the most common usages. で is… Read More »

Expressing strong feelings in Japanese, a language with less curse words

Once someone who was informally teaching me Japanese mentioned that in Japanese there are not that many strong curse words in everyday language. If you watch certain anime or dramas you might occasionally catch overdramatic words like “ちくしょ!” (negative expletive, literally ‘beast’) or “きさま!” (second person pronoun used as an insult)  but those are very… Read More »

A closer look at Japanese particles wa (は) and ga (が)

As I mentioned in a previous article, in my initial years of studying Japanese I made a huge emphasis on learning as much grammar as I could. For me, one of the most difficult elements of Japanese grammar is distinguishing between the particles は and が. There are surely hundreds of books and websites that describe… Read More »

Grammar – it’s the linguistic glue that holds things together [beginner/intermediate]

All through my Japanese studies I have always dedicated a large portion of time to learning grammar, almost to the extent that I would call it “grammar-driven learning”. Of course it’s great to have a rich vocabulary, but without knowing the rules for how to transform and combine words to get across your intended meaning,… Read More »