LANGUAGE
From written signs to everyday conversation.
Mandarin Chinese / Taiwan
Bopomofo / Zhuyin
注音符號A set of phonetic symbols used to show Mandarin pronunciation. Syllables are assembled from an initial, a medial or final, and a tone.
The first version was created in 1913 and released in 1918. It remains a practical reading, dictionary, and keyboard tool in Taiwan.
- SYMBOLS
- 37
- TONES
- 5
- ALSO CALLED
- Zhuyin / Zhuyin Fuhao
Initials
21Medials
3Finals
13Tones
5Kanji + Hanzi studio
All 214 Kangxi radicals, all 2,136 Jōyō kanji, thousands of stroke models, character readings and writing-standard comparisons.
Open character study →JAPANESE / FOUNDATIONS
日本語
Start with the words you need.
Build your own sentences.
The words for everyday life.
Find a situation, read the phrase, or show the native text. Learn common replies as well as questions.
Pronunciation & how to use these phrases
Start with the writing charts, then listen to complete words. Device speech depends on installed voices and may use a different regional accent. Spelling and sound do not match one-to-one.
大丈夫です can accept reassurance or decline an offer. Here いえ、大丈夫です clearly declines. Use gestures and the surrounding question to interpret replies. Learning path: recognise words and phrases → build simple sentences → practise questions and replies → expand tense and connected speech → read and discuss longer texts. These foundation lessons are available now; later stages will grow with the collection.
24 phrases
Basics
Communication
Bathrooms
Food & ordering
Shops & payment
Taxi & transport
Airport
Help
Listen for
Reply
Hotels
JAPANESE / GRAMMAR REFERENCE
8 chaptersForms, rules & structure
Standard contemporary Japanese. Plain and polite forms are distinguished; morphology is independent of subject person.
Grammar terminology
- Noun
- A word used to name or classify an entity: person, place, object, substance, idea.
- Adjective
- A word that describes a property; its form and position depend on the language.
- Pronoun
- A form used to refer to a participant or entity without repeating a full noun phrase.
- Determiner
- A word such as an article, demonstrative or possessive that helps specify a noun phrase.
- Verb
- A word heading a predicate, often describing an action, event or state.
- Conjugation
- A pattern of verb forms expressing grammatical distinctions such as person, tense or mood.
- Declension
- A pattern of noun, pronoun or adjective forms, often marking case, number and gender.
- Case
- A distinction marking a noun phrase’s grammatical role or its relationship to a governing word.
- Gender
- A grammatical classification of nouns; it need not match sex or have a transparent meaning.
- Agreement
- A form changes to match features of another expression, such as person, number, gender or case.
- Tense
- A grammatical way of locating a situation relative to a time of reference.
- Aspect
- How a situation is viewed: for example ongoing, habitual, completed or prior to a reference point.
- Mood
- A grammatical distinction associated with assertion, possibility, commands, wishes or other clause functions.
- Finite form
- A verb form that can serve as a clause’s main inflected verb, contrasting with infinitives and participles. The precise criteria vary by language.
- Participle
- A verb-derived form used in constructions such as modifiers, compound tenses or passives; its roles vary by language.
- Infinitive
- A nonfinite verb form in languages that have one; it is not automatically equivalent to English “to + verb”.
- Subject / object
- Grammatical relations in a clause, not universal synonyms for “doer” and “receiver”.
- Clitic
- A short grammatical form that depends phonologically on a neighboring word.
- Transitive
- Describes a verb construction that takes a direct object.
- Register
- A variety of expression associated with context, relationship or level of formality.
Nouns, particles & the copula
- Japanese nouns do not inflect for grammatical gender or obligatory number. Particles follow noun phrases to mark their role.
- A nominal predicate can use plain だ or polite です; past and negative forms belong to the copular construction rather than a gender agreement system.
| Construction | Plain | Polite |
|---|---|---|
| nonpast nominal | 学生だ | 学生です |
| past nominal | 学生だった | 学生でした |
| negative nominal | 学生ではない | 学生ではありません |
| past negative | 学生ではなかった | 学生ではありませんでした |
Worked examples
私は学生ではありません。
I am not a student.
How it works: は marks the topic and ではありません negates the nominal predicate 学生.
Location
Topic + は + どこですか asks where something is. は is pronounced wa as a particle.
トイレはどこですか。Where is the toilet?
Read the model, complete the gap, then change one word and explain what changes.
Try it yourself
1 / 1 · 0 correctComplete the model using the rule.
トイレ___どこですか。
All words · vocabulary quiz
1 / 20 · 0 correctChoose the English meaning.
水（みず）
水（みず）water
水（みず）water
食べ物（たべもの）food
食べ物（たべもの）food
牛乳（ぎゅうにゅう）milk
牛乳（ぎゅうにゅう）milk
パンbread
パンbread
コーヒーcoffee
コーヒーcoffee
お茶（おちゃ）tea
お茶（おちゃ）tea
ご飯（ごはん）rice
ご飯（ごはん）rice
トイレbathroom
トイレbathroom
空港（くうこう）airport
空港（くうこう）airport
駅（えき）station
駅（えき）station
切符（きっぷ）ticket
切符（きっぷ）ticket
出口（でぐち）exit
出口（でぐち）exit
左（ひだり）left
左（ひだり）left
右（みぎ）right
右（みぎ）right
今日（きょう）today
今日（きょう）today
明日（あした）tomorrow
明日（あした）tomorrow
一（いち）one
一（いち）one
二（に）two
二（に）two
三（さん）three
三（さん）three
助け（たすけ）help
助け（たすけ）help
Between the words
すみません gets attention and can apologize. 店内で means eat in; お持ち帰り means take away. A clerk may ask 袋はご利用ですか for a bag.
こんにちは。
Service encountersすみません gets attention and can apologize. 店内で means eat in; お持ち帰り means take away. A clerk may ask 袋はご利用ですか for a bag.
こんにちは。
大丈夫です can accept reassurance or decline an offer. Here いえ、大丈夫です clearly declines. Use gestures and the surrounding question to interpret replies.
Read the situation
1 / 1 · 0 correctRecall the opening greeting from this collection.
Practice scores last for this visit.Japanese audio is unavailable on this device. All exercises work without audio.