NCEA L1 Japanese cheat sheet

Listening tasks reward catching the sentence-final predicate: tense, polarity (〜ます／〜ません), and politeness level usually fall at the end of the clause, so hold the beginning loosely until the verb arrives.

Particles are the listening skeleton: は marks topic, が marks subject/focus, を marks object, に marks time/place/target, で marks location of action or means. Train the ear on these before content words.

Numbers and counters are high-frequency distractors: ひとつ・ふたつ (generic), 〜人 for people, 〜枚 for flat things, 〜本 for long thin things, 〜冊 for books, 〜台 for machines, 〜回 for times.

Time expressions: 〜時 (o'clock), 〜分 (minutes, note ふん/ぷん alternation: さんぷん, ろっぷん, じゅっぷん), 〜日 (date, irregular: ついたち, ふつか, よっか, はつか), 〜月 (がつ).

Question forms to identify by ear: どこ (where), いつ (when), だれ (who), なに／なん (what), どうして／なぜ (why), いくら (how much), いくつ (how many), どう (how).

Common request/instruction patterns: 〜てください (please do), 〜ないでください (please don't), 〜ましょう (let's), 〜ませんか (won't you), 〜てもいいですか (may I).

Sound changes that hide words: long vowels (おかあさん), small っ gemination (きって), ん before bilabials (しんぶん), and rendaku in compounds (ひと + ひと → ひとびと).

Register cue: です／ます = polite (classroom, strangers); plain form = friends/family or embedded clauses. A shift signals a change of addressee or reported speech.

Sentence order is fixed: [topic は] + [time] + [place で] + [object を] + [verb]. The verb is always last; anything after it is a sentence-final particle such as ね, よ, か.

Politeness default for NCEA interaction is です／ます. Plain forms (だ, 食べる, 行った) are for peers, diary-style speech, and clauses before と, から, けど.

Adjective conjugation: い-adjectives drop い before です (おいしいです, past おいしかったです, negative おいしくないです); な-adjectives keep な before nouns and take です directly (しずかです, しずかな町).

Requests and offers: 〜てください (please), 〜をください (please give me), 〜ましょうか (shall I), 〜ませんか (would you like to). Use が or を appropriately: 水がほしいです, コーヒーをください。

Self-introduction formula: はじめまして。〜です。〜から来ました。〜に住んでいます。〜が好きです。どうぞよろしくおねがいします。

Fillers and turn-taking that sound natural: ええと, そうですね, あのう, はい／いいえ, すみませんが. Use them to buy planning time instead of switching to English.

Pronunciation targets: mora timing (each かな = one beat, including ん and っ), pitch accent is not assessed strictly but vowel devoicing of い/う between voiceless consonants is normal.

Role-play decision rule: identify (a) who you are, (b) who you are speaking to, (c) the task outcome. Choose register by addressee, vocabulary by task, and always close with an appropriate あいさつ.

Scripts to recognise: hiragana (native/grammatical), katakana (loanwords, onomatopoeia, emphasis), kanji with furigana in NCEA texts. Katakana long vowel is ー (コーヒー), not a repeated vowel.

Kanji reading rule: on'yomi (Chinese-derived) usually appears in compounds (学校 がっこう, 電車 でんしゃ); kun'yomi (native) usually appears alone with okurigana (食べる たべる, 高い たかい).

Particle meaning in reading: は topic (pronounced わ), が subject, を object (pronounced お), に time/place/direction, で place of action/means, と with/and, も also, の possession/linking, から from/because, まで until.

Text-type signals: 〜ました = past polite; 〜でしょう = probably; 〜ています = ongoing state or habitual (住んでいます, 働いています); 〜てから = after doing; 〜ながら = while doing.

Scanning strategy: locate the question word, then hunt the matching particle phrase; dates, prices, and times are usually written in kanji numerals (三月八日, 五百円) or Arabic digits.

Connectors carry argument: でも (but), だから (so), それから (and then), しかし (however), つまり (in other words), たとえば (for example). Their meaning often decides a comprehension answer.

Loanword decoding: katakana approximates English sounds - パン (pão), アルバイト (Arbeit part-time job), コンビニ (convenience store), パソコン (personal computer), スマホ (smartphone).

Counting in text: counters attach directly to numbers (三人 さんにん, 二枚 にまい, 五本 ごほん) and the counter choice signals the object's shape or category, which can be the tested detail.

Stroke order rules: top-to-bottom, left-to-right; horizontal before vertical; centre stroke before symmetrical side strokes; enclosure before contents; dots and small strokes last.

Kana shape distinctions that lose marks: シ vs ツ (シ has a low start and upward sweep; ツ starts high), ソ vs ン, ね vs れ vs わ, る vs ろ, さ and き with the lower curve joined in handwriting.

Long vowels by script: hiragana adds あ/い/う/え/お matching the vowel (おかあさん, おにいさん, ふうとう); katakana uses ー. Small っ doubles the following consonant (きって, がっこう).

Verb forms for writing: ます-stem from ます-form (書きます → 書き); て-form for requests and sequencing (書いて, 読んで, 行って); plain past 〜た for diary style (行った, 食べた).

Punctuation and layout: 。 ends a sentence, 、 separates clauses, 「 」 marks speech, ・ separates items. Japanese has no spaces; write characters evenly sized in a grid.

Letter/email skeleton: 〜さん, opening greeting (おげんきですか), body with です／ます, closing (さようなら／またね), signature. Keep register consistent throughout.

Paragraph cohesion: use は for the topic introduced earlier and が for new information; repeat the topic noun rather than overusing pronouns, since かれ／かのじょ are avoided in ordinary prose.

Mark-bearing accuracy: consistent tense, correct particle after each noun, and correct adjective ending (おいしい → おいしかった, しずか → しずかだった in plain past).