JapanesePod101 – Grammar, Adjectives, Verb Conjugation Summary

I stumbled upon japanesepod101.com by chance when I was browsing for podcasts to listen to on iTunes. Since then I have been hooked! On my last trip to Tokyo, I bought the incredibly expensive Sharp Zaurus SL-C3100 Linux PDA, mainly for its dictionary. With JPod101, I started taking notes with my PDA during my commute to work. This combination has helped improved my Japanese level a lot! (Well, still not good enough to pass a Japanese interview…) A while ago however, the PDA somehow fucked up and corrupted the file, I tried my best to recover it but the characters inside the recovered file had become garbage! :( Since then, I had stopped writing notes. What I’m going to do now, is to transfer all my notes from a back up file onto my blog. Storing it online seems to be my best bet against losing the data!

This first post is a summary of the really important rules of the Japanese language. I’m going to re-listen to the podcasts and list here the rules, plus which episode it was explained on. Hopefully, it will become a good reference for people using JPod101 to learn Japanese.

The difference between ”は” and ”が” ~ http://www.japanesepod101.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=319

”な”形容詞（けいようし）　＝　形容動詞

  • 優秀　－　ゆうしゅうな
  • 貧乏　ー　びんぼうな

”い”形容詞　ー drop い and add く for negatives.

  • 凄い　　ー　すごい　　ー　凄く
  • 激しい　ー　はげしい　ー　激しく
  • 逞しい　ー　たくましい　ー　逞しく

Class 1 verbs conjugation: (to get the stem)

  • romanji, just drop U and add I
  • hiragana, jump back from U column to I column

　－　違う　ー　ちがいます
　－　聞く　ー　ききます
　－　分かる　ー　わかります
　－　頑張る　ー　がんばります
　－　叫ぶ　ー　さけびます
　－　言う　－　言います
　－　思う　－　思います
　－　読む　－　読みます
　－　待つ　－　待ちます
　－　楽しむ　－　楽しみます

Passive for class 2 verbs

  • add られる to the ます stem

　ー　食べられる – got eaten
　ー　傷つけられる – got hurt
　ー　

Point: Passive of Class 1 verbs

  • the “う” column becomes the “あ” column + add れる

　－　轢く　・　轢かれる – to be run over (by a car)
　－　引く – to pull　・　引かれる – to be pulled
　－　読む – to read　・　読まれる – to be read

太る　ー　ふとる
過ごす