When I started studying Japanese I was anxious because I knew the grammar would be unlike anything found in English or the smattering of Spanish I'd taken in high school. Happily I found that, to me, the grammar and syntax wasn't that bad -- I learned to memorize base sentences and switch out the nouns, verbs and adjectives until I was comfortable using them, and of course I read lots of manga to pick up new vocabulary words. One unique aspect of Japanese is that there are grammatical "particles" which mark certain words, clearly indicating the sentence subject, object, etc. Here are a few examples in case you're curious:
wa and ga | The "subject" and "topic" markers of sentences, and if this sounds a little vague, join the "confused by wa and ga club." In a nutshell, wa is the master subject marker of a sentence, and ga is used in certain situations, including questions or when you need emphasis. Example: Nihongo wa muzukashii. Dono hen ga muzukashii? (The Japanese language is difficult. What part is difficult?) |
o | The object marker for sentences, by happy linguistic chance, is "o." Can they get any more convenient? Example: Kinou eiga o mimashita. (Yesterday I saw a movie.) |
ni | Filling the role of "to" (as in where you're going, or to whom an action is directed), and "into" for verbs like to enter. It's "in" spelled backwards so it's another easy one to remember. Example: Neko wa hako ni hairu. (The cat goes into the box.) |
ka | A marker for questions. Example: Kore wa zombie desu ka? (Is this a zombie?) |
ga, keredomo, keredo, kedo | These all mean "but," ranked from most polite to most informal. Example: Ugoite mo ii keredo, totemo kiken yo. (It's okay to move, but it's very dangerous.) |
It's often the case that words a person chooses to use say a lot about their character, like a tomboy who uses the first-person pronoun usually used by males. In the anime Bakemonogatari (and the new sequel Nisemonogatari), it's common for characters to always use the word keredo (above, meaning "but"), which provides an oddly formal and precise quality to everything the characters in the show say, though no one really talks like that.
Characters in anime often speak in unique ways.
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