The verb ことわる in Japanese, written in Kanji as 断る, is notable in that it has two meanings that are nearly opposite to one another. As usual in cases where a word has more than one definition, you need to use context to tell which is being used. The first meaning, and perhaps the more… Read More »
In Japanese, you may have learned that the “ている” form can be used to express a state rather than an ongoing action, like ”壊れている” (broken). There is another way to express state using a noun or na-adjective, plus “でいる”. The “で” is the “te” form of “だ” (is), and “いる” is the same as in… Read More »
The Japanese particle で is one of the first particles that is typically taught, because it’s usage to mean where an action takes place, or “by means of” is pretty easy to understand. Here is one example of each: 僕は部屋でテレビを見た。 I watched TV in the room. 僕たち、バスで海に行った。 We went to the beach via bus. One… Read More »
In this post I’d like to go over the meaning and uses of the Japanese phrase “として”. Although it mean seem like this is the combination of the particles ”と” and “して”, the meaning of “として” isn’t the same as simply combining the meaning of these two. So I suggest you think of this a complete… Read More »
This time I’m going to talk about the Japanese word 後 (“あと”), as well as compounds which contain 後, where it can be pronounced “あと”, “ご”, or “こう”. I’ll start off with a useful phrase – “後で”. This matches pretty closely to English’s “later” and refers to the future in a vague sense. 後でブログを読んでね。 Check out… Read More »
The Japanese verb 切る, pronounced “kiru”, is one of the verbs typically introduced in basic level Japanese textbooks. This is because it is an example of verb that end sin ‘iru’ but is conjugated as a constant verb, and also because it’s easy to understand conceptually. In this post I’ll show some related uses of… Read More »
When learning a foreign language, once you learn the basics you should always strive to be humble and never assume you have a perfect understanding. This reminds me of the expression “油断大敵” (yudan taiteki) which translates to something like “careless is your worst enemy”. In other words, letting your guard down for just a moment… Read More »
Often Japanese particles can be combined, with this example of 4 particles sandwiched together (ならではの) one of the most extreme cases. Usually the meaning of combining two or more particles can be partially guessed by thinking of it as a sum of the meanings of each particle, but there is often some extra nuance that creeps in.… Read More »
An embedded question is when a sentence contains a question inside of it, for example “I don’t know where Japan is”. Sentences with embedded questions can be declarative statements like that example, or instead can be questions themselves, as in “Do you know where Japan is?”. An example of a non-embedded question would be the… Read More »
Japanese has two verb types, consonant (godan) verbs and vowel (ichidan) verbs, each with their corresponding conjugations. Here is an example of each with conjugation into the past and -masu forms. Vowel (ichidan) 食べる (taberu) – to eat Past: 食べた (tabeta) ~Masu (polite): 食べます (tabemasu) Consonant verb (godan) 分かる (wakaru) – to understand Past: 分かった… Read More »