Japanese grammar from zero

The road to reading-ready

This guide grows from the shape of one sentence into the main N5 grammar. The first five stages and the て-form are the reading-ready core; the rest develops alongside immersion.

Stage	Focus	What it unlocks
1	The engine	Subject, predicate, and why the important part comes last
2	Noun sentences	だ and です, questions, demonstratives, and の
3	Core particles	は and が, then を, に, へ, で, と, から, and まで
4	Verbs	Plain, negative, past, polite, wanting, and inviting
5	Adjectives	How い- and な-adjectives describe, change, join, and compare
6	The て-form	Requests, ongoing actions, permission, and sequences
7	Connecting ideas	Reasons, contrasts, examples, before and after, if and when
8	The N5 tail	Thought, probability, becoming, frequency, and potential

The sections below begin Stage 1. Later lessons will be added to this same guide rather than hidden across disconnected posts.

Lesson 1.1: how a Japanese sentence works

A sentence names a thing and says something about it. The thing is the subject; what is said is the predicate. In Japanese, the predicate comes last. It closes the sentence and tells you what kind of message you have.

Japanese also leaves the subject unsaid whenever it is obvious. The subject has not vanished from the idea; the speaker trusts you to recover it from context. We can call this the understood, or zero, subject.

[(subject) … PREDICATE LAST]
The subject is often invisible; the predicate closes the sentence.

See it in three sentences

猫だ。

“(It) is a cat.” No subject is spoken. The whole predicate is 猫だ, “is a cat.”

猫がいる。

“There is a cat.” 猫 is the subject, marked by が, and いる is the predicate.

食べる。

“(I) eat.” Only the predicate is spoken. Who eats comes from the conversation.

Common confusion

English normally demands a stated subject, so beginners hunt for a missing word. Do not. First ask what the final predicate says, then recover its subject from the situation. Naming that hidden subject will make は and が much easier in Stage 3.

What comes next

Japanese has three broad kinds of predicate: noun, verb, and adjective. The next grammar lesson will begin with the simplest: noun sentences with だ and です. Until then, look at the end of every sentence you meet and identify the predicate before translating word by word.