Learn Japanese together

Writing and reading the first twenty-five hiragana.

1. あいうえお: the five vowels
2. The ka row and the sa row
3. The ta row and the na row
4. Checkpoint: the first twenty-five signs
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The remaining hiragana, the first words, and what katakana is for.

1. The ha row and the ma row
2. The last rows, and the sign that ends a syllable
3. Your first Japanese words
4. Checkpoint: all of hiragana
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The 46 hiragana, the marks that change them, and the first Japanese words a learner can read out loud.

1. Hiragana: あ to の
2. Hiragana: は to ん and the two marks
3. Hiragana: small kana and long sounds
4. Checkpoint: Hiragana
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The angular syllabary that spells everything that came from abroad - names, food, technology - and the rules that shape a foreign word into Japanese.

1. Katakana: ア to ノ
2. Katakana: ハ to ン and the marks
3. Katakana: sounds Japanese borrowed
4. Checkpoint: Katakana
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The fixed phrases that open, close and cushion every Japanese conversation, and the bow that comes with them.

1. Greetings by the hour
2. Thanking and apologising
3. Meeting someone and leaving the house
4. Checkpoint: Greetings and Set Phrases
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The sentence that names a thing, the question that asks about it, and the negative that denies it: AはBです and everything hanging off it.

1. AはBです: the first sentence
2. Questions and negatives
3. の: the particle that links two nouns
4. Checkpoint: Saying Who You Are
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The three-way pointing system that Japanese uses instead of two, and the shopping conversation it makes possible.

1. Pointing: これ, それ, あれ
2. Before a noun: この, その, あの
3. Confirming and correcting
4. Checkpoint: This, That, and That Over There
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Where things are, where you are going, and how to ask a stranger the way.

1. Places: ここ, そこ, あそこ
2. The buildings of a town
3. From here to there: から, まで, と
4. Checkpoint: Places and Directions
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The two number systems, the price tag, and the counters that decide which one you use.

1. One to a hundred, and what it costs
2. Big numbers and numbers that identify
3. Counters: ひとつ, 一人, 一枚
4. Checkpoint: Numbers and Counting
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Telling the time, naming the day, and saying when something happens.

1. What time is it
2. Days, months and dates
3. Saying when: に and から〜まで
4. Checkpoint: Time and the Calendar
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The polite verb that ends every beginner sentence, the object particle, and the places and companions around the action.

1. Going and coming: いきます, きます, かえります
2. The object particle を
3. Where, with whom, and yesterday
4. Checkpoint: Verbs in the ます Form
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Why Japanese needs a third script, how one character can be read two ways, and the eighty characters a beginner meets first.

1. Numbers, days and the week in kanji
2. Two readings: on and kun
3. Kanji inside words you already say
4. Checkpoint: The First Kanji
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The two families of Japanese adjectives, which one conjugates and which one leans on です, and how to join them.

1. い-adjectives
2. な-adjectives
3. Joining adjectives, and asking どんな
4. Checkpoint: Adjectives い and な
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Two verbs of existence chosen by whether the thing can move, and the words that place it in a room.

1. Existence: あります and います
2. Above, below, next to
3. Where it is versus what is there
4. Describing a room
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The single most useful shape in Japanese, how each verb group builds it, and the three sentences it unlocks.

1. Building the て form
2. Asking and doing right now
3. One thing after another
4. Checkpoint: the て form at work
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Permission, prohibition and obligation - three long forms built on the て form and the ない form.

1. May I, and you may not
2. The ない form
3. Must and need not
4. Checkpoint: rules and permissions
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Saying what you want to do, what you want to have, and what you intend to do - and why the first two take が.

1. What I want to do
2. What I want to have
3. Deciding, planning, proposing
4. Checkpoint: wishes and plans
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

More than, the most, not as much as - and the question forms that go with each.

1. More than
2. The most of all
3. Not as much as
4. Checkpoint: choosing between things
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The dictionary form and its relatives - the shape Japanese uses with friends and inside longer sentences.

1. The dictionary form
2. The other three plain forms
3. Plain forms inside a sentence
4. Checkpoint: the plain forms
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

What you propose doing, what you have just decided, and what you are doing it for - all built on the dictionary form the previous unit taught.

1. Let us: the volitional
2. Purpose: ために and ように
3. While it lasts: うちに and 間に
4. Checkpoint: what for, and by when
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Joining two clauses: cause, contrast, and the time frame around an event.

1. Because
2. But and although
3. When, before, after
4. Checkpoint: joining two clauses
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The が that marks the thing you like and the thing you can do, and the form that says you have done something once.

1. Liking and being good at
2. Being able to
3. Things you have done once
4. Checkpoint: talking about yourself
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Putting someone else's words, and your own opinion, inside a sentence.

1. Quoting and reporting
2. Opinion and degrees of certainty
3. Questions inside sentences
4. Checkpoint: where a claim comes from
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The Japanese relative clause: a whole sentence in plain form standing where an adjective would stand.

1. A clause in front of a noun
2. Nouns that need a clause
3. Turning a clause into a noun
4. Checkpoint: building long noun phrases
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Four conditionals that English merges into one word, and the rule that decides which one a sentence needs.

1. When this always follows that
2. The ば form
3. なら and the choice between four
4. Checkpoint: choosing a conditional
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The transitive and intransitive twins that Japanese keeps as separate verbs, and the states they leave behind.

1. Verbs that come in pairs
2. The state left behind
3. Doing it in advance
4. Checkpoint: who did it
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Three verbs chosen by who gains, and the favours they carry when attached to the て form.

1. Three verbs for giving
2. Favours, not objects
3. The polite versions
4. Checkpoint: who benefits
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The potential form, the verbs that already mean 'can', and the change over time that 〜ようになる describes.

