first steps
Genki 1
Clean notes for the early Genki path: particles, verb groups, adjectives, te form, short forms, comparisons, and the patterns that make beginner Japanese stop feeling random.
Open notesFantaburon
Japanese notes for when the textbook explanation almost clicked.
Genki and Tobira are good books. Sometimes you still need the same idea said in a more human way, with the tiny grammar traps called out before they ruin your sentence.
what this is
Study notes with the mess cleaned up.
This site is a working notebook for Japanese grammar, reading, and sentence patterns. It follows the rough path of Genki and Tobira, but the explanations are original. No copied workbook pages. No fake textbook voice. Just the part you probably wanted to underline.
The goal is simple: read a point, see a natural example, notice the trap, then go back to the book stronger.
paths
Pick the shelf you are on.
Each page is being cleaned into a better guide, with more readable structure and better furigana.
bridge level
Genki 2
A calmer pass through the second half of Genki: potential forms, giving and receiving, volitional, conditionals, honorifics, passive, causative, and the grammar that starts showing up everywhere.
Open notesintermediate
Tobira
Tobira style notes for reading longer Japanese without drowning. The focus is register, culture topics, sentence glue, and how to follow paragraphs instead of just single grammar points.
Open notesGenki aligned
The beginner pages stay close to the Genki order so the notes match what you are already studying.
Original examples
The sentences are written for this site. They are not copied from the books.
Furigana that behaves
Important kanji readings are written by hand where context matters, so the reading sits on the word it belongs to.