Beginning Lessons

These lessons cover the basics of grammar, pronunciation, and writing, along with several sentence structures and useful vocabulary and expressions. The material covered is roughly equivalent to a first semester college course or a first year high school course.

All Japanese text in the Beginning Lessons is provided in both Kana and Romaji, so you can easily skip to any lesson even if you haven’t yet mastered Hiragana and Katakana.

Read more:

• About the Beginning Lessons – content and organization, notes on Kana and Romaji usage
• How to Use the Beginning Lessons – recommended course of study, time required to work through the entire course, a note on textbooks

Or start from the beginning with:

• Introduction to the Japanese Language

Note: this section is currently under construction. Expect frequent additions.

Brief Contents

See also: Detailed Contents

Skip to:

• The Preliminaries
• Writing and Pronunciation
• Basic Expressions
• Part 1: Nouns and Adjectives
• Part 2: Verbs and Conjugation
• Reference

The Preliminaries

• Introduction to the Japanese Language
• A Guide to Japanese Pronunciation
• Politeness and Formality in Japanese
• The Structure of a Japanese Sentence

Writing and Pronunciation

• Introduction to the Japanese Writing System
• Hiragana and the Japanese Sound System
• Hiragana and the Japanese Sound System, Part 2
• Pitch Accent and Vowel Devoicing
• Coming Soon:
  • Katakana and Borrowed Words
• See Also:
  • Hiragana and Katakana Resources

Basic Expressions

• Names and Introductions
• Greetings and Other Expressions
• Classroom Expressions

Part 1 – Nouns and Adjectives

• The Topic Marker “Wa”
• The Copula “Desu”
• Nouns, Pronouns, and Plurals
• “No”, the Modifying Particle
• Demonstratives: the Ko-so-a-do Series
• Questions and Negation
  • The Sentence Ending Particles “Ne” and “Yo”
  • Question Words
• Beginning Vocabulary: Classroom Objects
• Counting in Japanese
• Telling Time
• Japanese Adjectives
  • Beginning Vocabulary: Adjectives
  • Colors in Japanese
  • Suki and Kirai: Likes and Dislikes
• Making Comparisons: Yori, Hodo, and No Hou Ga
• Japanese Words for Food
• Coming soon:
  • Japanese Counters
  • Talking About Shopping
• Conjunctions and Compound Sentences
• Talking About School Subjects

Part 2 – Verbs and Conjugation

• Japanese Verbs and Conjugation
• Masu Form and its Conjugations
  • Beginning Vocabulary: Verbs
• Coming soon:
  • Talking About Hobbies
  • Talking About Languages and Countries
  • Particles for Location and Direction: De, Ni, E
  • Another “De”: By What Means?
  • To and Ya: The Conjunctions
  • Talking About Talking: The Quotation Particle “To”
  • Relative Time Words
  • Talking About Daily Activities
  • Invitations and Suggestions
  • Tai-form: Expressing Desires
  • Te-Form: Commands and Connectives
  • Verbs for Giving and Receiving: Ageru, Kureru, and Morau
  • Verbs of Existence: Iru and Aru
  • Talking About Family

Reference

• Basic Japanese Vocabulary
• Coming soon:
  • Basic Japanese Particles
• Japanese Word Classes
• Coming soon:
  • Masu and Te Form Quick Reference
  • Expressions Quick Reference

See also: Detailed Contents