1. The potential form
2. Verbs that already mean can
3. Becoming able
4. Checkpoint: what you can and cannot do
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Five ways to say 'it seems', separated by what the guess is built on.

1. It looks that way
2. Working it out from evidence
3. Apparently, from what one gathers
4. Checkpoint: how sure and how you know
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The auxiliaries attached to the て form and the ます stem that add trying, direction, beginning and end.

1. Trying and going
2. Change across time
3. Endings that attach to the ます stem
4. Checkpoint: verbs that carry other verbs
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The politeness axis of Japanese, the two prefixes, and the first set of honorific verbs.

1. Three kinds of politeness
2. Verbs that raise the other person
3. Verbs that lower you
4. Checkpoint: who goes up, who goes down
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The form that moves the affected person to the front - including the Japanese passive that has no English equivalent.

1. The direct passive
2. The passive that complains
3. The passive of news and description
4. Checkpoint: three jobs for one form
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Making someone do something, letting them do it, and being made to do it yourself.

1. Making someone do it
2. Asking to be allowed
3. Made to do it
4. Checkpoint: who decided and who paid
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The three-way system - honorific, humble and polite - and the social map that decides which one a sentence takes.

1. Honour that looks like the passive
2. Two humble registers, not one
3. Where keigo goes wrong
4. Checkpoint: keigo in full
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The connectives and noun-phrase links that turn a run of sentences into an argument.

1. Contrast and addition
2. Restating and exemplifying
3. The five noun links
4. Checkpoint: four sentences, three seams
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

はず, わけ, べき, もの - four nouns that turn into grammar and carry the speaker's judgment.

1. What follows, and why it is so
2. What one ought to do
3. Three negatives built on わけ
4. Checkpoint: four nouns that became grammar
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The だ／である style, the noun-heavy syntax of reports, and the verbs a written argument uses.

1. Three styles, and a text picks one
2. Packing a clause into a noun
3. Making a claim without saying I
4. Checkpoint: turning talk into a report
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

だけ, しか, こそ, さえ - the particles that add an attitude rather than a grammatical role.

1. Only, and how you feel about it
2. This one above the rest, and even that one
3. Saying how much by saying what it took
4. Checkpoint: the same fact, ten attitudes
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Email, telephone and meeting - the three settings where the wrong level is noticed at once.

1. The letter that is mostly frame
2. The call that passes through your hands
3. Objecting to the plan and not to the person
4. Checkpoint: never leave them holding nothing
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The grammar of the N1 list: fixed frames that carry a precise attitude and appear far more in writing than in speech.

1. No choice, and no self-control
2. One verb, two opposite descendants
3. The register of a platform and an editorial
4. Checkpoint: the same meaning, nine attitudes
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The fixed expressions built on body parts, on 気, and on the natural world - and why a dictionary cannot help with them.

1. The body as an address, not a metaphor
2. 気 is not a feeling; it is what reacts first
3. Pictures that decide who may say them
4. Checkpoint: read the situation, not the words
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The condensed wisdom of Japanese: sayings, 四字熟語, and the Chinese stories behind them.

1. The verdict inside a proverb
2. Four characters, two halves
3. Words that will not open without their story
4. Checkpoint: folding and unfolding
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Choosing how to say it: spoken against written, the roles a style can play, and the cost of getting it wrong.

1. What the mouth shortens
2. Voices that only books use
3. One request, four heights
4. Checkpoint: reading the scale
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Building a case in Japanese: the shape of an essay, the way a source is cited, and the way a claim is hedged.

1. Two shapes an argument can take
2. Saying where it came from
3. Concede first, answer second
4. Checkpoint: one paragraph, four moves
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The Japanese of Osaka, of Tohoku and of Okinawa, and the standard language that was built on top of them.

1. Kansai is a second standard
2. The map, drawn by the negative
3. Dialect on the page and on the screen
4. Checkpoint: placing a line on the map
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Headlines with no verbs, the fixed frames of a news bulletin, and the editorial that argues without saying I.

1. The grammar above the fold
2. Who is standing behind this sentence
3. Arguing hard without a first person
4. Checkpoint: putting back what the page left out
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The literary forms that survive inside today's writing, and how to read them.

1. Forms that outlived their grammar
2. Six pasts, and what is left of them
3. The voice that read Chinese aloud
4. Checkpoint: putting the old forms back into today's words
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The classical texts every Japanese reader half-remembers, and the modern prose that broke with them.

1. Seventeen beats and one gap
2. The first lines everyone carries
3. Writing the way people speak
4. Checkpoint: an old line and a new one
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Law, medicine and technology - three vocabularies that behave like separate languages.

1. Numbered parts, and the verbs that bind them
2. Every symptom has two names
3. Two layers on a screen, and one that hedges nothing
4. Checkpoint: who is the sentence for
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Figures of speech, the shape of a Japanese speech, and the language of negotiation.

1. Figures, and where each one lives
2. Standing up to speak
3. Where the decision is actually made
4. Checkpoint: what the room decides
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The pragmatics of Japanese: implication, refusal, silence, and the gap between what is stated and what is meant.

1. The official line and the real one
2. Refusing without the word
3. The pause and the listener's work
4. Checkpoint: reading a turn you cannot read
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The words that have no equivalent, the subject that is not there, and the translationese to avoid.

1. Words that will not cross
2. The subject that was never missing
3. Japanese that smells of a translation
4. Checkpoint: two passes over a translation
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

How Japanese writing was standardised, what the norm says today, and how the language keeps changing anyway.

1. Borrowed writing, and the lists that tamed it
2. Two spellings of the same sound
3. Change, and the complaint about it
4. Checkpoint: dating a form
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions