So I hope that this article can act as a sort of GPS device to let you know what kind of nuanced territory you’re heading into and how to navigate it. I used the word “comprehensive” up there, but that just means I’m looking out for you – like comprehensive auto insurance. Trust me, this will be easy.

しか — “Only…and nothing more”

しかしか見ていない。

しか is on JLPT N5 prep guides, so even beginners should have this on their VIP lists – that is, the list for Very Important Particles. It was once explained to me that しか is like the mathematical ≤ or ≥ (it approaches a value and includes it, but just barely). It means “Only … and nothing more” or “nothing but…” as in the example:

私はローマ字しか読めない。(I can only read Romaji)

You can use this in a sentence easily: しか goes after the “only”-ified noun. Then, the verb or copula that comes after NEEDS to be negative.

Here’s another example:
君しか見ていない。(All I can see is you.)

Both of these examples have been nouns in front of しか, but you can also precede it with the dictionary form of a verb. This particle is used at any formality level, and in written or spoken Japanese.

さえ — “only” or “even…” or “(did) not even”

I’ll be honest: さえ still kind of confuses me. That’s not surprising, given its history, which I’ll get to in a bit. But look at the different ways it’s used:

君さえいれば、ほかに何もいらない。 (If only you’re here, I don’t need anything else.)

And this:
１２月でさえ暖かった。(It was even warm in December.)

And this:
ローマ字さえ読めない。(I can’t even read hiragana.)

So it can mean “even” sometimes, and “only” in other cases. Thankfully, if you look at the whole sentence, it’s easy to see a pattern: when さえ is followed by a conditional, it means only. But when さえ is more of the main focus, it means even (and with a negative sentence, means ‘not even’).

さえ appears on N2 grammar prep lists. Make note of its unique formation: (adj. く)さえ、(na-adj. で)さえ、(noun) or (nounで)さえ、and (verb stem)さえ.

I mentioned that さえ’s history might explain why it has a few different meanings. The way Haruo Shirane describes it in “Classical Japanese: A Grammar”, the Heian Period particle さえ reached out like a hungry amoeba, gobbling up a number of other particles’ meanings, including that of すら (225-226), described below. You’ll see that the poor particle すら is still a bit sickly.

すら — “even”

母国語すら スラスラと話せない。

According to Janet Ashby in “Read Real Japanese”, すら is “a more literary equivalent of さえ” (93). I’ve got a problem with that simplification because there are a lot of conflicting usages of さえ, while すら seems to pretty much work like this:

彼女は自分の名前すら書く事が出来ない。(She can’t even write her own name)

In Colligan-Taylor’s Living Japanese, an ecology grad student uses すら as she’s being interviewed. So すら can be spoken, too, but probably sounds highbrow. It’s sad that this particle is a little easier to use, but you won’t encounter it as often as さえ.

すら doesn’t appear on JLPT prep lists until N1, which is like… advanced land! Like さえ, though, it has a kind of unique formation, mimicking that of さえ.

Quantity? Or Surprise?

I’m still ナット into なっとう.

Often, these particles are thought of in terms of quantity or inclusivity. Which makes sense, doesn’t it? “The only thing I can see is you” suggests a quantity or capable range to what the person can see. But one researcher, Shigeko Sugiura at Tokyo Daigaku (AKA TouDai, AKA the Harvard of Japan, AKA the TouDai Of America), published a linguistics paper about how さえ and すら (along with も in certain instances) are not focused on quantity but on expectations.

To understand that, let’s talk a little about “implicature.” Implicature refers to how what you literally say isn’t always what you’re implying and communicating. Part of implicature is the notion that if you don’t specify some sort of scale in your words (“Some”, “even”, etc.), then such a scale may or may not exist but, regardless, isn’t important enough for you to mention. The implied meaning behind “Some girls like boys” is very different from “Girls like boys.” That last one is hetero-normative, while the first one implies that not all girls like boys. In other words, one provides a scale of possibility, while the other implies a massively black-and-white attitude. These are important distinctions to make to really express yourself and your thoughts, no matter the language.

But we’re talking about ‘even’, not ‘some’, and Sugiura argues that さえ、すら、and も aren’t based around quantifiable scales (like ‘all’, or ‘some’), but expectation-based scales. In other words, when an event occurs, does it fall inside the realm of the speaker’s expectations? This realm ranges from the highly probable to the least likely, but when it comes to using さえ and すら, the even-ified event won’t be anywhere on the radar.

Compare these:
メアリーさんはなっとうを食べた (Mary ate natto)
メアリーさんはなっとうさえ食べた (Mary even ate natto)
メアリーさんはなっとうさえ食べなかった (Mary didn’t even eat natto)

The first sentence is perfectly neutral. Nothing remarkable about Mary’s eating natto. The second suggests that Mary’s doing some crazy stuff, sure, but what’s really crazy and what wasn’t expected is that she ate natto. And in the third, Mary is in a situation, maybe a homestay, which demands a number of actions, and Mary didn’t even do the most likely thing: eat natto.

The second and third sentence, then, fall outside the realm of expectations.

The Takeaway

Let’s put it all together: If someone’s doing crazy things (or not doing the most normal, expected, bare minimum of things), さえ、すら、and も can all go in the blank below:

[Subject]は　[noun] ＿＿ [verb/copula (+ any formality, time, and negation mods)]

Such as:
私は日本に旅行したとき、１千円も使わなかった！
(When I traveled in Japan, I didn’t even spend a thousand yen/~10 USD/ ~7 Euro)

That’s pretty much impossible. Was this person camping the whole time and bicycling everywhere? Were they an honorary guest of the emperor? This is what Sugiura meant by an expectational scale. Sometimes there are quantities involved, but using さえ and すら and も this way suggests something crazy is going on (back to Mary’s eating/not eating Natto). It might depend on the situation whether something crazy is actually happening. But if the person uses these particles, they’re implying that at least they believe it’s crazy stuff.

Note, the “exceeding expectations も” is functioning in a different way than the adding kind of も, which you see in sentences like: 読書が好きだ。普通は本を読むけれども、たまに漫画も読む。(I enjoy reading. Generally I read books, but every now and then I read manga, too.)

See, I told you this would be easy. Some of these particles could get really confusing, but I think they’re worth practicing. The above formula particularly should give you an easy way to change up your conversational toolbox.

So What About だけ?

I used to act like だけ could be used in all the same times I would use the English “only” and, woh, did I confuse Japanese people and get laughed at. I’m not saying しか changed my world, but the more I learned, the more I was basing definitions of words and particles by their context, not by their translation.

さえ、and すら, meanwhile, have meanings that overlap with particles you definitely know, such as も and だけ, so if you learn them separately, maybe you’ll just think “I already know one way of saying ‘only’ or ‘even’. Why bother learning another?” To which I say: Translations don’t capture usage. You’ve already probably learned this with 好き and how it ‘means’ ‘like’/’love’. You know that it’s way more complicated than that. So once you’re ready, give さえ or すら some attention, and tell me what it’s like. If you’ve already taken that road trip, though, share your experience in the comments.

Sources

Ashby, Janet, ed. Read Real Japanese. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2008. p. 93

Colligan-Taylor, Karen. Living Japanese: Diversity in language and lifestyles. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. p. 84.

Shirane, Haruo. Classical Japanese: A Grammar. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. p. 225-226

Sugiura, Shigeko. “Expressions of Exceeding of Expectational Limits in Japanese and English”. Tokyo University Linguistics Papers 33 (2013), p. 273-292.

Before coming to Taiwan, I probably spent close to six hours compiling and preparing “Koichi’s Amazing and Unbelievably Sexy Mandarin Learning Method” but then spent only two or so hours actually studying with it. Oops. To say the least, it wasn’t enough prep time, but I wasn’t terribly worried. These strategies focused on efficiency and getting the most bang for my buck. If anything it would help to focus me even more. I’d say that over these three weeks I didn’t become good at Mandarin by any means, but I do have a basic understanding of how most things work and also know how to build upon what I’ve learned. I’m at the point where learning comes quickly and I can understand why something works the way it does, and probably my biggest weakness is vocabulary.

But, my actual Mandarin level isn’t what really matters here. What does matter is what I learned about learning a new language. It’s been a while, and it was a good experience since it’s sometimes difficult to imagine what it’s like to start learning Japanese (which is a terrible thing for teaching). So, let’s get started. Here’s the stuff I learned about Mandarin that is relevant to starting to learn Japanese as well. I hope it helps you to learn any new language just a little bit better.

The Magic 12 Sentences

The biggest and most overarching idea that I tried on this trip was the concept of the “12 sentences.” These twelve sentences are sentences that focus on grammar and when learned they teach you pretty much all of the basic grammar that you need to know. Once you know them all, you can mix and match ideas from each to create your own even more complicated sentences. You can spend two or three hours going through these sentences, breaking them down, understanding how they work (very important step), and then memorizing the patterns.

Of course, by learning these sentences you can grammatically express just most things. In fact, I bet you that 80% or more of the grammar used on a daily basis comes from these twelve sentences. Not too bad for a few hours of study. That being said, the vocabulary in these sentences is repetitive by design (so you can focus on grammar) which means you can pretty much only talk about John’s apples and what you want to do with them. More on that in a minute. Using this method, vocabulary does have to be learned separately, but since that’s such an important topic it will get its own section(s) later in this article.

