Japanese Grammar: Master the Concepts

Mastering Japanese grammar may seem like a big challenge, especially if it is very different from your native language. Many of us know the importance of grammar, yet we have a tendency to avoid it as much as possible. But without understanding basic Japanese grammar, it will be hard to improve your Japanese language skills beyond the beginning level.

But don’t worry! Learning some simple Japanese grammar concepts will give you a great head start. This overview of Japanese grammar structure will help you understand the key concepts you need to know to start speaking Japanese more clearly and naturally.

Japanese language grammar overview

If you look at the characteristics of the Japanese language, you’ll have a rough idea of what to expect in Japanese grammar. Before we start talking about actual grammar patterns or word classes, here’s an overview of the Japanese language and how it compares with English.

Basic word order

Word order in English is fixed and often determines the grammatical role of the words in a sentence. For example, many sentences are formed with a ‘subject + verb + object’ word order, and we understand the meaning from the position of each word. However, this is not the case in Japanese.

In Japanese, word order is flexible. Often, certain phrases within a sentence are omitted when the meaning is clear from the context. Flexibility in word order and the omission of words and phrases are key characteristics of grammar in Japanese.

Verb morphology

Morphology may not be a familiar word, but it basically refers to how words have different forms to express grammatical categories such as number (like singular and plural) and verb tense.

First let’s talk about English verbs. English verbs take different forms based on the number and the person of the subject. For example, look at the sentences “She reads a lot” and “We read a lot.” Because the subject of the first sentence is ‘she,’ meaning one person, the verb ‘read’ has an ‘s’ at the end. But in the second sentence, the verb is ‘read’ without ‘s’ because it comes after the subject is ‘they,’ meaning more than one person.

Japanese verbs do not work like this. They do not change form based on the subject of the sentence and whether the subject is singular or plural. In fact, in an average sentence, nouns do not even have singular or plural forms.

However, Japanese verbs still take different forms based on tense and whether the meaning is affirmative or negative. Japanese verbs can be followed by additional verb endings or auxiliary verbs to express different things.

Honorifics

The Japanese language has a rich honorific system to express respect, politeness or refinement.

This system of honorific speech is called keigo (敬語), and it is necessary to use keigo (敬語) in many social situations. Honorifics are used to emphasize the relationship between the speaker and the listener or a third party based on social hierarchy.

There are three parts in keigo (敬語). Sonkeigo (尊敬語) is called the respectful form, kenjōgo (謙譲語) the humble form, and teineigo (丁寧語) the polite form.

In most cases, the sentence structures you learn when you start learning Japanese are considered to be teineigo (丁寧語). An example is the pattern ‘— wa — desu’ (— は—です).

As you learn more, you will slowly be introduced to the plain form (also called the casual form), which is the opposite of teineigo (丁寧語).

Word class made easy

Now that we’ve discussed some of the key features of Japanese, we’re ready to move on to some basic Japanese grammar concepts. Let’s start with word class.

Word classes, or parts of speech, are the different categories of words in a language. You are probably familiar with major word classes such as nouns, verbs and adjectives. However, there are word classes that do not exist in the Japanese language and others that are much easier to use. Let’s look at some of these.

Articles

In English, articles are words like the ‘a,’ ‘an,’ and ‘the.’ You might not think twice about these words when speaking your own language, but in Japanese articles do not exist at all.

When introducing nouns, you can go straight to the noun without using any articles.

Nouns

Japanese nouns have no gender and no singular or plural form. Basically, nouns do not ever change. When we need to specify the number of something, we use prefixes, suffixes or other words to do so. Another point that is easier than English grammar!

Verbs

Using the right verb form can be tricky in Japanese, but when it comes to the primary tense, it is extremely simple. There are only two primary tenses, past and non-past (or present).

For actions and states which have already happened or finished, we can use past tense.

For those that have yet to happen or finish, we apply present tense. That means that we also use the present tense to talk about the future, since there is no particular ‘future tense’ in Japanese.

If you want to specify the difference between the present and the future, you can use words which indicate time, such as ‘tomorrow’ or ‘next week,’ or words that indicate an intention or plan. As far as tense is concerned, we can say that verbs are quite straightforward!

The basic Japanese sentence pattern

Next let’s look at the most basic sentence pattern. With this, you can start understanding basic Japanese grammar much better!

Your first sentence structure

In any beginning Japanese grammar book or learning materials, the first sentence pattern to be introduced is this one:

“— wa — desu” (— は—です).

Let’s replace the blanks with ‘A’ and ‘B’ so you can see how this pattern works. “A wa B desu” translates to “A is B” in English. With this sentence pattern, you can express details about ‘A.’

If you are familiar with the terms subject and predicate, ‘A wa’ can be considered the subject and ‘B desu’ the predicate.

In Japanese grammar rules, ‘A’ is called the topic of the sentence – it can be a person, an animal, an object, a place or a concept, basically any noun. In this sentence structure, the topic is generally the subject, indicated by the topic marker wa (は).

The other part of the sentence, ‘B,’ can also be a noun, for example, your name or nationality. On the other hand, ‘B’ can also be an adjective to describe ‘A.’

Using the basic sentence pattern

The basic sentence pattern “A wa B desu” is very useful when you encounter a situation like introducing yourself for the first time.

Let’s say that your name is Anna. If you already know the word watashi (私), which means ‘I’ in English, you will have no problem forming a sentence like this:

Watashi wa anna desu. (私は アンナです)(I am Anna.)

This sentence is totally correct grammatically. Yet you may encounter a situation where someone states their name like this:

Anna desu. (私は アンナです)

This is because the topic of a sentence is often omitted when it is clear from context. This could be the case when the speaker is answering a question, like “What’s your name?” The topic is already clear from the question, so it’s not necessary to repeat it in your reply.

So don’t be surprised when you do not hear the topic or subject in a Japanese sentence! This is very common in Japanese conversations, and with a little practice, you won’t have any problem understanding this kind of sentence.

Building a Japanese sentence with particles

Okay – so now you’ve seen how the subject can be omitted and the word order is flexible in Japanese grammar structure. But with such flexibility, how do we understand the sentence?

That’s the job of particles. Particles are small words, often one syllable, that tell us the function of each word. A particle, almost like a building block, follows immediately after a noun, verb or adjective to indicate what role the word plays in the sentence.

Earlier we explained that the particle wa (は) marks the topic. Specific particles mark a subject, object or action, while others mark position, place or time. There are quite a number of particles, and in some cases, one particular particle has multiple functions. This is one reason why some people find the task of learning particles quite daunting.

But we need to be very clear about the importance of particles in Japanese grammar study. Learning the different particles will allow you to have a smoother journey as you learn Japanese and familiarize yourself with Japanese grammar rules.

The great thing about particles is that, once you know the right particles to pair with different words in a sentence, you can almost always move the paired word and particle around without changing the meaning of the sentence. Isn’t that cool?

There isn’t room here to discuss all the different particles, but to learn more, you can take a look at our guide to Japanese particles.

Wrapping up

To sum up, Japanese word order is flexible, and the sentence structure is quite different from many languages.

We’ve discussed how Japanese word classes are quite different from English grammar, with no articles, unchanging noun forms, and verbs with only two tenses (past and non-past). We’ve also looked at a useful basic sentence pattern, “— wa — desu” (— は—です), which you can use in many situations. Finally, we’ve highlighted the importance of particles in Japanese sentences.

Knowing these basic Japanese grammar tips will be a great help as you learn Japanese. By keeping these in mind as you practice, you will learn to speak Japanese clearly and naturally. Happy studying!