First step to learning Japanese

Grammar Notes

Ashita means "tomorrow". Senshuu means "last week".

Ikimasu is a verb meaning "go".
Ikimashita is the past tense of ikimasu.

Ni is a particle. This particle is basically used to indicate an indirect object.
Put simply, here, the particle ni indicates the direction of going.
The word followed by ni is the destination.

The word order is [subject] wa [time] [destination] ni ikimasu.
When the subject is "I" or "You", it is normally omitted.

The Japanese verb comes at the end of the sentence and conjugates to show the present or the past tense as well as the affirmative and the negative.
See the table below.

	Affirmative	Negative
non-past	iki-masu	iki-masen
Past	iki-mashita	iki-masendeshita

Practice 1

Let's practice the following words.

	kinoo	yesterday			kyoo	today			ashita	tomorrow
	senshuu	last week			konshuu	this week			raishuu	next week

	gakkoo	school
	kaisha	company, office
	byooin	hospital, clinic

Practice 2

Let's make sentences and speak it.

	(Watashi wa) Ashita Kyoto ni ikimasu.
	I will go to Kyoto tomorrow.
	(Watashi wa) Raishuu Tokyo ni ikimasu
	I will go to Tokyo next week.
	(Watashi wa) Kyoo gakkoo ni ikimasu.
	I'm going to (my) school today.
	(Watashi wa) Ashita kaisha ni ikimasen.
	I'm not going to (my) office tomorrow.
	Tanaka-san wa kinoo byooin ni ikimashita.
	Tanaka-san went to a clinic yesterday.