You may do well to go through that grammar guide as I'm sure it will answer many of your questions. Tae Kim's grammar guide generally comes quite highly recommended

Sumimasen vs. SumanaiBlindReader wrote:I have some new questions.
Warm up:
すまない means "sorry" すみません also means sorry but isn't it literally "not sorry"?
No... すまない is the plain form and すみません is the polite form. They are both negative forms of 済む (すむ). It's negative because you're saying what you've done is unjustifiable, unpardonable, etc. -- the negation is the "un-" part. I've never seen 済む used to mean "justifiable" or "pardonable", though... I've only seen it with this sense in the negative.BlindReader wrote:I have some new questions.
Warm up:
すまない means "sorry" すみません also means sorry but isn't it literally "not sorry"?
This isn't a correct usage of the word "effect". "Affect" would be a bit awkward here too. Maybe "has an effect on"?The following one makes Japanese hard for me.
Are there any rules about what parts of a sentence certain particles effects?
Like の effects both around it
から effects the one before it (?)
some effect the ones after it .. and so on
Can such a guide be made?
How about 罰金だけで済んだ・少しの損で済んだ ? I think the meaning is pretty close to "pardonable" and also yields some insight why すまない means what it does. The literal meaning of the negation すまない follows quite naturally: このままでは済まない(=決着しない)の意からいう [明鏡国語辞典]I've never seen 済む used to mean "justifiable" or "pardonable", though... I've only seen it with this sense in the negative.
To modify. Words are modified by particles, or affixes (prefix, infix, suffix) in general.This isn't a correct usage of the word "effect". "Affect" would be a bit awkward here too. Maybe "has an effect on"?
As furrykef pointed out correctly, as a general rule, particles modify the word that comes before. As for の, what seems like an exception, consider the following:Are there any rules about what parts of a sentence certain particles effects?
Whereas 昔 on its own is just 'a long time ago,' I think you are right in saying that 昔々 has the 'once upon a time feel' as in children's stories. However, this phrase in both English and Japanese may still enter adult conversation!J.J. Perec wrote:Hey guys, I'm working through some children's stories, and they always start "昔々/むかしむかし". Does this phrase have the same nuance as "once upon a time" in English, and is generally just used for children's stories, or can it be used generally as "a long time ago" in adult conversation as well?
But saying that の modifies both what precedes and follows would be incorrect. The の itself only modifies what precedes. You could say it links what precedes with what follows, though, or something like that.blutorange wrote:To modify. Words are modified by particles, or affixes (prefix, infix, suffix) in general.This isn't a correct usage of the word "effect". "Affect" would be a bit awkward here too. Maybe "has an effect on"?