初めまして

One does not need to study Japanese for too long to realize how marvelously multifaceted it is. There are so many nuances at play whenever a sentence is uttered that it may be very tricky to get a point across the way one originally intended.

Normally, in Western languages such as French, English or Portuguese (all of which I have taught at some point), meaning comes mainly from words, intonation and figures of speech. In the Japanese language however, there are more elements at play, namely particles (助詞), ideograms (漢字), set expressions (表現) and sound symbolism (擬声語). While none of these aspects is unique to the Japanese language, they play a crucial role which can totally alter the image a listener pictures in his or her head when processing a sentence.

For instance, when someone reads the following phrase in English

I made a cake for desert.

or in French

J'ai préparé un gâteau pour le dessert .

or yet in Portuguese

Eu fiz um bolo para a sobremesa.

all one is able to grasp is that a generic someone is stating that he/she/it has made a cake for desert, with the perfect past tense implying the cake is ready. In Japanese, if the speaker so desired, the exact same phrase could express a whole lot more, such as the following:

• if the individual who has baked the cake is a woman, a child, an aged person, ...
•  whether this individual has made the said cake in order to please someone, as a favor, or in preparation for something else (maybe some people are coming)
• whether this individual thinks that the amount of cake baked is not enough, and he/she/it wished he/she/it had baked more
• the ideogram used to write the verb つくる would give the extra nuance of the importance of that cake (or of the act itself) in the whole context
• the sentence ending particle could emphasize, brag or stress the fact, provide additional emotion to the phrase or prepare the listener for the remainder of the conversation.

In this blog, I'll summarize all side notes I have been gathering throughout my years of learning Japanese, as a memory refresher for myself and for anyone who might find it useful. I'll focus mainly on the nuances of words / expressions, as well as some useful yet overlooked grammar details.