#82 How to Make Japanese Click

“Japanese grammar is difficult.”
“Verb and adjective conjugations are difficult.”
Honestly, I understand.

If you have just started playing football⚽️, juggling the ball or controlling a pass is going to feel difficult. If you are not used to reading books📖, even sitting down and concentrating on a long piece of writing can be tiring.

Almost everything feels difficult at the beginning.
But instead of stopping at: “This is difficult.” 
Perhaps we can take one more step and ask: “What could I do to make this a little easier to understand?”

That question might help us move forward.
Today, I would like to introduce one way of thinking about Japanese grammar😊

It involves three steps: connecting grammar with an image, finding the bigger idea behind it, and then using it yourself and correcting your understanding.

First, connect grammar with a situation

Let’s take the Japanese grammar pattern ～なります as an example.

It looks quite simple, but many students still find it surprisingly difficult to use.

With an い-adjective, we have:
大きい → 大きくなりました
ōkī → ōkiku narimashita
“to became big / bigger”

With a な-adjective:
きれい → きれいになりました
kirei → kirei ni narimashita
“to became beautiful”

So far, this is relatively straightforward.
But when verbs become involved, we start seeing forms such as:

歩けるようになりました
arukeru you ni narimashita
“became able to walk”

and

練習できなくなりました
renshū dekinaku narimashita
“became unable to practise”

Suddenly, there are several different-looking patterns😅 haha
It is not surprising that learners sometimes get confused.

This is why I think it can be useful not to memorise grammar only as a table of rules, but to connect it to a specific situation or image.

For example, imagine some grandparents who do not get to see their grandchild very often.
They meet again during Chinese New Year and say:
大きくなりましたね。“You’ve grown so much.”

Then, at another family event, they see their grandchild wearing a beautiful dress or perhaps a kimono.
They might say:
きれいになりましたね。“You’ve become so beautiful.”

Now let’s go further back in time. The last time they saw the child, the baby could only crawl. The next time they meet, the child is walking around.
The grandparents smile and say:
歩けるようになりましたね。“You can walk now!”

Then imagine the child grows older and starts playing baseball. One day, the child breaks a bone during training.
The grandparents might hear:
一か月ぐらい練習できなくなりました。
“They won’t be able to practise for about a month.”

Now we have four expressions inside one family story:
大きくなりました。
きれいになりました。
歩けるようになりました。
練習できなくなりました。

People often say that we remember things better when they are connected to stories or situations, and from my own experience of learning foreign languages, I think there is some truth in that.

Instead of memorising grammar on its own, connect it to an image: “In this kind of situation, this expression appears.” That is the first point.

Next, ask: “What are all of these really expressing?”

Remembering the situation is useful, but that is not the end of the process.

The next step is to ask: “What do these four sentences have in common?”

大きくなりました means that something changed from being smaller to being bigger.
きれいになりました also describes a change between an earlier state and the state at the moment of speaking.
歩けるようになりました describes a change from not being able to do something to being able to do it.
練習できなくなりました describes the opposite: something that was possible before is no longer possible.

So what do all of them have in common?
Change.
That is the main idea.
If we focus only on the grammatical forms, they look different:
～くなります
～になります
～ようになります
～なくなります

But if we step back and look at the bigger picture, they are all talking about how something has changed from the past to the present, or how something may change from the present into the future.

I think this kind of thinking is very important when learning grammar.
Of course, we still need to learn the individual forms.

But we should also ask: “What is this grammar actually trying to communicate?”
In other words, we move from the individual examples to a more general idea.

Finally, use it yourself

The last step is to make your own sentences.

For example:
最近、仕事が忙しくなりました。
“My work has become busier recently.”

前より日本語のニュースが分かるようになりました。
“I can understand Japanese news better than before.”

コーヒーをあまり飲まなくなりました。
“I don’t drink much coffee anymore.”

Now the grammar is connected to your own life.
I have one advanced-level student who is particularly good at doing this.
Whenever this student learns a new grammar pattern or idiom, he tries to use it in actual conversation.

Of course, sometimes the usage is not quite right.
When that happens, I might explain why it does not work in that particular situation, or show another context where the expression would sound more natural.

But the student does not stop there. He thinks: “So, is my understanding correct now?” Then he tries the expression again in another situation.

I think this process of trial and error, followed by self-correction, is one of the reasons this student has improved so much.

Making a mistake simply means that there was a small gap between your understanding and the way the expression is actually used.

You notice the gap. You adjust your understanding. Then you try again.
And the cycle continues.

Reflection

I am not saying that this is the one correct way to learn Japanese.
Some people prefer reading grammar books carefully. Others learn better by having lots of conversations.
Some people are also extremely busy with work or family and simply cannot spend a lot of time studying Japanese.

So I am certainly not saying: “If you want to become good at Japanese, you must imagine a situation, generalise the grammar, make your own sentences and correct yourself every time.”

This is only one possible method among many⚠️! 
But it is one approach that I have seen work well in my own classes.
Connect the grammar to a situation and remember the whole phrase.
Then ask what the examples have in common.
After that, try using the grammar yourself.

If your understanding is slightly wrong, correct it and try again.
“Japanese grammar is difficult.” It is completely fine to feel that way.

But perhaps the next question can be: “So, what can I do to overcome that difficulty?”
The method I introduced today is simply one possible answer.

Japanese may indeed be difficult, but millions of native speakers and many learners around the world use it freely every day😊
There is no reason to assume that you will never be able to do the same.

Think about learning to ride a bicycle or play the piano. At first, the movements feel unnatural and difficult. Eventually, things that once required a lot of concentration begin to feel much more natural.

Language learning can be similar.
It may take time, and progress may not always be obvious, but try to look at it from a long-term perspective. Keep going, little by little.

I hope to continue sharing ideas that may help with Japanese learning, together with things I have noticed through my own teaching experience.

Thank you for reading!
I regularly post Japanese-related content, including idioms and expressions, so if you’re interested, I’d be very happy if you followed me on Instagram.👍