In Japanese, uso 嘘 means a "lie," an "untruth," although it's often translated in other ways.

It's also spelled uso うそ and uso ウソ.

• Meaning
  
  • Antonym
• Translation
• Usage
• "To Lie" in Japanese
• "Liar" in Japanese

One huge question people tend to have about Japanese is: why is the particle wa は pronounced wa わ despite the wa particle being written as ha は? And while we're at it, why is the particle e へ pronounced e え despite being written as he へ? And the particle wo を which sounds like o お anyway?! Why are these particles pronounced differently from what you'd expect?!

In English, yonkoma, or 4 koma, means a "four-panel manga," in Japanese: yon-koma manga 4コマ漫画. These four panel comics are rather unique for a couple of reasons, including the fact that they're read differently from your typical manga.

• Types
• How to Read
• Format
  • Variation
  • Strip Titles
  • Single and Double Column
  • Serialization
    • ４コマ誌
  • Chapters
    • Big Panel
    • Tall Illustration

If you have watched anime in Japanese, like, ever, then there is no way you haven't heard the word desu です at least once. But what does desu mean in Japanese? What about the words da だ, deshita でした, datta だった, janai じゃない, and desu ka ですか? What is the meaning of these words that appear in a lot of Japanese phrases?

In this article I put together the basics of how they work for people who don't know a bit of Japanese, plus differences and nuances of words such as dearu, dearimasu, degozaimasu, and so on for people who already know a bit of Japanese, in order to answer most doubts you could probably have about them.

• Translation of Desu です
• Kore Wa Is Not "This Is"
• Deshita でした
• Deshita でした vs. Katta かった
• Expressions with Desu です and Deshita でした
• Da だ, Datta だった
• Difference Between Da だ and Desu です
• Janai じゃない
• Janakatta じゃなかった
• Desu Ka ですか, Janai Ka じゃないか
• Daga だが, Desu Ga ですが
• Darou だろう, Deshou でしょう
• No Da のだ, No Desu のです
• Nda んだ, Ndesu んです
• Janee じゃねぇ, Janeeka じゃねぇか
• Dearu である, Deatta であった
• Difference Between Desu です and Dearu である
• De Arimasu であります
• Dewa Arimasen ではありません
• Dewa Nai ではない
• Dewa では and Ja じゃ
• Jaarimasen じゃありません
• Janai Desu じゃないです, Dewanai Desu ではない
• De Gozaimasu でございます
• De Gozaru でござる
• Kanji of Desu です
• Kanji of Dearu である and Dewa Nai ではない
• Cheat Sheet for Desu です

Singular and plural are grammar concepts that exist in every language. In singular you have one "thing" and in plural you have two or more "things." What changes between languages is how you express the plurality in words. In English we often use an "s" suffix, but how do we make a word plural in Japanese?

• Kinds of Plurals
• Making Simple Nouns Plural
• Ambiguous Plurality
• Telling Apart Singular Nouns & Plural Nouns
• Nouns Plural by Default
• Personal Nouns to Plural
• Personal Pronouns to Plural
• Demonstrative Pronouns to Plural

If you watch anime, you might have noticed the word tachi たち, sometimes written with kanji, tachi 達, being used around. This word usually shows up in a phrase containing the words "we" or "they." How does tachi work? And what's the difference between tachi 達 and ra 等, another similar suffix?

• How to Use
• Tachi, Ra & Personal Pronouns
• Pluralizing Suffixes & How Tachi Works
• Tachi 達 vs. Ra ら
• Tachi with Inanimate Objects
• Other Pluralizing Suffixes
• Tassu 達す and Tassuru 達する

If you have watched anime once in your life, you may have heard one of these words: anata 貴方, omae お前, temee 手前, kimi 君 and kisama 貴様. And if you have watched anime enough, you may have figured out that they all mean "you" in Japanese. Is this even possible?! Are there differences between the meanings of these words?

In Japanese, anta あんた means "you." It's a second person pronoun, and a corruption of the more polite anata あなた. It's also spelled アンタ, with katakana.

• Usage
• Plural
  • Examples
• References

In Japanese, anata あなた means multiple things: "you," a second person pronoun, "they," a third person pronoun, and, sometimes, it's a way to call one's "husband."It's also spelled 貴方, 貴女, 貴男, and 彼方.

In anime, ahegao アヘ顔 means a certain iconic panting facial expression, an "O-face." It's a recurring trope in drawn pornography (hentai 変態), in non-drawn pornography, and even in non-pornography. Pretty much a meme at this point.

Not to be confused with ahoge アホ毛, which is something else entirely.

In Japanese, rendaku 連濁 is a change in pronunciation where the first syllable of a suffix gets a　dakuten 濁点 diacritic. In other words, it changes ka, sa, ta, ha かさたは, to ga, za, da, ba がざばだ and so on.

For example: hito 人, "person," reduplicated becomes hitobito ひとびと (人々), "people." The morphemes "nose," hana はな, and "blood," chi ち, merge into hanadi はなぢ (鼻血), "nosebleed," and kami かみ, "god," suffixed to death becomes shinigami しにがみ (死神), "god of death."

• Examples
• Grammar
  
  • 半濁音化
  • Sandhi
• Exceptions
  
  • Across Words
  • Lyman's Law
  • Dvandva
  • Mimetic Words
• References

How do you say "a," "an," and "the" in Japanese is a common question by learners who already know English.

After all, those are the definite and indefinite articles, used everywhere in English grammar to determine the definiteness of nouns: "a" cat and "the" cat mean different things.

However, in Japanese, such articles do not exist. You read that right: Japanese does not have articles, at all.

• Definiteness of Nouns
• Sentence Examples

The simplest sentences you can make in any language are those that have one subject, one verb and one object, which is why I think learning to understand and form those sentences is one of the first steps to learn Japanese. If you can't say "the cat eats the rat" or understand it when something like that is said, you won't be able to understand anything more complex than that, so in this article I'll explain how such simple sentences work in Japanese.

In Japanese grammar, "particles,", or joshi 助詞, are the basis of a very large part of the Japanese language, however, they're also a very alien concept to a lot of people learning Japanese. In this article, I'll explain what are particles and how they work in Japanese.

• Identification
  
  • In Katakana
  • In Kanji
  • Syntax
• Functions
  
  • Case-Marking Particles
  • Binding Particles
  • Listing Particles
  • Adverbial Particles
  • Conjunctive Particles
  • Sentence-Ending Particles
    
    • Female Particles
  • Copula Particles
  • Noun Particles
  • Particles with Multiple Functions
  • Functions with Multiple Particles

In Japanese, verbs work in a different way than they do in English. In English, we use words like "will," "would," "not," and so on to change the meaning of the phrase. In Japanese, the verb, its conjugation, and added suffixes do that instead.