Expert: Dreams - 7/17/2009

Question
Hello, I am trying to teach myself the Japanese language. I know some of the words but I am having a little trouble with understanding the sentence order. What order am I supposed to put the words in? (And if possible, could you give me a few tips on teaching myself the language?)

Answer
Hello,

Many sources will tell you that Japanese sentence structure is typically subject-object-verb, which is quite true for basic sentences. However, Japanese sentence order is a bit more flexible than English because it relies on particles to mark out parts of the sentence. But Japanese sentences always rely on the verb, which always comes last, because it is deemed the most important part of the sentence.

Some pages that will help explain this with examples:

http://nihongo.3yen.com/2005-02-16/debunking-the-japanese-sentence-order-myth/
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/basicgram.html
http://www.nihongoresources.com/language/grammar/chapter-01.html#2.4

That being said, you will discover typical patterns as you move along in your studies. For instance, time words will often come at the very beginning of the sentence, or as the object themselves, depending on the context (the importance of the time in the sentence). And direction will often come inbetween the object and the verb.

At this point, I would focus more on making sure you know when to use each particle properly, and as you go forth, you will start to develop a natural flow to your speech. This is something that takes time with any language. No matter how you switch things around right now, you will be understood, as long as the proper particles are in place.

As for study tips, I'm not sure where you are in the language. If you plan on learning how to fully speak, read, and write Japanese, I always suggest starting off by learning your kana first. It's quite easy, and there's a free site here to do it with (www.kanachart.com). From there, start off with basic grammar, and as you go along, give yourself sets of vocabulary to learn each week (or bi-weekly, it depends on how much time you have to study). A good way to do this is to learn a set of kanji each time - that way, you'll be learning kanji and vocab.

Keep a regular study schedule (like a couple hours a night), and be sure to practice as much as possible. The best experience is to get involved in translating something; that way you'll come across words and phrases you might not learn from the book or website you're learning from. To do this, you'll want a good Japanese-English dictionary and a kanji dictionary.

Online:
http://www.gokanji.com/cgi-bin/j-e/dict
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1B
http://www.nuthatch.com/kanji/demo/radicals.html

In book form, any Random House dictionary is good, as it provides romanized entries as well as the kanji/kana for each word. A good basic kanji dictionary is "Kanji & Kana" by Wolfgang Hadamitzky and Mark Spahn - it includes the entire jouyou kanji list, something you'll need to know to be considered literate in Japanese.

Having some people to help you out is also essential, so I would recommend finding a Japanese language forum where you can ask questions in time of need:

http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?nav=messages&webtag=ab-japanese
http://www.japan-zone.com/forum/
http://www.hakubajapan.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?board=nihongo_cat
http://www.humanjapanese.com/forum/index.php

A link you'll also want to save for when you're well advanced into the language is http://www.alc.co.jp - this is a dictionary, so to speak, that allows you to enter any word or phrase in English or Japanese, and then see it used in a variety of sentences and different types of speech. It becomes invaluable for looking up expressions.

Hope that helps :)
Dreams