Sometimes, occasionally, and can happen with ことがある
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When not used with a past tense verb, 事がある means that the verb or adjective it follows is possible, or that it happens sometimes…
This is a collection of my notes taken as I learn to use the Japanese language. Be warned! These documents are not authoritative. They represent my current understanding, which is certainly flawed.
Giving reasons
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Don't worry, apples are fine but I don't like them as much as this note makes out…
Seems like with そう
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そう can be used to express an impression or expectation of something. In English it's roughly equivalent to "seems like" or "looks like"…
Particles: の
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The の particle is used for attribution of nouns…
Hypothetical form
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This page is a hub for the hypothetical form 仮定形. It describes how to conjugate verbs and adjectives to their hypothetical form. The hypothetical form is a kind of stem form of both kinds of word, which can be used to compose a conditional form by appending ば…
Attributive form
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Nouns use the の particle to attribute. In English it roughly corresponds to of, with the order reversed…
Adjective conjugations
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This page is a hub for the adjective conjugations. This document is a brief explainer for the names I use for verb types. See backlinks at the bottom for notes linking to this one, including links to specific conjugations…
Giving and receiving
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Giving and receiving in Japanese can be confusing to the English speaker, particularly in how particles are used…
Particles: に
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に can be used to indicate an absolute point in time. Such points include days of the week, months, years, calendar dates, and time of the clock…
Te form
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This page is a hub for the te form, or て形. It describes how to conjugate verbs to their te form, and links out to other articles about its use. See backlinks at the bottom for notes linking to this one…
Potential form
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This page is a hub for the potential form, or 可能形. It describes how to conjugate verbs to their potential form, and links out to other articles about its use. See backlinks at the bottom for notes linking to this one…
Verb conjugations
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This page is a hub for the verb conjugations. This document is a brief explainer for the names I use for verb types. See links at the bottom for notes about specific conjugations…
Volitional form
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This page is a hub for the volitional form 意向形. It describes how to conjugate verbs to their volitional form, and links out to other articles about its use. See backlinks at the bottom for notes linking to this one…
Expressing a determination or decision to do something
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A combination of the volitional form of a verb and 〜と思います…
Ability to do
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There are two major ways of expressing the ability to do something…
Express a desire for another to do something with てほしい
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When you want to express a desire for another to perform some action, use the て form of a verb and append ほしい to it…
Before and after
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The order of events in a Japanese sentence can be established a number of ways. This post covers four ways. The translations of some examples are given two orders, literal (what I consider the literal translation), and natural (a translation which feels a bit more natural to me without changing the meaning)…
Not yet or still with まだ
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まだ can be used to express when something is not yet the case, or is still the case…
Already or anymore with もう
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もう can be used to express when something is already the case, or will not be the case again…
Conditionals and hypotheticals using たら
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You can compose compose conditional or hypothetical phrases using 〜たら. You can compose it using the plain past conjugation of a word and appending ら to it. This is one of many ways of forming conditionals or hypotheticals…
Expressing many and not many with も, しか, and だけ
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Using も, だけ, and しか can add nuance to amounts of things…
Introduction
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It's about time I started keeping notes again! I've engineered in just enough
to make it fun rather than an hindrance. For example, I can how write furigana
in a way that doesn't look out of place in markdown. For example,
{ja:^私,わたし^} renders as 私. It also works on words with
multiple ruby components. For example {ja:^振,ふ,り,,仮名,がな^} renders as
振り仮名. The comma separated list is paired groups of
characters (which is why the り is followed by an empty element)…