predicate is a verb or an adjective, the role of the noun is marked by a particle. Because the particles go on the end of the noun, they are sometimes called “postpositions,” a kind of mirror image of English prepositions: Kyō´to kara Nára e ikimáshita [京都から奈 良へ行きました] ‘I went from Kyoto to Nara.’ English subjects and objects are usually unmarked except by word order, but since that is not the case in Japanese, particles mark the subject and object: Dáre ga náni o shimásu ka [誰が何をしますか] ‘Who does what?’, Nani o dáre ga shimásu ka [何を誰がしますか] ‘Just who does what?’
There is often little semantic need for such marking, for you can usually tell subjects and objects from the context: it is usually people who act and things that are acted upon. So if the particles … ga [… が] and … o [… を] are omitted, as is required when you attach … mo [… も] ‘also …, even …’ or … wa [… は] ‘as for …’, you usually still know who is doing what: Watashi mo kikimáshita [私も聞きました] ‘I, too, heard it [as did others], ’ Sore mo kikimáshita [それも聞きました] ‘I heard that too [as well as other things]. ’
For many nouns in spoken Japanese, it is quite common to attach a personalizing prefix o- [お-], which conveys a vague sense of ‘that important thing.’ The prefix is also used to make honorific or humble verb forms, with reference to the subject of a sentence. O-tégami [お手 紙] often means ‘your letter,’ but does not tell us whether the reference is the letter you have written, or a letter that has been written to you; and it can mean just ‘the letter’ or ‘letters,’ said with a personalizing touch much appreciated by women and children. Another prefix go- [ご-] (goryōshin [ご両親] ‘your parents’) attaches to certain nouns (mostly of Chinese origin).
Although these personalized forms are ignored by most dictionaries, we have included many of them, because they are often irregular in accentuation or in some other way. Do not try to use the prefixes o- [お-] and go- [ご-] with new nouns unless you find the forms in this dictionary or hear them from a Japanese speaker. Honorific and humble verb forms, however, can be made up rather freely, though for certain common verbs they are replaced by euphemisms or unrelated forms; for example, osshaimásu [おっしゃいます] ‘deigns to say’ as the honorific of iimásu [言います] ‘says.’
KANJI & KANA
Japanese kanji and kana characters have been introduced into the original dictionary and can be found immediately after the romanized forms of the entries. The most contemporary renderings of kanji have been used, including the 2,136 characters from the jōyō kanji [常用漢字] list. As it is unreasonable to attempt to convert all romanized words into kanji, kanji is provided only when it is commonly used by the Japanese. In some cases, the kana representation appears before the kanji, and in other cases, after. This means that in the former case kana is most commonly used but at times kanji may be preferable because it conveys the precise meaning of the original word. In the latter case this means that the word is usually written in kanji but kana may sometimes be substituted when the kanji is perceived as too difficult or too long to write.
Other dictionaries provide difficult kanji that are rarely used by native Japanese, but we have chosen to avoid this and focus on contemporary usage. It is possible to write “lemon” in kanji, for example, with the kanji 檸檬, but the katakana form レモン is much preferred.
Every effort has been made to reflect common usage of kanji and kana; thus the ordering of the kanji and kana that follows the romanization is based on frequency of usage. Centered dots mean “or,” so appearance yōsu 様子・ようす indicates that 様子 is more frequently used but よう す is also an acceptable representation for appearance. Kanji is of course important to clarify the exact meaning of the word; as the Japanese language contains many homonyms there is a certain amount of vagueness in the usage of kana, especially out of context.
In general, romanized words are not hyphenated unless the hyphen represents a morpheme boundary within a compound word. In addition, in this dictionary we have provided kanji and kana renderings for all forms of the romanized words offered, including constituent parts of words that are abbreviated by a hyphen or substituted by a swung dash. Although this takes up extra space, it will facilitate understanding of the exact forms of the relevant word.
NUMBERS
1: ichí 一
2: ní 二
3: san 三
4: yón/shí 四
5: gó 五
6: rokú 六
7: shichí/nána 七
8: hachí 八
9: kyū´/kú 九
10: jū´ 十
11: jū-ichí 十一
12: jū-ní 十二
13: jū´-san 十三
14: jū´-yon/jū-shí 十四
15: jū´-go 十五
16: jū-rokú 十六
17: jū-shichí/jū-naná 十七
18: jū-hachí 十八
19: jū-kyū´/jū´-ku 十九
20: ní-jū´ 二十
30: sán-jū 三十
40: yón-jū 四十
50: gó-jū 五十
60: rokú-jū 六十
70: naná-jū 七十
80: hachí-jū 八十
90: kyū´-jū 九十
100: hyakú 百
200: ni-hyakú 二百
300: sán-byaku 三百
400: yón-hyaku 四百
500: gó-hyaku 五百
600: rop-pyakú 六百
700: naná-hyaku 七百
800: hap-pyakú 八百
900: kyū´-hyaku 九百
1,000: sén 千
2,000: ni-sén 二千
3,000: san-zen 三千
4,000: yon-sén 四千
5,000: go-sén 五千
6,000: roku-sén 六千
7,000: nana-sén 七千
8,000: has-sén 八千
9,000: kyū´-sén 九千
10,000: ichi-mán 一万
-bán 番 (numbers, orders)
1: ichí-ban 一番
2: ní-ban 二番
3: sán-ban 三番
4: yón-ban/yo-ban 四番
5: go-ban 五番
6: rokú-ban 六番
7: naná-ban 七番
8: hachí-ban 八番
9: kyū´-ban 九番
10: jū´-ban 十番
100: hyakú-ban 百番
1,000: sén-ban 千番
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