~面 counter is used for flat, broad surfaces - boards and walls, but also mirrors, screens and monitors, game boards, tennis and volleyball courts, and the faces of a solid. It is the counter you reach for when something is essentially a large flat plane.
~軒 counter is used for houses and buildings - homes, shops, restaurants and other premises, especially when counting them along a street. A detached house is a 一軒家.
~字 counter is used for written characters and letters - kanji, hiragana, katakana and Latin letters alike. You will meet it in things like 百字以内 (“within 100 characters”) when there is a length limit.
~台 counter is used for machines, vehicles and electronic devices. It covers cars, bicycles, motorbikes and trucks, as well as computers, phones, televisions, washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioners and other appliances - basically anything mechanical or electronic.
~週間 counter is used to count a span of weeks - “for N weeks”. 二週間休む means “to take two weeks off”.
~番 counter expresses order, rank, position and turns - “number so-and-so” in a sequence. 三番 means “number three”, and 私の番 means “my turn”.
~丁 counter is used for various long, narrow tools and implements. It covers a strange range of objects: guns, scissors, spades, hoes, inksticks, palanquins, candles, jinrikishas, shamisen and oars.
Japanese has a few ways to say “if”. The two built directly on the verb are the ば-form (ba-form) and the たら-form (tara-form). The good news: たら is the easiest conditional of all, because it is just the plain past plus ら.
The ます-form is the polite present / future tense - the form you use with people you do not know well, in shops, at work, and generally whenever you want to sound respectful. 食べます means “(I) eat / will eat”, 行きます means “(I) go / will go”.
The volitional form expresses “let’s…”, “shall I…?” or one’s own intention “I think I’ll…”. 食べよう means “let’s eat / I’ll eat”, 行こう means “let’s go”.
The potential form expresses ability or possibility - “can do”. 食べられる means “can eat”, 読める means “can read”.
The passive form (受身) turns the receiver of an action into the subject - “is done to”. 食べられる means “to be eaten”, 言われる means “to be told / be said”.
The ない-form is the plain (casual) negative - the informal equivalent of ～ません. 食べない means “don’t / won’t eat”, 行かない means “don’t / won’t go”.
The た-form is the plain (casual) past tense - the informal equivalent of the polite ～ました. 食べた means “ate”, 行った means “went”. It is also the base for several important grammar patterns like ～たことがある (have done before) and ～たら (if / when).
The て-form is one of the first things you should master, because so much grammar is built on top of it: ～ている (ongoing action), ～てください (please do…), ～てもいい (may I…), ～てから (after doing…) and connecting two actions together, to name just a few.
Japanese is full of onomatopoeia, and they are everywhere - in daily conversation, manga, advertising and even the news. Using them well makes your Japanese sound much more natural.
Let’s talk about how to tell time in Japanese. Time is built from three counters - hours (時), minutes (分) and seconds (秒) - plus a few handy words for AM, PM and “half past”. If you need a refresher on the plain numbers first, see the numbers post.
Here is a list of 100 common used Ichidan (Class 2) Verbs with their meanings:
~羽 counter is used for birds - sparrows, chickens, pigeons, owls, and so on. The kanji 羽 means “feather” or “wing”, which makes it easy to remember.
So far the counters tell you how many of something there are. To say which one in a sequence - first, second, third - Japanese adds the suffix ~目 to a counter.
~歳 counter is used to tell age. 何歳ですか - “how old are you?” - is answered with a number plus ~歳.
Both ~回 and ~度 count the number of times something happens, and in many sentences they are interchangeable. There is a difference in feel, though.
~杯 counter is used for cupfuls and glassfuls - a cup of coffee, a glass of water, a mug of beer. Importantly, it counts the contents of the container, not the container itself, so it also covers bowls of rice, ramen and other noodles, and even scoops served in a dish. (To count the empty cups or glasses as objects, you would use ~個 (ko).)
Animals are counted with two main counters, and the one you pick depends mostly on size.
~冊 counter is used for books and other bound volumes - novels, textbooks, notebooks, magazines, comics (manga), dictionaries, and so on. If it has pages bound together, you count it with ~冊.
~枚 counter is used for flat, thin objects. Think of anything that is essentially a sheet: paper, tickets, stamps, photos, cards, CDs, plates, T-shirts and other clothing, blankets, slices of bread or pizza, and even banknotes.
~本 counter is used for long, thin, cylindrical objects. Typical examples are pens and pencils, bottles, umbrellas, trees, bananas, carrots, chopsticks, ropes, cigarettes, and rivers or roads. It also shows up in some figurative uses such as phone calls (一本の電話), train and bus services, films, and goals or home runs in sports.
~階 counter is used to count building floors and levels. Usually you won’t encounter the kanji writings in the actual buildings, but just number + F and generally 1F is the ground floor. Basement floors are usually written as number + BF.
~名 is used to count people in formal situations.
~人 counter is the default counter used to count people (and some smart animals).
~つ counter is probably the fist counter you’ll learn when studying Japanese. It’s versatile, can be used for almost all objects and even if it’s not the correct counter for the object want to count, you’ll be understood.
~個 counter, similair to the ~つ (tsu) counter and is one of the most useful ones.
Counting in Japanese is not the easiest thing. There are hundreds of various counters - common and less common, used for different things. The basic numbers are just not enough when you want to count.
Here is a table with basic numbers (数字) in Japanese (with both Kanji and their readings).
These are just basic numbers.
Bear in mind that Japanese has many different counters as well. You can read more about them HERE
Let’s talk about Japanese calendar and how to call:
Here are the basic tables for Hiragana and Katakana characters + their digraphs (two characters combined to create a single sound).
Why are Godan Verbs called Godan? How are they conjugated? Why is it so complicated?
Let’s dive in!
When studying Japanese you’ll encounter the i-adjectives (形容詞) and na-adjectives (形容動詞) very soon.
Here is a list of 50 common used Godan (Class 1) Verbs with つ (tsu) ending with their meanings:
Here is a list of 50 common used Godan (Class 1) Verbs with む (mu) ending with their meanings:
Here is a list of 50 common used Godan (Class 1) Verbs with ぐ (gu) ending with their meanings:
Here is a list of 30 common used Godan (Class 1) Verbs with ぶ (bu) ending with their meanings:
Here is a list of 100 common used Godan (Class 1) Verbs with う (u) ending with their meanings:
Here is a list of 100 common used Godan (Class 1) Verbs with く (ku) ending with their meanings.
Note that 行く (いく) is not an regular Godan verb - it’s an exception - te-form and ta-form is irregular (行って, 行った)
Here is a list of 10 Godan (Class 1) Verbs with ぬ (nu) ending with their meanings.
As you can see, ぬ (nu) ending in verbs is exclusively used in context of death.
Here is a list of 100 common used Godan (Class 1) Verbs with す (su) ending with their meanings:
Here is a list of 100 common used Godan (Class 1) Verbs with る (ru) ending with their meanings:
Have you ever wondered how many Ichidan (Group 2) Verbs are actually in the Japanese language?
How many Godan (Group 1) Verbs?
And Irregular Verbs (Group 3)?
How many Godan Verbs have the -iru / -eru ( -いる / -える) ending?
Let’s explore it! ✨
