In Japanese, dates are written in year, month, day order (year first, day last), e.g. ２０００年１２月３１日 means year 2000, month 12, day 31, therefore 11/10/09 would be year 2011, month 10 (October), day 9. This is different from the date format typically used in English-speaking countries. Compare:

Besides the order, the way Japanese dates are written also has some other peculiarities that we'll see through this article.

This post is being written in 2017, a year. Think of it, it's a pretty big number, isn't it? Over 2000. If you were to give 12 months 12 different names, that's easy, 7 weekdays, 7 different names, also easy, 4 seasons, 4 names, very easy. But 2017 different names is kind of ridiculous, isn't it? Sure the Japanese have a very simple, normal way to call their years?

In Japanese, some verbs describe the existence, or possession, of things. They are aru ある, 在る, 有る, nai ない, 無い, and iru いる, 居る. In this article, I'll explain the relationship between these words, and how they're used in Japanese.

• Grammar
  
  • Animate and Inanimate Subjects
  • Location
  • Negative Form
  • Possessives
  • Moving Subjects
  • Auxiliary Verbs
    
    • い抜き言葉
    • Copula
    • は Insertion
  • Null-Marked Argument
  • Occurrence
    
    • Permissibility
    • Plausibility
  • Usage Alone
• Misusage
  
  • Homonyms
    
    • 助動詞
    • 要る
  • Unfinished State
  • English Synonyms
    
    • To Exist
    • To Have
    • There is
• Kanji
  
  • Orthography
  • Related Words

One extremely common and very basic word in Japanese is nai. It appears after the particles dewa では, dewanai ではない, after verbs, shinjirarenai 信じられない, and sometimes completely alone, just nai 無い. So, the question is: what does nai mean in Japanese? And why do you hear it so much?

• Negative Nai
  • Multiple Ways to Translate Nai
  • Desu Copula Plus Nai
• Isn't It?
• Nakatta なかった
  • Wasn't It?
• Nee ねぇ, ねー
• Shiran 知らん
• Nai With Other Suffixes
  • Shinai しない
• Nai Desu ないです
• Nainda ないんだ
• Polite Form
• Nakute なくて
• Naide ないで
• Nai 無い, "Nonexistent"
  • Aru 在る
  • Aru 有る
• Nasasou 無さそう
• Sore wa Nai それはない
  • Sore wa Ari それはあり
• Mu 無
• ない vs. 無い
• Nakunai なくない
  • Nakunakunai なくなくない
    • Nakunakunakunai なくなくなくない

In Japanese, months don't have names like January, February, etc., the way we have in English. Instead, February, the second month, for example, is referred to as "month two," ni-gatsu 二月. Its number may also be spelled with an Arabic numeral instead of kanji, as ２月.

Likewise, the name of the anime 3-Gatsu no Lion ３月のライオン means literally "The Lion of March."

In Japan, a week has seven days just like everywhere else in the world (probably). For reference, this is what the weekdays are called in Japanese:

If you have been reading manga for a while you might have encountered this very strange kana: ヴ. The obvious problem with it is that it is an u う in katakana, u ウ, but it has a "diacritic," or tenten, ヴ. You don't put diacritics in aiueo アイウエオ, only in certain syllables like kakikukeko カキクケコ to make them gagigugego ガギグゲゴ, right? So the ヴ kana makes no sense, and yet it exists.

The words for "up," "down," "left," and "right" in Japanese are ue 上, shita 下, hidari 左 and migi 右 respectively.

In Japanese, the 々 symbol means the kanji 漢字 that comes before it should be repeated, e.g.: 人々 is the same as 人人, the 人 kanji twice. It's called noma ノマ, kurikaeshi 繰り返し, among other names.

So you're playing some RPG in Japanese and there's a "map," or chizu 地図, and someone tells you which cardinal direction you have to go to complete the current quest, but there's a problem: you have no idea how to say north, south, east, west in Japanese!

Worry not! Here's Japanese compass rose so you don't lose your way:

• Cardinal Directions
• Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, Northwest
• North-Northeast, East-Northeast, etc.
• East-to-West, North-to-South
• Word for "Cardinal Directions" in Japanese
  • "Cardinal Point"
• NSEW Abbreviations
• Names Containing Cardinal Directions

If you've been watching KonoSuba このすば (if not you should) you might have noticed the character Megumin chants her "explosion" magic with a certain peculiar word: bakuretsu 爆裂. However, there's the more common bakuhatsu 爆発 which also means "explosion." So what's the difference between bakuhatsu and bakuretsu in Japanese?

If you've been learning Japanese for some time you might have heard about the so-called "kanji radicals," or bushu 部首, and wondered exactly what is so radical about kanji? Do they practice skate-boarding? Bungee-jumping? No? Then what's the meaning of "kanji radicals" after all?

In Japanese, the word nakama 仲間 means "someone who's in the same group as you," or can refer to the group itself. This group is, often, a group of friends, colleagues, etc. But it can also mean other sort of groups, like in a "birds of same feather" sense, for example.

In Japanese, kono mama, sono mama, ano mama このまま, そのまま, あのまま mean the way something is right now, used to refer to things that have continued "this way" or "that way" for a while, often in the sense of "the way things are right now is bad." For example:

• kono mama ja minna ga shinjau!
  このままじゃみんなが死んじゃう！
  If [things] continue this way, everybody will die!
  (contraction of shinde-shimau 死んでしまう.)
  
  • We must do something! We need to change the way things are right now!
• zutto kono mama de ii
  ずっとこのままでいい
  [It] would be good [if] [things] forever continued this way.
  • I wish things would stay like this forever, unchanged.

These phrases use the demonstrative pronouns kono, sono, ano この, その, あの combined with the noun mama まま.

See the article about mama まま for details on grammar.

For reference, some usage examples:

• kono mama ja...!
  このままじゃ･･･！
  The way things are right now...!
  (incomplete sentence, typically means something bad will happen.)
• dame da, kono mama ja
  ダメだ、このままじゃ
  [It] is no good, the way things are right now.
  (dislocation.)
  • kono mama ja dame da
    このままじゃダメだ
    The way things are right now is no good.
    • It won't work. It can't go on like this. We must fix it and make it good somehow.
• kore wo sono mama taberu to oishikunai
  それをそのまま食べると美味しくない
  If [you] eat this that way, [it] isn't tasty.
  • If you eat it the way it is, without some preparation or processing first, it isn't tasty, i.e. it's a raw ingredient, and you have to cook it first.
• sono mama ugokanaide kudasai
  そのまま動かないでください
  That way, please don't move.
  • Stay the way you are right now. Don't change pose. E.g. when taking a photo.
• ano mama hotte-okenai
  あのままほっておけない
  [I] can't leave [it] that way.
  
  • I have to, or had to, do something. I just couldn't ignore it.

You have ever watched anime you might have noticed that there are plenty of Japanese words that end with masu ます or mashita ました, and that might make you wonder: what does masu means? What does mashita means? Why all these words end like that?