I'll try to list the grammatical similarities between Japanese & Mandarin below as I find them. Whether these similarities are because Japanese has copied far too much of Chinese, or whether because they're actually related languages way back in time, I dunno.

1. Mandarin uses 的 where Japanese uses の, な, い. In の's case, this includes as a connector for phrases within sentences and not just showing possession for nouns (ex. 行く の は 嫌 だ "I don't like going/I don't wanna go", Mandarin acts in the same way). For example:
　私 の＝我 の　"my"（same 我 as in わがくに　我が国 "my/our country"）
　可愛 い＝可愛 的 "cute"
　小さい の＝小的 "a cute one"

2. Mandarin uses 的 where Japanese uses んだ (=のだ), なの and の. This is described in Japanese lessons as when you're "telling or asking someone for information", and in Chinese lessons as when you're "putting emphasis on information":

　你 是 什么 时候 来 中文 的？ = あなた は いつ 中国 に 来た の？ = "So when did you come to China?"

　我 是 昨天 来 中国 的 = 私 は 昨日 中国 に 来た ん だ = "Well, I came to China yesterday"

Japanese words like 歴史的 "historical" (歴史 = history) are directly borrowing the Chinese 的.

3. Mandarin uses 吗 (么) "ma" where Japanese uses か "ka" I think. This basically means "yes or no?". Note how similar the sounds "ma" and ka" are...
　中国 か？中国 なの？＝中国 吗？

4. Mandarin duplicates words in order to mean plural or "all of them" (same as Japanese: 人 human, 人人 / 人々 everyone, humans).

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From now on this comm might get a little weird. I've been advised to take my grammar "lessons" and "theories" and properly cite all the quoted lines used, beautify the posts a bit as if I were writing an academic paper, then publish them to earn money. So I'm gonna start making posts like what I just described but for single grammar concepts (first up, "お and ご", next "しまう", "さん") and properly cite things as I go. Here's the first post, I'll just do things like normal and make the "ground post" then lengthen/edit/improve it all later.

"お and ご"

Part 1: お/ご With Nouns

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These suffixes are really just down to knowing what the heck the kanji actually means (often they're a direct borrowing from Chinese), but it's kinda confusing coming from English so I thought I'd list them here and just update with better examples as I find them.

So far listed: 心, 力, 性, 化, 的.

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Hi guys, I have about a week of winter break starting now and I just discovered that the NDS Japanese (/Japanese-English) dictionary is a lot better than what I was using before, including about grammar. So as much as possible, I'm going to update the entire JLPT grammar post with new meanings reflecting what I find in this better dictionary. I've also been "learning" (not really) JLPT N1 grammar in class so I'll be adding all that, including the teacher's example sentences, to the same post as soon as I can.

Do you guys have any specific questions about grammar or word usage? I'm getting a Japanese tutor so I should be able to ask them whatever, including anything you guys come up with. For example, if I can't find it out online I'm going to ask what's the difference between や and やら (which I keep finding in novels but nowhere else).

The list of N5 pronunciation changes from the JLPT grammar example list post was getting too long so I decided to put them in their own post instead. Last updated: 2017.09.09

あい、おい、いい —> えー (えぇ) : in manga this usually happens in informal or childish speech but my teachers say in general it's simply showing "the spoken language" (versus the written language).
• いい —> ええ "is good, yes"
• ない —> ねー "is without, -less, non-existing"
• こわい —> こうぇえ "is scary"
• うまい —> うめぇ "is tasty"
• うるさい —> うるせー "is noisy" = shaddap!!
• ぐらい —> ぐれー "around (this time/amount)"
• おもしろい —> おもしれー "is interesting, fun"

い —> ゆ: same as above.
• いく —> ゆく (in most dialects). "goes".
• どう いう —> どう ゆう "what way" (used to mean ex. "what do you mean, what are you saying?").

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lately i've really been noticing all these times when they say の in front of some adjective where i as a stupid learner would say が or は. for example:

「目 の 悪い 人」 people with bad eyes
「非 の ない 者」 people with no faults(?)
「行った 事 の ない 庭園」 a garden (i've) never been to

i myself would've tried to word this as 「目 が 悪い 人」 so i tried searching online but couldn't find anything explaining it. i might have come up with the answer. が would mean "eyes that are/have bad people", "faults that are/have no people". の instead connects the two words before and after it together, showing that both of those act like a set pair that then modifies the THIRD word.

when you say 私 の 犬 は 可愛い "my dog is cute", you're linking together 私 [の] 犬: it's not "me" that's cute, it's not "dog" that's cute, it's the inseperable two words MY DOG together as a set that is cute. 目 の 悪い, you've linked "eyes are bad" together so that BOTH of those modify the third word 人. otherwise we'd be confused, thinking we could be saying "eyes; bad person" (悪い 人) instead of "eyes bad; person" (目 悪い).

i'll slowly try to think about it more and find more examples to add to this post and see if the theory holds true.

Japanese doesn't "really" have plurals so when they need/want to specify, they add in extra words that make the meaning clear. For example, "a bunch/group of", "ten", "diverse types", "all", "every", "countless". Usually people feel confused about this, but we have the same thing in English.

In a phrase like "every dog has its day", we know we're actually talking about multiple (countless) dogs even though we're using the singular "dog". In "they said that's their hat" we assume "they" refers to one single person because probably multiple people aren't sharing a single hat. But in "they announced it on the news" we can assume multiple people because we're referring to the multiple people who work at the news station.

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I'm collecting example sentences for JLPT grammar points. Continuously updated. They're in no particular order aside from general JLPT level. If you need more examples of higher-level grammar, try an Aozora Bunko search like this.

[JP] = Japanese explanation (when I can think of one).

{word} = Where I've seen it used. Only for hard-to-find grammar points that you might not find practice material for easily.

Last updated: 2018.07.16

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