Learn Japanese grammar with audio and easy-to-understand examples.
Want to jump right in? Scroll down to the "Let's Get Started" image to, well, get started!
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. (That being said, I definitely recommend learning fun (to you) words and phrases while also learning the basics. Make your language journey fun for you!)
This page covers 100 essential Japanese grammar points. These lessons will introduce important grammatical patterns in a structured but simple way.
This is not, however, designed to replace a textbook or a detailed grammar book. It is simply our goal with these lessons to help make complex grammatical patterns seem a little less intimidating.
With practice and time, these currently foreign concepts will become second nature to you.
Let's Meet Mr. Japanese Grammar-san
Learning complex concepts like grammar (or kanji for that matter) is like meeting a new friend.
The next time you meet that person, you may recognize the face but not the name. Then, you meet more and talk more and become acquaintances. Over time, you may become good friends.
But becoming a close friend with someone takes time and a commitment to meet each other.
Learning a language is just like that. Vocabulary, grammar, kanji -- it all starts with that first encounter. You don't know it at all. But meet it again and it is a little familiar. Eventually, after many "touches" the word, grammatical pattern, or kanji becomes second nature to you.
Therefore, the grammar lessons found on this page are intended to help you recognize a concept so that when you come across it again (in your textbook, for example), you will have the advantage of at least being familiar with the grammar point.
So, please don't feel like you must remember everything here. That is not our intention. Meet these future friends. Get used to seeing them and look for them whenever you read or listen to Japanese.
Three last things...
First, while we are including romanized characters here, we highly recommend starting your language-learning journey with learning hiragana. Learning hiragana will teach you all the sounds in Japanese and it will prevent romaji from becoming a crutch later on. Click here to learn hiragana quickly and for free here at TJP. We also have a more in depth online course on learning hiragana at Makoto+. For a limited time, this course is free. Click here for instructions how to get the coupon to make the normally $29 course free.
The second thing is we are adding spaces in the example sentences. This isn't natural Japanese, but it will help you mentally parse the sentences. Just keep that in mind.
Lastly, I highly recommend taking the time to repeat and then try to shadow any of the recordings we have on these page. For example, as you go through a grammar lesson, play the recording of an example sentence multiple times, repeat it out loud, and then play it again but try to shadow with the speaker. This is to work on your speaking and pronunciation skills too.
In this section, we begin looking at basic Japanese sentence structure, particles, and useful grammatical patterns.
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Now that you understand basic sentence structure, let's put that knowledge to use. Learn how to say you like something, do something, or ask questions.
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Negatives in Japanese, more complex questions, and asking someone to do something politely.
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Continue with constructing questions in Japanese and then take a deeper look at very important Japanese particles.
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Wrap things up with miscellaneous grammatical patterns that will give your conversational Japanese a boost.
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Ready for a deep dive into Japanese particles?
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Here are a few other pages on Japanese grammar.
Grammar Breakdown
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