- Japanese Sentence Structure
Building a Grammar Mind-Map
NikoLet's say that your goal is to learn every grammatical construction needed to pass JLPT N5.
Here’s a list to stress you out:
JLPT # | Japanese | English (Simple) |
JLPT N5 - 01 | です | to be (ex. is, are, am) |
JLPT N5 - 02 | も | too, also, as well as |
JLPT N5 - 03 | で | at, in, on (action place) |
JLPT N5 - 04 | に / へ | to (goal of movement) |
JLPT N5 - 05 | に | at, on, in (time ref.) |
JLPT N5 - 06 | を | (direct object maker) |
JLPT N5 - 07 | v -ませんか | won't you? |
JLPT N5 - 08 | は | as for, about (topic) |
JLPT N5 - 09 | があります | there is, there are |
JLPT N5 - 10 | がいます | there is, there are |
JLPT N5 - 11 | と | and (list of nouns) |
JLPT N5 - 12 | v -ましょう | let's (future action) |
JLPT N5 - 13 | v -てください | please do (request) |
JLPT N5 - 14 | v -てもいいです | you may (permission) |
JLPT N5 - 15 | v -てはいけません | you may not (denial) |
JLPT N5 - 16 | から | because (reason) |
JLPT N5 - 17 | v -ている | -ing (progressive action) |
JLPT N5 - 18 | にいく | to go do (something) |
JLPT N5 - 19 | v -ないでください | please do not (request) |
JLPT N5 - 20 | のがすきです | I like to do (something) |
JLPT N5 - 21 | のがじょうずです | to be good at (action) |
JLPT N5 - 22 | のがへたです | to not be good at |
JLPT N5 - 23 | まだv -ていません | have not done yet |
JLPT N5 - 24 | a のほうが b より | a is more (adj.) than b |
JLPT N5 - 25 | x のなかで | among (comparison) |
JLPT N5 - 26 | がいちばん | the best |
JLPT N5 - 27 | つもりです | I intend to |
JLPT N5 - 28 | i-adj. くなる | to become |
JLPT N5 - 29 | na adj. になる | to become |
JLPT N5 - 30 | v -たいです | I want to |
JLPT N5 - 31 | v -たり v -たり | do such things as |
JLPT N5 - 32 | v -たことがある | has the experience of |
JLPT N5 - 33 | a や b | and (list of examples) |
JLPT N5 - 34 | んです | because of |
JLPT N5 - 35 | v -すぎる | doing in excess |
JLPT N5 - 36 | ほうがいい | it is better to do |
JLPT N5 - 37 | ので | because |
JLPT N5 - 38 | v -なくちゃいけない | must, have to do |
JLPT N5 - 39 | でしょう | probably |
JLPT N5 - 40 | まえに | before doing something |
JLPT N5 - 41 | v -てから | after doing something |
Don’t hate me. Hate the list!
Japanese schools and books let lists like these throw their syllabi into disarray. They force overly complicated grammar constructions onto low level students before they’re ready. They completely ignore simpler, more useful grammar constructions, because they don’t show up in standardized tests… or in their competitor’s textbooks. It’s madness! And as a result, Japanese grammar lessons become a marathon of memorization.
I’d like to take a different approach in this text, though. In this guide, we’ll be building grammar constructions on top of one another.
For example, let's say we're studying conjugations for Japanese verbs. We learn that the te-form of the verb 飲む (のむ), "to drink," is 飲んで (のんで).
Old school learning materials will probably teach you the following construction when looking at te-form: ～てください.
ください basically means "please." Attach it to 飲んで (のんで) and we get:
飲んでください。
のんで ください。
Please drink (it).
The hard part of this is learning that verbs that end in む (mu) change to んで (nde) in the te-form. So the un-conjugated verb 飲む (のむ [nomu] // to drink) becomes 飲んで (のんで [nonde]).
Most textbooks will do a pretty good job of teaching this, I think. The problem is that they don't teach you the potential for building on this conjugation.
