Feb
05
2010

Japanese Cheat Sheet

After 2 months of planning and composition (okay, so I did procrastinate quite a bit), I now understand how Moses felt when he descended Mount Sinai with the holy tablets. Behold, Nihonshock’s newly revised and much improved Japanese cheat sheet!

Sheet Updated, click here to go to new page

What is this?

This is a “cheat sheet” for the Japanese language. It is an attempt to condense and organize as many of the basic elements of the language onto one sheet of paper as possible.

How do I use it?

The intended use of this document is for you to download it, print it on two sides of one sheet of paper and keep it wherever you need it (in your Japanese textbook, on your desk, in your pocket, etc).

It’s possible to keep the cheat sheet on your computer, but it won’t be anywhere near as handy or portable as a printed version, and you’ll need to do quite a bit of scrolling and zooming because of the small font size.

What information is inside?

Page 1

  • Formal (polite) verb forms
  • Informal verb forms
  • Neutral verb forms
  • Verb conjugation guide for U-Verbs, RU-Verbs and the irregulars (suru, kuru)
  • Hiragana chart
  • Katakana chart
  • Kanji chart listing all JLPT N5 (previously: Level 4) kanji.
  • Chart of the forms of de aru (desu)
  • Adjective/Adverbs usage chart

Page 2

  • Core particles: は, が, を, に, と, で, も, か, へ, の, や (wa, ga, o, ni, to, de, mo, ka, e, no, ya)
    • Usage points
    • Example sentences color coded for easy vocabulary tracking
  • Assisting particles: だけ, しか, ほど, より, でも, くらい, ばかり, から, まで (dake, shika, hodo, yori, demo, kurai, bakari, kara, made)
    • Example sentences color coded for easy vocabulary tracking
  • Common grammatical words and patterns
    • Example sentences color coded for easy vocabulary tracking
  • Verbs for giving and receiving
  • A small space to add a couple small written notes of your own

Who is this for?

This document will be most useful for beginner to intermediate Japanese learners. A beginner will find the document to be more of a roadmap to what information they should study next and how it fits into the “bigger picture,” and an intermediate Japanese learner get more use with this document as a reference for review.

Why are there four versions?

There are four versions of the file in order to accommodate for users in different parts of the world (North America uses different paper sizes from the rest of the world), and to provide users with a choice regarding how Japanese text is written: using the Japanese hiragana script, or using romaji (phonetic representation in the western alphabet).

What this document is NOT

This document is in no way intended to be a substitute for serious study and learning. Acquiring a human language with 2000+ years of history is a massive undertaking, and this cheat sheet provides only the bare minimum explanation for topics that have great depth.

Nor is this document a comprehensive overview of Japanese language. I’ve tried my best to include as much of the most useful and basic elements as possible, but to get this onto 1 sheet of paper, many things were omitted.

Changes from the old version

Aside from a complete, from-scratch graphical overhaul in Adobe Ilustrator (the old version was made in Microsoft Word), this new version contains updated and expanded information. Here is a pretty complete list of changes:

  • “Polite” verbs forms is now more accurately called “Formal” forms, and the command form ～nasai has been moved into this category accordingly.
  • Instead of marking forms that cannot be made into a verb with koto/no, noun-able forms are now marked.
  • Added abrupt command forms in the informal category.
  • In both the formal and informal categories, the causative form of kuru has been corrected to kosaseru, not koraseru
  • Added to the neutral verb forms category: Even (if)…, To do too much…, To do… and so on, To seem to want to…
  • The note about using verbs as nouns with koto or no is now in the footer.
  • Added a note about potential rudeness with the word darou.
  • Added a note about how desu/da changes when noun-ified.
  • Changed the na-adjective noun form to the form without sa, since this is the more common method (note added)
  • Added the continuous/combining form for na-adjectives.
  • Changed the old explanation about easily confused i-adjectives to the true difference (the ~ei thing is just a shortcut, no i-adjectives end in ~ei but there are a few na-adjectives that end in い and are not preceeded by an e-line sound.). Added a couple commonly confused na-adjectives also.
  • Added a note about the adjective ii, because it always conjugates as yoi.
  • Made numerous changes to explanations and example sentences for the particles.
  • Added the particle no.
  • To the common grammatical words/structures section, added: ka mo shirenai and no you na/ni
  • Removed tame from grammatical words section, to make room and because it was already mentioned in the informal verbs section on page 1.
  • Added a note that kudasaru is typically used as kudasai.
  • Added a small space for the learner to write a few notes of their own.

