nihongo wo benkyou shitai

I've been feeling guilty because I haven't posted something Japanese-related at all this week. Been a busy boy and all that. I was scratching my head trying to think of a topic and suddenly thought of a really useful one! How do you say 'how do you'!

The Japanese use 方 to express 'how to'. You add it to the verb stem although it looks the same if you add it to base 2 of the verb (base 2 is the one you use for ます conjugations). It's real easy - look at these:

how to use 使い方
how to make 作り方
how to memorise 暗記し方
how to dance 踊り方

See how easy it is. Normally, nouns use a particle to show the relationship between the verb and the noun. For example, a verb of movement (go, come, ride etc.) uses に. When using the 'how to' version of the verb, we convert the particle to の.

English: This book is about how to make sushi.
Jenglish: [sushi][make + how to][about][book][is]
日本語： 寿司の作り方に関する本です。

Adding 方 effectively turns the phrase into a noun, so it can then be followed by the usual things like verbs, adjectives etc...

Actually, the use of 方 in this way can also be interpreted as 'the way in which...', so the phrase:

English: The way he drives is dangerous.
Jenglish: [He][drives + way][dangerous][is]
日本語： 彼の運転し方は危ないです。

Sorted.

またね。