Understanding the Japanese Quick Reference
A comprehensive guide to using yomeru.ai's Japanese Quick Reference — for beginners through advanced learners.
Welcome to yomeru.ai's Japanese Quick Reference. These pages are a completely new kind of tool for Japanese learners, based upon the creator's personal philosophy of learning (which was shaped by his own experience learning Japanese). The philosophy believes that people learn best if they have a clear vision of what is required of them and a will to take responsibility for their own progress. How you use these pages is completely up to you, but please take a moment to consider the intent behind them.
Every effort has been made to provide sufficient detail in these pages, so that learners can comprehend whatever new information they encounter. However, these pages are by nature a reference and review tool, intended to supplement and enhance a more complete study plan.
Reading and the Quick Reference
These reference pages are designed to work hand-in-hand with yomeru.ai, a Japanese reading tool built for learners. The idea is simple and rooted in 多読 (Tadoku) — the practice of reading extensively in Japanese to build real fluency. By reading a lot of native content — manga, articles, stories, news — learners absorb grammar and vocabulary in context, which is far more effective than studying in isolation. This quick reference helps bridge the gap: when you encounter an unfamiliar grammar point or expression while reading, you can look it up here for a concise explanation and example.
As you read with yomeru.ai, turn to these pages whenever you need a quick refresher. For deeper exploration, Grammar Lab provides detailed breakdowns of the grammar entries found here, and Word Lab helps you build and review the vocabulary you discover along the way. Together, they form a complete learning loop — read, look up, study, and read some more.
How to Use These Pages
For beginners to low-intermediate learners
Beginner tip
Think of the pages as a window to the full language, which you will gradually become more familiar with over time.
When you learn some new grammar or expression, try to locate it on the pages. The simple act of navigating through the information should enhance your understanding of the language as a whole, and you'll very likely uncover something else along the way.
When you find something on the pages which you already know, take a moment to examine it and compare it to your other resources. Every resource provides a slightly different explanation and perspective, and seeing things from various angles is crucial to learning.
For intermediate learners (approximately JLPT N3)
Intermediate tip
You're probably ready to just jump in and start looking for stuff you don't know, and the design of these reference pages intentionally encourages this. But remember that the information and explanations given here were made as miniature as possible, therefore you will also want to refer to other resources which offer more depth.
Intermediate learning is an exciting time because you finally begin to understand the language. However, as learners become more confident they must also give more scrutiny to their learning matter. The information on these pages is hyper-condensed, so if you are learning new material from these pages, you should definitely compare it against materials that offer more depth.
For advanced learners
Advanced tip
You're probably already somewhat familiar with the majority of information on these reference pages. These pages will best serve as a tool to review and expand your current understanding, or to identify things you might have missed in your learning so far.
Perhaps the greatest benefit of these reference pages for all levels, is that they take the vastness of the Japanese language and make it into something we can wrap our brains around, like zooming out on a map of the world. Most people who give up on learning a language do so because they feel as though they've stopped progressing. But now — with these reference pages — learners can see their own progress and have a way to find out where they should go next. That alone lifts a tremendous burden that many learners probably aren't even conscious of.
Ultimately, these reference pages are intended to guide and support learners along their journey toward and beyond JLPT N1. Mastery of the material on these reference pages doesn't mean the end of learning Japanese, it means the beginning of living in Japanese.
About the Examples
In English translations for the example sentences, I have generally favored more literal renditions to more natural ones, in order to make it easier for learners to mentally dissect the original Japanese grammar.
Also, in most Japanese sentences "I" and "you" information is not stated explicitly; it is primarily derived from context. Instead of writing "I/you/he/she" (ugly) or graying-out "I" and "you" in every single example (annoying), I have simply inserted what I felt was most appropriate and easy to understand for that specific sentence. As you read the examples, please remember that Japanese depends highly on context for this information, and words like "I" and "you" in English translations are usually there for grammatical coherence rather than their meaning.
About Specific Pages
Keigo
The advanced icon has not been employed on the Keigo page because the whole page is essentially advanced in nature.
Keigo can be largely divided into forms/words which express Humility (lowering one self) and those which express Respect (raising up someone else). On this page, expressions of Humility are given in green boxes, and Respect forms in purple. Orange boxes are used for Polite topics (used in Keigo situations, but do not come with Humble/Respect connotations).
Kanji
As of 2010, the JLPT levels are no longer correlated to specific kanji. Therefore, there is simply no definitive list of kanji per JLPT level. The breakdown used on the Kanji pages based both on the old test system, and a thorough comparison of resources for the updated test system.
The N3, N2 and N1 kanji on the page are grouped into blocks (delineated by background shading) indicating suggested learning order. N4 and N5 kanji are also ordered, but since all these kanji are comparable in difficulty and usefulness, there is no suggested learning order.
Also, some kanji in the page are colored. Green marks pairs of kanji that should be learned together to prevent confusion due to visual similarity. Blue marks pairs of kanji that should be learned together because they are commonly used together. Purple marks kanji which you are most likely to see in proper names (people, places, etc.).