日 本 語 道 場

An Overview of What's Ahead

With the two basic syllabaries under your belt, it's time to move on to actually learning the language of Japanese. From now on, kana will not be romanized, so if you have not yet memorized them, you may wish to print out the charts. This site teaches in a different sort of way, with different branches described below.

Grammar
After the introductory grammar lesson, the grammar is taught in several branches, but it is intended that all lesson ones are completed before doing any of the lesson twos.

• Nouns and Adjectives: Each lesson teaches a number of new nouns and adjectives, along with usages. Since the use of nouns and adjectives is often very similar in Japanese, there are in the same group.
• Particles: Similar to prepositions in English, yet used more often and in an often confusing manner, this is undoubtedly one of the most difficult parts of the language. Each lesson will teach a particle and its various uses.
• Verbs: Each lesson will teach a number of new verbs, along with a new verb form, of which there are very many in Japanese.
• Phrases: Each lesson will cover various common phrases heard in Japanese speech.
• Colloquial: As in every other language, Japanese colloquial speech can be very complicated, but these lessons will help you understand more natural speaking patterns.
• Formal: The Japanese language has a particularly complex way of formal speech, and multiple levels of it at that. These lessons are more advanced, and will help you understand speech in more formal occasions.

Kanji
After the introductory lesson on kanji, each lesson will teach many new useful kanji to use in reading and writing Japanese. These lessons are also intended to go along with each numbered lesson from the grammar section.

Culture
This section will cover various aspects of Japanese culture.