Vocabulary
Japanese / English translation exercises
English / Japanese translation exercises

Verbs
In the Japanese language, verbs don't need a subject or object to form a sentence. A verb on its own is already a complete sentence.

ある。 (Aru.) There is one.
来る。 (Kuru.) They are coming.

Conjugations: The Rentaikei (連体形)
The Japanese verb is conjugated. There are 5 conjugations in modern Japanese (6 in classical Japanese), and two types of verbs. We will tackle the first conjugation in this lesson: The rentaikei (連体形).

The rentaikei is the basic conjugation of the verb, and the conjugation under which you would look for the word in a dictionary. It distinguishes itself by using the u column of the gojuon-zu (五十音図) as it's conjugation.

The rentaikei is used in Japanese for:

• statements
  - 木がある。 (Ki ga aru.) There is a tree.
  - 鳥が鳴く。 (Tori ga naku.) Birds sing.
• actions that have not yet taken place
  - 明日、日本に行く。 (Ashita, Nihon ni iku.) I will go to Japan tomorrow.
  - 東京から来る。 (Toukyou kara kuru.) She will come from Tokyo.
• attributive (I will explain this in a later lesson)

Note: Japanese does not have a separate grammatical form for the future tense.

ある (aru) and いる (iru)
Both verbs mean "to be" or "to exist", but there is a fundamental difference between the two. いる is used for living beings, ある is used for objects. Plants fall under the category of objects, as do ethereal beings such as ghosts and gods.

In some cases いる is used for animate objects.
- 電車がいる。 (Densha ga iru.) There is a train waiting.
- ロボットがいる。 (Robotto ga iru.) There is a robot (and it is capable of movement).

In combination with the particle に (ni) ある and いる are used as possessives. In these cases both ある and いる can be used for living beings.
- 田中さんに子供がいる。 (Tanaka-san ni kodomo ga iru.) Mr. Tanaka has children.
- 田中さんに子供がある。 (Tanaka-san ni kodomo ga aru.) Mr. Tanaka has children.
- 田中さんに車がある。 (Tanaka-san ni kuruma ga aru.) Mr. Tanaka has a car.

The particles が (ga), に (ni), へ (e), まで (made), and から (kara)
The particle が (ga) indicates that the word or wordgroup preceding it is the subject of the sentence. This particle does however put an emphasis on the subject. More neutral is the particle は (wa), which will be discussed in Lesson 3.

The particle に (ni) has several functions:

• time
  - 四時に来る。 (Yoji ni kuru.) He'll come at 4 o'clock.
• location
  - 東京にいる。 (Toukyou ni iru.) He's in Tokyo.
• direction
  - 東京に行く。 (Toukyou ni iku.) I'm going to Tokyo.
• or to indicate an indirect object
  - 田中さんに上げる。 (Tanaka-san ni ageru.) I will give it to Mr. Tanaka.

The particle へ (e) [hiragana he] can be translated as "to" or "in the direction of" and is used in pretty much the same way as the particle に in it's directional function. The particle へ however has the connotation of not being sure if you will actually arrive at your destination, though most Japanese often don't make that distinction.

- 東京へ行く。 (Toukyou e iku.) I'm going to Tokyo.

The particle まで (made) can be translated as "until", both in time and space. Often まで is used in the same way as に and へ, and often occurs in combination with から.

- 東京まで行く。 (Toukyou made iku.) I'm going until Tokyo. / I'm going to Tokyo.
- 四時まで (Yoji made) until 4 o'clock

The particle から (kara) can be translated as "from", both in time and space.

- 東京から (Toukyou kara) from Tokyo
- 四時から (Yoji kara) from 4 o'clock

- 京都から東京まで (Kyouto kara Toukyou made) from Kyoto to Tokyo
- 二時から四時まで (Niji kara yoji made) from 2 until 4 o'clock

Punctuation marks
Punctuation marks differ in Japanese from western languages. Here is a list of several Japanese punctuation marks and their use.