How to google for Japanese grammar

Summary: If you google for “Japanese grammar” (spelled in latin characters) plus the grammar term in hiragana, the solution to your grammar problems is usually among the first 1-5 hits. This works amazingly well even for tricky questions (examples at the bottom of the page).

This search technique made learning Japanese much easier for me, often reducing the solution to understanding given grammar to just a quick Google search. As a consequence, I’ve only asked very few questions online (even though I had lots of them). While creating the beginner’s course, I had to google for many references and was again surprised at how well this technique works. It is not suitable for complete beginners, you should be able to distinguish words, sentence parts and a bit of grammar. But trust me: even after finishing a course or text book you will have lots of questions.

  • Try to break down a sentence into chunks and isolate the smallest part you don’t understand
  • Google for the hiragana part of this, e.g. japanese grammar として (better examples below)
  • Putting the hiragana part in quotation marks enforces its occurrence in the search results (but I would try without those first), see example 4 below
  • Play around with variations of the hiragana part. If you have a hunch what the sentence could mean, add additional guide words (also spelled in lating characters, e.g. “verb”, “adjective”, “grammar” or “difference”)

As a rule of thumb, the relevant part is usually not written in kanji. The hiragana part, even if incomplete or wrong, often takes you to the solution.

If googling does not help, you can ask the question (with a full sentence) on hinative or reddit, but be very precise about the part you do not understand, otherwise you will just get a translation, especially on hinative. Moreover, do NOT trust the AI-generated answers on hinative. Below are some examples.

そこ の 巣す に あった 卵たまご を 知しらぬ か (soko no su ni atta tamago wo shiranu ka – Don’t you know the egg in this nest?)

巣/su: nest
卵/tamago: egg
知る/shiru: to know

The sentence is from Natsume’s book of friends. Originally, I did not understand 知らぬ/shiranu (uncommon verb negation not found in every textbook).

  • Search 1: Omit the kanji, google for Japanese grammar らぬ , first hit. Not even the correct grammar term, because “ら” is part of the negative verb stem.
  • Search 2: Google for Japanese grammar ぬ (which is the correct ending in this case), first hit

私わたし は あなた に 音楽おんがく 辞やめさせられた ん だ よ (watashi ha, anata ni ongaku yamesaserareta n da yo – I’ve been forced to quit playing music by you)

辞めさせられた/yamesaserareta is a complex conjugation (past passive causative of yameru, i.e. yameru (to stop) -> yamesaseru (causative, to make someone stop) -> yamesaserareru (passive causative, to be forced to stop) -> yamesaserareta (past passive causative, to have been forced to stop).

  • japanese grammar めさせられた reveals a nice video on youtube. The first three hits give some good guidance. However, this is not the correct grammar term, it has the verb stem inside (me from yameru). Maybe you know this already and try:
  • japanese grammar させられた

In case you wonder about the ending of the sentence (ん だ よ/n da yo) or just the ん: Try yourself with Japanese grammar ん or  んだよ.

Remark: Whether the listener actively or passively forced the speaker to stop depends on the context, but this is a topic of its on related to the Japanese causative in general.

来くる な 殺ころされる ぞ (kuru na korosareru zo – don’t come (closer), you’ll be killed.)

殺す/korosu: to kill

The “na” here is the negative command form (kuru na – don’t come). Since it’s quite strong, it is maybe not taught in class. Even though the kana part “るな” doesn’t accuratly describe this grammar (it mixes up the ending of “kuru” and “na”), Japanese grammar るな brings up the solution in the first hit. You’d probably already know the meaning of “kuru” and google for japanese grammar な only. However, this is ambiguous and refers to the most common use of “na” as particle. Since we know that “na” is related to a verb here, try this instead: Japanese grammar な verb

死しにたくなかったら 早はやく ここ から 逃にげ出だしなさい (shinitakunakattara hayaku koko kara nigedashinasai – if you don’t want to die, get out of here quickly)

死ぬ/shinu: To die
早く/hayaku: Quickly
逃げ出す/nigedasu: To run away; to flee;

shinitakunakattara is another conjugation chain: shinu (to die) -> shinitakunai (do not want to die) -> shinitakunakatta (did not want to die) -> shinitakunakattara (if do not want to die). Note that the past tense is just a helper to get the potential form here.

Most textbooks only mention that some conjugated words can be further conjugated. The result is the above chain and this one is harder to google.