Month: June 2022

  • の and こと

    differences between の and こと and what is this nominaliser THING all about? and also what XVI century has in common with のだ。 Have you ever wondered what is the difference between の and こと? Did you read or heard them being called nominalizers and you didn’t really get it? Or are you curious about…

  • 聞こえる 見える 見られる and 聞ける

    What are differences and when to use them? 見[み]える、 聞[き]こえる and 見[み]られる cause a lot of confusion for Japanese learners, so much that many are left not understanding the uses for years. In this post, I wanted to show the uses of those verbs and their brief history. A long, long time ago, before what…

  • The mystery of は

    Or why is は pronounced わ. Have you ever wondered why all the Japanese learners are confused at the beginning of their learning journey with the topic particle は being pronounced as わ?Then this short text is for you! In the early history of Japanese, the modern HA row consonants (HA, HI, FU, HE, HO)…

  • History of だ

    And what it has in common with じゃない。 If we want to understand how the だ came to be, we have to back in time to the auxiliary verb にあり which came to be from particle に expressing localization and あり (modern ある) indicating existence. Eventually, にあり was then shortened to なり. And for example…