Japanese Grammar 100: in Plain English

By Clay Boutwell and Yumi Boutwell

Painlessly Learn Beginner Level Japanese Grammar.

Starting your journey in a new language is not only exciting but deeply rewarding. However, the foundation of your learning should be solid and structured. It's crucial to steer clear of scattered or non-essential information that could dampen your enthusiasm as the initial excitement wanes.
Our book is crafted to introduce vital grammatical points methodically and concisely. We prioritize the most essential grammar, organizing them according to their frequency in beginner-level resources. While this book is certainly not a substitute for a comprehensive textbook or an in-depth grammar guide, it serves as an effective introductory or supplementary tool.
We provide concise explanations for each grammatical concept, ensuring that each of our hundred lessons can be completed in under ten minutes with few exceptions. While a single sitting won't make you a master, it will acquaint you with new concepts, making them more approachable in future studies or when encountered in your textbook.
Think of each lesson as meeting a new person:

1) from a Stranger (a completely new grammatical concept),

2) to an Acquaintance (familiar but not fully understood),

3) and eventually to a Friend (well-understood and usable, though not yet perfectly).

Our aim is to help you transform these grammatical 'Strangers' into 'Acquaintances' or 'Friends'.
**BONUS #1**: Gain insight with an article detailing the top ten beginner mistakes—arm yourself with knowledge to avoid common pitfalls.
**BONUS #2**: Enhance your learning with FREE sound files for every example discussed (find the link on the book's last page).
This guide is your first step toward building a solid grammatical foundation, making your subsequent Japanese language journey smoother and more enjoyable.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kotoba Inc
• Release date: Mar 6, 2024
• ISBN: 1482536625

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Learning a new language can be a lot of fun. But it is important to begin your learning with structure. You don’t want to end up knowing random or useless information that will sap your motivation once the initial enthusiasm fades.

This book is intended to introduce important grammatical points in a structured way. We will introduce only the most useful grammatical points in a simple and direct way. It is not, however, designed to replace a textbook or a detailed grammar book. It is our goal with this book to help make complex grammatical patterns seem a little less intimidating.

As a result, we spend little time explaining each item. Each of the one hundred lessons are designed to be completed in less than five minutes. You won’t master a grammatical point in one five-minute sitting. You will, however, become familiar with something previously unknown. The next time you review that lesson or run across it in your textbook, you will feel like you are meeting someone you have seen or even met before.

In fact, that is a good way to look at it. We believe that learning complex and previously unknown things like grammar is best done in stages:

Stranger (This is an unknown grammatical point.)

Acquaintance (You’ve heard of it, but don’t know much about its function or usage.)

Friend (You know a good deal about its function and usage, but may not be able to use it smoothly in conversation.)

Best Friend (You have mastered the grammatical point and you are able to use it correctly at will.)

This book was designed to help you meet Strangers and move them into the Acquaintance or Friend category. We highly recommend getting a good textbook such as the Genki series or a more detailed grammar book such as the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar series to make these new friends Best Friends.

One note about romaji, the romanization of Japanese. We suggest you move away from using romaji quickly. Instead, dive into learning hiragana and katakana, and start acquainting yourself with kanji as early as you can. Although nearly all our books are free from romaji—consider this a form of tough love—we've decided to use romaji in this book. This is to help you out as you get the hang of hiragana.

If you have any questions or ideas for improvement, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Clay & Yumi Boutwell

www.TheJapanShop.com/bundles

[e-mail]

The Top 10 Mistakes Beginners Make

Do these things only if you want to be seen as a newbie!

Use -san when referring to oneself.

Never, never do this. [See Page 33.]

Write: konnichi wa with a hiragana わwa

The word konnichi wa (hello) uses the hiragana はha.  In this case it is a particle pronounced as wa and not the regular hiragana for wa. Be careful with the particle は (pronounced wa) and the hiragana はwa. [See Page 28.]

Use English vowels sounds.

Get the five vowel sounds down pat. English has something like fifteen vowel sounds but Japanese only has five. Trying to fit those sounds into Japanese just leads to bad pronunciation habits.

Use English consonant sounds.

While the sounds in Japanese are mostly easy to learn for the English speaker, work hard at nailing down tsu and the R’s: ra, ri, ru, re, ro.

Ignore long vowels and double consonants.

Pay attention to long (in duration) vowels.  hoshi (star) is not the same thing as hoshii (to want) even if to the English ear it sounds the same at first. Make the "i" long in duration. And double consonants are important too: kite (please come) and kitte (postage stamp).

Use your best American accent.

Listen to the intonation of Japanese sentences and mimic what you hear. Most words aren’t really accented. While pitch accents are important for cultivating a consistent pronunciation and for learning the standard Tokyo dialect, it isn’t nearly as pronounced as it is in English. For example, don’t say, "ariGAtou." Also, when learning English loanwords written in katakana, pay special attention to the Japanese pronunciation. After all, it is a real Japanese word and should be treated as such.

Impress your host mother by saying her baby is scary.

Be careful with easily confused words like kowai (scary) and kawaii (cute). Never tell