About Japanese – briefly
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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…
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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…
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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)…
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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…
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Brief history of い adjectives
Ever wondered why some end with しい and other ones with just い and where their past form came from? Originally wrote this as an answer on Japanese learning forums, but I thought this might be interesting. Long time ago, in Japanese nominals (nouns) were used as adjectives, to describe other nouns. They were simply…