 

 

Final word

Please comment and let me know what you think of the cheat sheet, if you notice any mistakes or if you have any suggestions for improvement. I’ll release minor updates to the cheat sheet whenever I get a new round of prints, but the next major update probably won’t be until next year.

More posts (tagged) like this...

Posted under Language & Study, Most Popular Posts by Nihonshock.

34 Responses


  • Simply Awesome!
    Thanks for the update :) I used the previous version to help me remember the basics for JLPT.
    Keep up the good work! ありがとう!

    by: Paula, Feb 5th at 8:24 am

  • どういたしまして！ I’m glad it was useful for you, and hope it helped on the JLPT. :-)

    by: Lloyd Vincent, Feb 5th at 10:01 pm

  • For posting it 国内 you could always use a 代引き?

    by: DAZ-Y3, Feb 5th at 10:58 pm

  • No, I’ll pay the postage.

    by: Lloyd Vincent, Feb 6th at 2:44 am

  • wow, this is great! Thank you, I’ll definitely recommend it to my Japanese class :)

    by: Jess, Feb 7th at 3:20 pm

  • Nice work, Lloyd! A lot of useful pieces in there. I’m going to pass this on to my brother for his upcoming visit to Japan. Also, re-tweeted and stumbled.

    by: michael, Feb 7th at 11:17 pm

  • @Jess & michael: Thanks for the help getting the word out, I’m glad you guys like it! :-)

    by: Lloyd Vincent, Feb 9th at 10:25 pm

  • Hi there

    I discovered this blog today. What a delight! I’ve been studying Japanese for two years now but somehow I just can’t get my head around those damn katakana… I can read them but I always seem to have problems remembering how to write them. This will come in handy! (As well as the grammar bits). ありがとうございます and keep up the good work on this awesome blog!

    by: Mats, Feb 16th at 2:12 pm

  • Very useful ^_^
    Thanks !!

    by: Enrico, Mar 3rd at 12:13 pm

  • The way this says the potential form is formed is different from how http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/potential says it is formed. Which one do I follow? Can you give it a little depth for me? Are you just leaving out changing ~る verbs to ~られ for the ~E stem or is that something different?

    Help!

    by: stevepoppers, Mar 6th at 3:18 pm

  • ARIGATOU GOZAIMASU..!!
    MY EMAIL: *****@yahoo.com
    [edited: email address censored. Leaving your email address in comments is a good way to get lots of spam]

    by: Endi Hidetaki Maruyama, Mar 23rd at 7:15 am

  • Sorry for the slow reply, I spent March on hiatus.

    @steve: The ～られる form of る verbs, strictly speaking, is the passive form, but it can also be used to show potentiality. So you can say either 食べれる or 食べられる for “can eat”.

    I didn’t include this on the cheat sheet because I thought it was a little advanced.

    Again, this cheat sheet is a basis and a map for learning, it’s not comprehensive.

    PS. The passive form can also be used in place of the regular form in polite Japanese (eg. どうされますか？ = What will you do?)

    by: Lloyd Vincent, Apr 1st at 8:00 am

  • I received one of these bad boys today from Rob Morgan. Pretty spiffy! I’ll leave just one thought if you ever end up doing another iteration – rather than the idea of the kanji in English, I think the Japanese idea written in hiragana would be more useful.
    They’re very professionally made though. I was surprised it was something you weren’t selling somewhere =)

    by: Matt Enlow, Apr 14th at 4:22 pm

  • Thanks for the complements, Matt! I hope the cheat sheet is useful to you, that’s all the payment I ask. :-)

    The thing about the kanji is it would be hard to sort out multiple readings in the space available, so i’d probably end up just confusing a lot of learners. I’ll keep it in mind, though. (there will be a minor update sooner or later)

    by: Lloyd Vincent, Apr 14th at 11:29 pm

  • Just a note: you have your donation prices and what they get, right?

