desu to constitute complete utterances. Hon “book,” eiga “movie,” and gaijin “foreigner,” are nouns.
Particles. Japanese particles are uninflected words that occur within or at the end of a sentence. They generally do not begin an utterance. When they occur within a sentence, they relate what precedes (whether a word, a phrase, or a clause) to what follows. (For this reason, particles are sometimes called relationals.) Examples of this type are wa は, ga が, o を, and to と. Particles that occur at the end of a sentence are called sentence-final particles, and they make the sentence interrogative, exclamatory, emphatic, etc. Examples of this type are ka か, nē ねえ, and yo よ.
Verbs. Japanese verbs are inflected words that take -masu in the formal nonpast and -mashita in the formal past. Iku “to go,” kuru “to come,” and taberu “to eat,” for example, are verbs.
Potential forms of verbs. Potential forms are forms that mean “can do such and such” or “such and such can be done.” Yomeru 読める, for example, is the potential form of yomu 読む “to read” and means “can read” or “can be read.”
Punctual verbs. Verbs representing actions or occurrences that take place without duration over time are punctual verbs. Shinu 死ぬ “to die,” tsuku 着く “to arrive” and kekkon-suru 結婚する “to get married” are examples of this type.
Stative verbs. Verbs that express states rather than actions are stative verbs. Iru いる “(someone) is (somewhere)” and aru ある “(something) is (somewhere)” are examples of this category.
JAPANESE ACCENT
Accent marks are used in this book. They are, as a rule, used in the entry headings only, e.g., Ō
Unlike English, which has a stress accent, Japanese has a pitch accent. In Japanese words, each syllable is spoken either high or low. If the first syllable is low, the second is always high, and if the first syllable is high, the second is always low. In this book, the mark “
ki mono wa
Words that end with an accented syllable (e.g., A
atama wa → a tama wa
kimono wa → ki mono wa
Note that wa in atama wa is low while wa in kimono wa is high.
ROMANIZATION
The system of romanization used in this book is the popular Hepburn system. There are, however, some differences that should be mentioned. In this book, ん is always written n, even before m, p, and b. When n should be pronounced independently of a vowel or y that follows it, an apostrophe is inserted to indicate the fact. Long vowels are generally shown with macrons. Long vowels, however, are not indicated in the proper names that appear in the bibliography.
OTHER CONVENTIONS
An asterisk is used in this book to mark incorrect utterances. A question mark at the beginning of a sentence indicates unnaturalness or awkwardness.
Abiru 浴びる to take a bath, shower
Japanese people who have spent a number of years in English-speaking countries such as the United States often end up having their spoken Japanese affected by English. One example of this that I once heard was *Mō shawā o torimashita ka *もうシャワーを取りま したか, a direct translation of “Have you taken a shower yet?” In authentic Japanese, the sentence should be Shawā o abimashita ka シャワーを浴びましたか, using the verb abiru 浴びる rather than toru 取る.
“Take a bath” also can be furo o abiru 風呂をあびる, although another expression, furo ni hairu 風呂に入る, is probably more common.
EXAMPLE:
Nihonjin wa furo o abiru (or furo ni hairu) no ga hontō ni suki da.
日本人は風呂を浴びる（風呂に入る)のが本当に好きだ。
The Japanese really love taking baths.
Abunai 危ない dangerous
Abunai 危ない most often means “dangerous, risky, hazardous.”
EXAMPLES:
(1) Yopparai-unten wa abunai.
酔っ払い運転は危ない。
Drunk driving is dangerous.
(2) Kodomo no matchi-asobi wa abunai.
子供のマッチ遊びは危ない。
Children’s playing with matches is hazardous.
Abunai! 危ない! may be used as an exclamation in situations where “Look out!” or “Watch out!” would be called for in English. For example, if you see someone walking into the path of an oncoming car, you shout out, Abunai! Other examples of adjectives used to give warning are Urusai! うるさい! and Yakamashii! やかましい! (lit., “[You are] noisy!”), both meaning “Be quiet!” or “Shut up!” (see URUSAI).
A
