Chinese, Mandarin

Spanish

English

Hindi

Arabic

Portuguese

Bengali

Russian

Japanese

Punjabi

German

Javanese

Malay

Telugu

Vietnamese

Korean

French

Marathi

Tamil

Urdu

Turkish

Italian

Chinese, Yue / Cantonese

Thai

Gujarati

Chinese, Jin

Chinese, Min Nan

Persian, Dari

Persian, Western

Polish

Pashto

Kannada

Chinese, Xiang

Malayalam

Sundanese

Hausa

Odia

Burmese

Chinese, Hakka

Ukrainian

Bihari, Bhojpuri

Tagalog

Yoruba

Bihari, Maithili

Uzbek

Sindhi

Amharic

Fula

Romanian

Oromo

Igbo

Azerbaijani

Chinese, Gan

Dutch

Kurdish, Central

Kurdish, Northern

Kurdish, Southern

Malagasy

Lahnda, Saraiki

Nepali

Sinhalese

Chittagonian

Zhuang

Khmer

Turkmen

Assamese

Madurese

Somali

Marwari

Bihari, Magahi

Haryanvi

Hungarian

Chhattisgarhi

Greek, Modern

Chewa

Dakhini

Akan, Twi

Akan, Fante

Kazakh

Chinese, Min Bei

Sylheti

Zulu

Czech

Kinyarwanda

Marwari, Dhundhari

Haitian Creole

Chinese, Min Dong

Ilocano

Quechua

Kirundi

Swedish

Hmong

Shona

Uyghur

Hiligaynon

Mossi

Xhosa

Belarusian

Balochi

<p>
	<strong>Direct quotations</strong> are quotations that are word for word identical to what the original speaker said.
	In English we use quotation marks to signal that a quotation is direct.
</p>

<table class="ui celled table">
    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <td>He said: "The sky is blue."</td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

<p>
	<strong>Indirect quotations</strong> convey the meaning of what someone said, without exactly saying the same.
	We can use the word <strong>that</strong> to signify that a quotation is indirect.
</p>

<table class="ui celled table">
    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <td>He said that the sky was blue.</td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

<p>
	For direct quotations, Japanese also uses something like quotation marks.
	They look a bit different though, and are called <ruby>鉤kagi括kak弧ko</ruby>.
</p>

<table class="ui celled table">
    <tbody>
        <tr data-item="217087"></tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

<p>
	In indirect quotations, we don't use <ruby>鉤kagi括kak弧ko</ruby>.
	Indirect quotations are always paraphrased using the plain form,
	even if the original speaker actually used the polite form.
	So when using indirect quotation the sentence above would change as follows.
</p>

<table class="ui celled table">
    <tbody>
        <tr data-item="217088"></tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

<p>
	Note that the particle <strong>と</strong> is used after both direct and indirect quotations.
	And secondly, note that though in normal sentences the topic particle <strong>は</strong> appears only once,
	in direct quotations it's okay to use the particle both in the quote and in the main sentence,
	while in indirect quotations it's more common to use <strong>が</strong> to mark the subject in the quoted part.
</p>

<p>
	Below are two sentences that describe the same event,
	the first one using a <strong>direct quotation</strong> and the second one using an <strong>indirect quotation</strong>.
</p>

<table class="ui celled table">
    <tbody>
        <tr data-item="217285"></tr>
		<tr data-item="217287"></tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

<p>
	Note firstly that we replaced the word <strong>私</strong> with <strong>自分</strong> in the indirect quotation,
	because it would otherwise be unclear if the <strong>私</strong> referred to the speaker or the person spoken about.
</p>

<p>
	Secondly, note that though we need to use the plain form of the verb in the indirect quotation,
	we did change <strong>母</strong> to <strong>お母さん</strong> in the second sentence.
	So in indirect quotations we apply appropriate politeness levels when talking about someone,
	even though we put the main verb of the quotation in the plain form.
</p>

<p>
	We do not change the politeness of direct quotations though,
	as direct quotations need to be word for word identical to what the original speaker said.
</p>

Direct and indirect quotations

hiragana character

kanji

adnominal

adverb

auxiliary

conjunction

compound

i-adjective

interjection

noun

na-adjective

numeral

particle

case particle

conjunctive particle

discourse particle

prefix

pronoun

suffix

verb

sentence

hiragana writing

kanji writing

kanji component

reading vocabulary

katakana writing

katakana character

godan - group 1

itidan - group 2

group 3

transitive

intransitive

proper noun

discourse

phrase

expression

adjectival noun

adverbial phrase

adjectival phrase

adverbial noun

The verb to be

Hiragana 1

Kanji 1

Writing hiragana 1

Writing kanji 1

Hiragana 2

Kanji 2

The question particle か

Writing hiragana 2

This one and that one

Writing kanji 2

Reading exercise 1

Reading exercise 2

Hiragana 3

Negating nouns

Writing hiragana 3

The topic particle は

Kanji 3

The possession particle の

い-adjectives and な-adjectives

The subject particle が

Here and there

There is, there are

Writing kanji 3

Kanji 4

Group 1 verbs, direct and indirect objects

Group 2 verbs

Hiragana 4

Verbs in the past tense

Negating verbs

Invitations and the particle と

Negating past verbs

Writing hiragana 4

Reading exercise 3

Writing kanji 4

Reading exercise 4

Kanji 5

Nouns and the past tense

This and that

The group 3 verbs する and 来る

The discourse particles ね and よ

The location particles に and で

Hiragana 5

Writing hiragana 5

Writing kanji 5

The destination particles に and へ

Kanji 6

The origin particle から

Hiragana 6

Relative positions

Conjugating い-adjectives

Writing hiragana 6

Writing kanji 6

Hiragana 7

Writing hiragana 7

Kanji 7

Conjugating な-adjectives

How are you?

The particle も

The word ちょっと

Question	Answer
sky; air	空そらsora
He said: "The sky is blue."	彼かれ　は　「空そら　は　青あおい　です」　と　言いった。kare ha 「sora ha aoi desu」 to itta.
He said the sky was blue.	彼かれ　は　空そら　が　青あおい　だ　と　言いった。kare ha sora ga aoi da to itta.
to close^intransitive	閉しまるsimaru
The door closed.^{the event itself is the topic}	ドア　が　閉しまった。doa ga simatta.
to close^transitive	閉しめるsimeru
Japanese style door	戸とto
(I) will close the door.	戸と　を　閉しめる。to wo simeru.
gate	門もんmon
to open^transitive	開あけるakeru
She said: "My mother opened the gate."	彼かの女じょ　は　「私わたし　の　母はは　は　門もん　を　開あけました」　と　言いいました。kanozyo ha 「watasi no haha ha mon wo akemasita」 to iimasita.
She said her mother opened the gate.	彼かの女じょ　は　自じ分ぶん　の　お母かあさん　が　門もん　を　開あけた　と　言いいました。kanozyo ha zibun no okaasan ga mon wo aketa to iimasita.

Contributors