    The first says for $5, second for $10, but the third also says $5!

    I think it was supposed to be $50. ^_^

    by: Ukchana, Jul 11th at 10:17 pm

  • Or it could be $15 . . . *has no idea*

    by: Ukchana, Jul 11th at 10:17 pm

  • Nope. $5 inside Japan (because I mail from in Japan, it’s not so expensive).

    Although a $50 donation would make me very very happy. :-)

    by: Lloyd Vincent, Jul 11th at 11:43 pm

  • Thanks for the cheetsheet. Able you see your hardwork as a neat presentation. I hope I’ll pass my N5 definitely with this :-)

    by: AK, Oct 17th at 3:09 am

  • This is genius. Thank you so much for sharing this.

    by: clarkc, Mar 15th at 2:39 pm

  • I would never be able to thank you enough for how the cheetsheet was helpful to me, I’ve been looking for something like this for ages. this website is amazing and very useful and I’ll definitely recommend it to my friends.
    THANKS and keep up the GREAT work Lloyd.

    by: Samuel, Mar 24th at 4:47 am

  • THANK YOU SO MUCH! I’ve been studying Japanese a few years now and still get hung up on things like は and が, You’ve just made quite a few things so clear for me now, thank you SO MUCH!

    by: Laura Connolly, Jun 20th at 12:10 am

  • =OOOOO

    So awesome…words fail to convey…awesomeness. I have a copy I carry around in my purse now, and I take it out during dull/awkward moments. Thanks!

    by: Midori, Jun 20th at 12:54 pm

  • thanks SO much! :D im 13 and im learning SO much! :D since you live in Japan, is it really pretty? have you ever been to Tokyo? If so whats it like? sorry for all of the Q’s i just really want ot visit Japan sometime(:

    by: Jacquelyn Peters, Aug 14th at 10:49 am

  • This thing really comes in handy !
    I’ve been living in Japan for a couple of months but I really suck with Japanese, especially with grammar, so I was considering building such a sheet as a review helper and pocket savior :-) But you did for me, can’t thank you enough :-)
    By the way, I’m having lessons in an associative school, with volunteer teachers and almost free course (100円/h just to pay the part-time admin). Would you mind if I bring some of these to my classmates, and why not leave a small supply there also ?
    I’m in Yokohama ^_^

    by: Armand, Nov 29th at 11:59 am

  • totemo iidesu…..

    by: hema, Dec 2nd at 12:45 am

  • Sweet sheets! Reposting on Twitter+Facebook to my JP class. Thanks for these epically informal creations!

    by: Akiyo Minase (Jesus Juarez), Dec 2nd at 2:53 am

  • amazing

    by: bryan kio fukuoka, Mar 14th at 9:56 pm

  • Thank you so much! This is very helpful :)!

    by: High school student, Apr 19th at 5:38 am

  • Could you please re-up the Hiragana-A4-Version? Mediafire seems to be really stupid and thinks it’s some kind of copyright infringement.

    by: A4, May 1st at 1:41 am

  • I actually appealed the file suspension a couple weeks ago but have gotten no word from Mediafire since. It was Warner Brothers, who claimed my 1.5mb PDF file was a copy of Final Destination 5. So, this is how the DMCA is used.

    Anyway, I re-uploaded the file and changed the link. Should work now.

    by: Lloyd Vincent, May 1st at 6:24 am

  • This is what Telesyncs have come to. Final Destination at the quality of 1.5MB …

    I’m looking forward to other cheat sheets from you. As soon as I’m back from my Japan vacation I’ll order some of those from you.

    ありがとうございました

    by: A4, May 1st at 3:26 pm

  • Where is the link?? The href of the ATTENTION sticker is the same as its src: it just takes you to a small picture of the sticker!?

    by: Jim, Jul 31st at 11:17 am

  • @ Jim: Big oops on my part, sorry about that! Link fixed.

    by: Lloyd Vincent, Jul 31st at 11:49 am

  • ありがとう　ございます

    by: 月山　, Apr 10th at 11:05 pm