This simple bundle includes the Unofficial Learner’s Vocabulary and Grammar Companion to Minna no Nihongo 1, the verb conjugation chart and the grammar form chart – everything you need to learn Japanese. Save by buying this simple bundle vs buying the files individually.

Unofficial Learner’s Vocabulary and Grammar Companion to Minna no Nihongo 1

The Unofficial Learner’s Vocabulary and Grammar Companion to Minna no Nihongo 1 is your one-stop destination for additional explanations and clarifications of everything in the Minna no Nihongo (MNN) Translation and Grammar Notes 1 (version 2, published in 2012) book.

As someone who started learning Japanese with the MNN books, especially the translation and grammar book, I thought many things were presented in odd ways or not explained thoroughly. Often, I would learn something from the book just for it to be corrected or clarified afterwards by Japanese teachers or natives.

Rather than learning something and then having to partially unlearn it later on your language-learning journey, this guide provides those clarifications and corrections to learn it once. As a result, there will be more information in this companion guide than in the main textbook. It will also go into more detail. This is to avoid those “edge cases” where MNN says to use a certain grammar and later comes back and says “Oh remember when we taught you this? Actually you can use that for 90% of what we said but for this other 10%, use this instead”.

Layout of the Companion Guide

Each MNN Lesson is a separate section. At the top of each section is clarification about the vocabulary when MNN is ambiguous with its translation or explanation. For example, does “fall” mean the season as in “winter, spring, summer, and fall”, does it mean “to fall” (verb) or is it a noun, such as “the fall of the Roman Empire”?

When needed, vocabulary will be followed by clarifying the “Useful Words and Information” sections. These sections often have information not 100% relevant to modern, 21st-century Japan, so there are clarifications and additions to explain which are still used and how.

Just like the textbook, each section in this guide ends with the grammar, which is more thoroughly explained as needed. Examples (different ones from the textbook) demonstrate each grammar point in action.

After going through all the lessons, some additional materials have been included in the appendix. The titles are:

Subject vs topic: は vs が
Objects: を vs が
Verbs of motion: を vs に vs へ
Places: で vs を
Pronouns for “I”
How to say “you”

Japanese verb conjugation chart

The verb conjugation chart lists the lesson each veb appears in Minna no Nihongo, the group it belongs to as defined in Minna no Nihongo, and the kanji and hiragana forms for each verb form. Each verb is also colour-coordinated with its group: blue represents group 1, green is group 2 and yellow is group 3.

Additionally, red writing is used for verbs that look like belong to groups that do not fit the usual pattern. For example,　おきます/起きます looks like it should be in group 1 from the ~ます form; however, it is in group 2 as the dictionary form is おきる/起きる. Therefore its entry in the chart is written in red.

Grammar chart

The grammar chart combines verbs from Minna no Nihongo with the grammar forms taught in the Minna no Nihongo textbook. Each row is a verb and each column is a different grammar point. For example, if you want to use the ～ましょうか (“Shall I…”) grammar point with おきます/起きます, you would look at the row for おきます/起きます and then go to the first column, which would show you that the combination is 起きましょうか.

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