Japanese grammar basics

The basic sentence ends with the verb: 私は パンを 食べます (watashi wa pan o tabemasu), literally 'I bread eat'. Everything else can move fairly freely, because particles show each word's role. Questions keep the same order and add the particle か at the end: 食べますか (tabemasu ka?).

Modifiers always precede what they modify. A relative clause stands before its noun: 昨日 買った 本 (kinō katta hon), 'the book I bought yesterday', literally 'yesterday bought book'.

Particles are short words placed after a noun to mark its function, much like case endings or prepositions placed after the word. Mastering them is the single most important task in early grammar.

The difference between は (wa) and が (ga) takes the longest to settle: は presents the topic, what the sentence is about, while が marks the grammatical subject, often new or emphasised information. 象は鼻が長い (zō wa hana ga nagai), 'as for elephants, the nose is long', uses both.

Verbs fall into three groups. Godan verbs (group 1) change their final syllable across the vowel rows, as in 書く kaku, 書きます kakimasu, 書かない kakanai. Ichidan verbs (group 2) end in -iru or -eru and simply drop -ru: 食べる taberu, 食べます tabemasu, 食べない tabenai. Only する (suru, do) and 来る (kuru, come) are irregular, and する combines with thousands of nouns: 勉強する (benkyō suru, study).

Verbs inflect for tense (non-past and past), for negation and for politeness, not for person. The te-form, such as 食べて (tabete), links clauses and builds many constructions, including the progressive 食べている (tabete iru, is eating).

From the first lesson, learners meet two styles. The polite style ends verbs in -masu and nouns in です (desu) and is used with strangers, colleagues and in shops. The plain style, with dictionary forms and だ (da), is used among friends and family, and also inside longer sentences. Beyond these lies keigo, the system of honorific and humble language used in business and service settings.

Japanese has two classes of adjective. I-adjectives such as 高い (takai, high, expensive) inflect like verbs: 高くない (takakunai, not high), 高かった (takakatta, was high). Na-adjectives such as 静か (shizuka, quiet) behave more like nouns and take な before a noun: 静かな町 (shizuka na machi), a quiet town.

Nouns do not change for number: 本 (hon) is one book or many. Quantities are expressed with counters attached to numbers, chosen by the shape or type of the thing counted: 三本 (sanbon) for three long thin objects such as pens or bottles, 三枚 (sanmai) for flat ones such as tickets, 三人 (sannin) for three people.

Subjects and objects are routinely omitted when context makes them clear. 行きます (ikimasu) alone can mean 'I'll go', 'we are going' or 'he goes', depending on the situation. Learners used to always naming the subject find this strange at first, but it is a central feature of natural Japanese, and overusing 私 (watashi, I) sounds stilted.