With this specific example, by adding a few simple syllables to the end of our te-form verb, we can say ALL KINDS of things:
Japanese | Kana | English | Formality |
飲む | のむ | to drink | N/A |
飲んで | のんで | Drink (it). | Casual |
飲んでください | のんで ください | Please drink (it). | Formal |
飲んでくれ | のんで くれ | Drink (it), will you? | Casual |
飲んでくれませんか | のんで くれませんか | Won't you please drink (it)? | Formal |
飲んでもらえますか | のんで もらえますか | Could I get you to drink (it)? | Formal |
飲んでよ！ | のんで よ！ | Drink (it)! | Casual |
飲んでいます | のんでいます | I am drinking (it). | Formal |
飲んでいます | のんでいます | I have been drinking (it). | Formal |
飲んでいますか | のんでいますか | Are you drinking (it)? | Formal |
飲んでいますか | のんでいますか | Have you been drinking (it)? | Formal |
飲んでいません | のんでいません | I am not drinking (it). | Formal |
飲んでいません | のんでいません | I have not been drinking (it). | Formal |
飲んでいませんか | のんでいませんか | Are you not drinking (it)? | Formal |
飲んでいませんか | のんでいませんか | Have you not been drinking (it)? | Formal |
飲んでいる | のんでいる | I'm drinking (it). | Slightly Casual |
飲んでいる | のんでいる | I've been drinking (it). | Slightly Casual |
飲んでいる？ | のんでいる？ | Are you drinking (it)? | Slightly Casual |
飲んでいる？ | のんでいる？ | Have you been drinking (it)? | Slightly Casual |
飲んでいない | のんでいない | I'm not drinking (it). | Slightly Casual |
飲んでいない | のんでいない | I haven't been drinking (it). | Slightly Casual |
飲んでいない？ | のんでいない？ | You're not drinking (it)? | Slightly Casual |
飲んでいない？ | のんでいない？ | You haven't been drinking (it)? | Slightly Casual |
飲んでる | のんでる | I'm drinking (it). | Casual |
飲んでる | のんでる | I've been drinking (it). | Casual |
飲んでる？ | のんでる？ | Are you drinking (it)? | Casual |
飲んでる？ | のんでる？ | Have you been drinking (it)? | Casual |
飲んでない | のんでない | I'm not drinking (it). | Casual |
飲んでない | のんでない | I haven't been drinking (it). | Casual |
飲んでない？ | のんでない？ | You're not drinking (it)? | Casual |
飲んでない？ | のんでない？ | You haven't been drinking (it)? | Casual |
飲んでいました | のんでいました | I was drinking (it). | Formal |
飲んでいました | のんでいました | I had been drinking (it). | Formal |
飲んでいましたか？ | のんでいましたか？ | Were you drinking (it)? | Formal |
飲んでいましたか？ | のんでいましたか？ | Had you been drinking (it)? | Formal |
飲んでいませんでした | のんでいませんでした | I was not drinking (it). | Formal |
飲んでいませんでした | のんでいませんでした | I had not been drinking (it). | Formal |
飲んでいませんでしたか | のんでいませんでしたか | Were you not drinking (it)? | Formal |
飲んでいませんでしたか | のんでいませんでしたか | Had you not drunk (it)? | Formal |
飲んでいた | のんでいた | I was drinking (it). | Slightly Casual |
飲んでいた | のんでいた | I had been drinking (it). | Slightly Casual |
飲んでいた？ | のんでいた？ | Were you drinking (it)? | Slightly Casual |
飲んでいた？ | のんでいた？ | Had you been drinking (it)? | Slightly Casual |
飲んでいなかった | のんでいなかった | I wasn't drinking (it). | Slightly Casual |
飲んでいなかった | のんでいなかった | I hadn't been drinking (it). | Slightly Casual |
飲んでいなかった？ | のんでいなかった？ | Were you not drinking (it)? | Slightly Casual |
飲んでいなかった？ | のんでいなかった？ | Had you not drunk (it)? | Slightly Casual |
飲んでた | のんでた | I was drinking (it). | Casual |
飲んでた | のんでた | I'd been drinking (it). | Casual |
飲んでた？ | のんでた？ | Were you drinking (it)? | Casual |
飲んでた？ | のんでた？ | Had you drunk (it)? | Casual |
飲んでなかった | のんでなかった | I wasn't drinking (it). | Casual |
飲んでなかった | のんでなかった | I hadn't drunk (it). | Casual |
飲んでなかった？ | のんでなかった？ | You weren't drinking (it)? | Casual |
飲んでなかった？ | のんでなかった？ | You hadn't drunk (it)? | Casual |
Most Japanese courses will take years to slowly drip-feed you all of those sentences and meanings. That seems crazy to me, because most students pick up the foundation to form and use all of those sentences within only a couple of months of studying.
My goal in this guide, then, is to teach whatever is easiest to learn based on our current knowledge/foundation of Japanese grammar at a given time.
It’s kind of like we’re building a Mind Map of Japanese Grammar. Instead of learning long lists of grammatical formations, we’ll build on simple grammatical formations until we have one coherent, interconnected web of sentence formations. Something like this:
OK. Maybe that mind map image and all of these lists are extremely intimidating. But this grammar is not too intimidating when you take this stuff one step at a time. We're easing into the pool. Not diving into it.
Bunkai Beast Grammar Principle: Every single grammatical construction introduced must be built on constructions that we have already seen. |
If none of that makes sense, just try reading on, and you should start to understand what I mean.
Niko
