Learn Japanese Grammar Essentials: Particles, Counters, Adjectives and Verb Forms in 140 Flashcards

Most "grammar" decks are walls of rules. Japanese Grammar Essentials (deck code XO1665, 140 cards) is more practical than that. It is really four drills in one deck, and if you study it block by block, you get the building blocks every beginner sentence uses.

What's inside, block by block

1. Particles (cards 1-20): は, が, を, に, で, と, も, へ, や, の, から, まで, より, か, ね, よ, だけ, しか, ながら, けど. Each one comes with a short example on the back.
2. Counters (cards 21-70): つ, 人, 枚, 本, 冊, 匹, 頭, 羽, 杯, 台, 軒, 階, 回, 日, ヶ月, 年, 足, 歳.
3. Adjectives (cards 71-120): 30 い-adjectives and 20 な-adjectives, with past and negative forms for some of them.
4. Verb forms (cards 121-140): polite, negative, past, te-form, たい, potential and volitional for 食べる and 飲む, plus する, 来る and ある.

How to study it

Counters: learn the sound changes, not every card. Fifty counter cards look heavy, but they repeat the same few patterns. 1, 3, 6, 8 and 10 change the sound of counters that start with h/f (本, 匹, 杯): いっぽん, さんぼん, ろっぽん, but にほん stays regular. 1 and 8 double the next consonant before k/s/t (いっさつ, いっそく, いっけん, いっかい). Write that rule on one card, then go through the deck and check each card against it. The cards that break the rule (ひとり, ふたり, ふつか, はたち, よにん) are the ones worth drilling hardest. Most counter blocks stop at 2 or 3, so add a few 4-10 cards for 本 and 人 yourself.

Adjectives: drill them in pairs of opposites. The deck lists 大きい/小さい, 高い/安い, 重い/軽い, 便利/不便, 安全/危険. Shuffle each pair together and say the past and negative forms out loud: 大きかった, 大きくない, きれいだった, きれいじゃない. Remember that いい conjugates from よい (よかった, よくない). Two small fixes to the deck: 同じ is listed as a な-adjective, but it goes straight onto a noun (同じ本, not 同じな本). And three cards each squeeze two different kanji onto one back: 暑い (weather) vs 熱い (to the touch), 速い (speed) vs 早い (early), 暖かい vs 温かい. Split each of those into two cards.

Verbs: use 飲む as your model u-verb. The 20 verb cards contrast one ru-verb (食べる) with one u-verb (飲む). Before adding new verbs, make a table of the te-form endings by final kana (う/つ/る → って, む/ぶ/ぬ → んで, く → いて, ぐ → いで, す → して).

What the title promises but the deck doesn't cover

Even with all those cards, the deck has no sentence patterns: no 〜ています, 〜てください, ませんでした or 〜から/〜ので clauses. Once you know these 140 cards, that's your next layer.

Related decks

For vocabulary to use with these particles, see our JLPT N5 vocabulary guide. For the kanji behind the counters, see Kanji N5 & N4.

Search for XO1665 in the Flip It library to start reviewing.