As I go about my language learning journey I’d like to post some of what I learn here, not just so I can track it (and hopefully remember it more) but so others might be able to use it as I go.

Mostly I am still learning Hiragana which is a brilliant place to start, seriously! But tonight I wanted to spend a little time digging up what I could across the great wide net about Japanese grammar. I found a few good starting places, most noteably Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese Grammar (Google it). I liked Tea Kim’s page best not only because it was the only one I managed to click through tonight but because of the key philosophy: learn Japanese as if you were Japanese. Don’t aproach it and try to apply it as if it were English because the two might as well be water and oil for all the similarities they share as far as basic sentence structure goes.

Some other things;

-Japanese sentences do not require a sentence subject.
-Contex matters more than most English speaker geared textbooks would have you think.
-The words ‘the’ and ‘a’ don’t exist, hence trying to form direct translations… you get the point.
-They don’t (though whether this is ever or mostly I don’t know) use a distinction between current and future tense. Ex: “I will go to the store.” to “I go to store.”

Some interessting wordness I learned that should make any student cautious of any ‘simple’ English to Japanese dictionary;

-Dirty can mean sneaky but cannot mean sexually perverse.
-Tall can mean expensive.

Unrelated to Tae Kim’s awesome page are some unrelated vocab words I gave myself tonight;

Cat – - Neko – - ねこ

Kitten – - Koneko – - こねこ

Rabbit – - Usagi – - うさぎ

Monkey – - Saru – - さる

Rat – - Nezumi – - ねずみ

Dog – - Inu – - いぬ

Frog – - Kaeru – - かえる

Bird – - Tori – - とり