Learn to read Japanese
A short, active path into reading Japanese: decode seven real words from eleven kana, learn why the verb comes last and how nine particles carry the grammar, meet the plain past stories are told in, and read a short fable before opening your first book.
The nine little words that carry the grammar
- Particles glue backwards, onto the back of the word already written.
- Nine of them do nearly all the grammar of the language.
- ni is where a thing is or goes; de is where a thing is done.
- “In”, “on” and “under” are not words — they are the nouns 中, 上, 下 hooked on with のno.
- The place comes before the verb, with its label attached: “forest-to go”.
You have met several of these already. Nine small characters do nearly all the grammar of Japanese: each glues to the back of the piece before it and says what that piece is doing. They are called particles, and they earn their own section: tapping a word in a book gives you “fox”, “forest”, “ran” — it cannot tell you which animal did the chasing. The particles can.
The nine, on one line each
| Particle | Sound | What it marks |
|---|---|---|
| は | wa | the topic — what the sentence is about |
| が | ga | the doer, especially when new to the scene — a story introduces each animal with が |
| を | o | the thing acted on |
| に | ni | to, at, in, on — direction, destination, a point in time |
| で | de | where an action happens, or what it is done with |
| の | no | ’s, of — joins two nouns, the owner first |
| と | to | and, with — 犬と 猫inu to neko“the dog and the cat”; it also marks quoted speech |
| も | mo | too, also — it replaces は or が rather than joining them |
| か | ka | turns the whole sentence into a question — the asking section handles it |
Two of them are said differently from how they are written: は is “wa” and を is “o”.
Where a thing is, built out of a noun
Three verbs of movement
| Japanese | Sound |
|---|---|
| いく“go” | iku |
| くる“come” | kuru |
| はしる“run” | hashiru |
The place comes before the verb, with its label attached: もりに いくmori ni iku is “forest-to go”. Bird — tree — flies, not bird — flies — tree; read a line in English order and you get a tree that flies.
Which label, which job?
- 木の上に とりが いる。
Two nouns make the place, then a living thing exists.
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ki no ue ni tori ga iru — “There is a bird on top of the tree.” - What is the difference between もりに いる and もりで はしる?
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にni is where something simply is; でde is where something is done. “Is in the forest” against “runs in the forest”. - ミナは みちから もりに はしる。
Two places, both labelled, then the action.
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Mina wa michi kara mori ni hashiru — “Mina runs from the road to the forest.”