… offer a chance to practice the ないで (Don’t do~) and 過ぎない (Don’t do too much~) grammar forms daily. These simple meaningless phrases that you might mutter to your colleagues such as Regardless of whether you work in a コンビ二 (convenience store), 英会話 ( えいかいわ ) 教室 ( きょうしつ )(English-language school), or 会社 ( かいしゃ ) (office) there are plenty of chances to practice the other N2 and N3 forms. Listen out for phrases that you hear at work Guys like me who value their beauty sleep will almost certainly never use the standard prep phrase 陽 ( ひ )が 昇 ( のぼ )らないうちに 出発 ( しゅっぱつ )しよう (Let’s start before the sun rises).īut with the sort of baking hot summers that we get in Japan, 暑 ( あつ )くならないうちに 出 ( で )かけよう (Let’s leave before it gets too hot) is definitely a useful phrase.įinally, don’t forget to also add phrases like 雨はやむどころかいよいよひどくなった (Far from stopping, the rain increased) into your daily repertoire in order to practice the tricky どころか grammar (Far from ~). Weather can also be used to practice the tricky AうちにB (Before A happens, do B) grammar. Similarly, listen out for phrases like 1週間 ( いっしゅうかん ) 雨 ( あめ )が 降 ( ふ )りつづくことになる (It has been raining for a week) to practice ことになる grammar (Something that I have no control over is happening). … into your small talk to get daily exposure to the differences between these similar forms.Įven some of the trickier grammar points can be used to talk about the weather: 今夜 ( こんや )から 明日 ( あした )にかけて 全般 ( ぜんぱん )に 曇 ( くも )りや 雨 ( あめ )の 天気 ( てんき )でしょう (It will probably be generally cloudy and rainy weather over tonight and tomorrow) is a great way to practice the tricky form, にかけて (spread over an area). 夏のような 暑 ( あつ )さが 続 ( つづ )く (Heat like that in summer is continuing).
夏らしい (It is very summery weather except NOT in summer).夏 ( なつ ) っぽい (It is very summery summer weather).
When chatting about the weather, you should slip in terms like Some of the most obvious examples of this are the grammar forms ~のような, っぽい, and ~らしい that confuse so many learners.īut this doesn’t need to be the case. One of the best ways that learners can master JLPT grammar it is by talking about every Japanese elderly guy’s favorite small-talk topic: the weather.īelieve it or not, but this deceptively simple subject will help you master some of the trickiest grammar forms! This is one of the interesting things about this kind of grammar it’s all around us and by practicing it daily we can put ourselves on the road to mastery. Immediately, the meaning of ~たて (Just done) reveals itself and you can work out that 大学を出たてのお医者さん is used to describe a doctor who is freshly graduated from college. Similarly, while learners may struggle with a tricky subject like 大学を出たてのお医者さん in a sentence, you probably wouldn’t if you remembered 焼 ( や ) きたてパン -the freshly baked bread that you come across every time you go to a bakery. So it isn’t too much of a leap from that to remembering that ~得ない means (Cannot be done) and therefore working out the meaning of 現実では起こり得ない (That couldn’t happen in reality). If you’ve lived in Japan long enough you’ve probably heard the term あり得ない (Unbelievable!) overused to the point of redundancy. These are often found in exam sentences like 現実 ( げんじつ )では 起 ( お )こり得ない and 大学 ( だいがく )を 出 ( で )たてのお 医者 ( いしゃ )さん.īut how do you remember the meaning of sentences like this? Overheard in Japan Take, for example, two grammar points that I struggled with which were: ~ 得 ( え )ない and ~たて. Luckily a lot of these grammar points aren’t necessarily found in seldom-used sentences like the one above. Zzzzzzz… “We are divided on things surrounding this issue.”
#List of phrasal verbs in japanese free#
I lost track of the number of times that I drilled myself with the grammar books or free apps for studying Japanese to the point that the key sentences for understanding each grammar point became a mantra that I’d recite even in my sleep. Studying for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) N2 and N3 exams can be pretty exhausting.