This website started as a hobby to explain photography (posts listed here), but over time expanded to provide (hopefully) useful information about Japan and the Japanese language. I also run edonoyu.com with a friend—a site that covers onsen in the Tokyo region.
The Japanese Number System
Before we go much further let’s go through the Japanese number system, starting with 1-10. Number Kanji Hiragana…
Changing Adjectives into Adverbs
Changing an adjective to an adverb (e.g. he ate quickly) in Japanese is simple, although the rules differ…
The Inclusive Particle (も)
At first glance も appears to be quite a simple particle to use. Its most basic use is…
The Possessive Particle (の)
The particle の is one of the easier particles to learn. Its most basic use is to denote…
Modifying Nouns with Verbs & Adjectives
This is how we add something descriptive to nouns. Verbs To modify a noun with a verb we need…
I-Adjectives & Na-Adjectives
There are two types of adjectives in Japanese: i-adjectives and na-adjectives. The type of adjective is determined by…
The Topic Particle & State of Being
There is one verb that I’m going to introduce immediately: the auxiliary verb (です). In English, we use…
Hiragana & Katakana
Hiragana and katakana are the two syllabaries in Japanese. Hiragana is used to form the grammar of the…
Basic Japanese Verb Conjugations
There are three different groups of verbs in Japanese—referred to as group 1, 2, and 3 in textbooks.…
Japanese: A Language of Particles
I’m going to introduce a full Japanese sentence to give you an idea of the grammatical structure because…
To Desu or Not to Desu
As you may already be aware, the Japanese language includes honorifics and there are a number of different…
The Japanese Scripts: Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji
There are three core scripts in Japanese: kanji, hiragana, and katakana. In addition, romaji is used to give…