In case you’re interested, here are the sentences I used:

The apple is red
這個蘋果是紅色的
Zhège píngguǒ shi hóngsè de

This is John’s apple
這是約翰的蘋果
Zhè shì yuēhàn de píngguǒ

I give John the apple
我給約翰這個蘋果
Wǒ gěi yuēhàn zhège píngguǒ

We give him the apple
我們給他這個蘋果
Wǒmen gěi tā zhège píngguǒ

He gives it to John
他把它給約翰
Tā bǎ tā gěi yuēhàn

She gives it to him
她把它給他
Tā bǎ tā gěi tā

She gives it to him
她把它給他
Tā bǎ tā gěi tā

Is the apple red?
這個蘋果是紅色的嗎？
Zhège píngguǒ shì hóngsè de ma?

The apples are red.
這些蘋果是紅色的。
Zhèxiē píngguǒ shì hóngsè de.

I must give it to him.
我必須把它給他。
Wǒ bìxū bǎ tā gěi tā.

I want to give it to her.
我想把它給她。
Wǒ xiǎng bǎ tā gěi tā.

I’m going to know tomorrow.
明天我會知道的。
Míngtiān wǒ huì zhīdào de.

I can’t eat the apple.
我不能吃這個蘋果。
Wǒ bùnéng chī zhège píngguǒ

*You’ll notice that I made the mistake of using simplified Mandarin, which isn’t used in Taiwan (whoops). You’ll have to ignore that for me, if you don’t mind. Traditional is actually much easier for me anyways because it’s what gets used in Japanese.

In order to get these sentences translated, I used Gengo to get a translation, then VoiceBunny to get a recording. Alternatively, I’m sure people on Lang-8, Reddit (find an appropriate subreddit), and Rhinospike would be happy to help, though I needed to make sure the quality was there (and I needed them fast) so I paid for the two services at the top of this paragraph.

If you look at these twelve sentences, you’ll begin to notice how they build upon each other. The first sentence “The apple is red” gives you the grammar pattern “The [noun] is [adjective].” Personally, I’d have simplified this down further and built up to the first sentence, but we’re on an express train here and there’s no time for local stations. In the second sentence, “This is John’s Apple,” you learn the pattern “This is [noun]‘s [noun].” Just with these two sentences, you can also make other sentences as well. Ones you’ve never learned before! You could figure out how to say “John’s apple is red,” for example, just by combining what you learned. As each sentence comes up, it teaches you a new bit of grammar that you can also apply to the previous sentences. You’re really learning a lot more than meets the eye. Of course, if you learn only these twelve sentences and never mix and match you’d still know a lot too, but I think the potential for greatness comes with the combinations as you build up. As I think you can see, there is a huge amount you can learn just from a few hours of study. Even if you took a long time with these (say a week) you’re still learning an immense amount in a very short timespan. I’m pretty sure most Mandarin classes would take three to six months to teach what you could learn in the time it takes to watch a baseball game.

This is easily applicable to Japanese as well. Going through these sentences in Mandarin made me find the parts that were a little more difficult to understand. I can see where these sentences need to be broken down further, and where I need to build up the explanations and lessons to get people to learn and understand how these sentences work. You will definitely see a modified version of this method in TextFugu in the future as I (correctly) thought it would be very effective for new learners. This trip only solidified my belief that these sentences truly are a kind of magic trick… It’s not a trick, Michael, it’s an illlusssion.

Common Vocabulary

Vocabulary is the bread and butter of language learning. Even if you don’t know a lick of grammar, you can get by with words and body motions. “Food. Hungry. Eat. Good.” You get the idea.

Since I failed to prepare and was learning Mandarin on the fly, I tried to make things as efficient as possible. I found and compiled various sources listing out the “most frequently used Mandarin words.” I then went through that list and categorized things by type (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, particle, etc). I found that these lists really lacked nouns, and the more I thought about it the more it made sense. There are so many nouns out there. So, of course they get spread out on the frequency charts. You can “to eat” a lot of things, but there’s only one time you use “tomato” and that’s when you’re talking about a tomato. At first I was a little worried about this, but then I had another epiphany. Every single noun can be replaced with the word “this” or “that.” In the long term nouns are important… but when it comes to learning a language and being able to communicate right away, it’s the adjectives and verbs that really say the things you want to say. I then cut my list down to focus on verbs and adjectives making my study even more efficient.

Cutting down what I had to learn and also learning words in order of frequency helped a lot. I was able to say and understand a lot more (thank you “context”) and I found that the nouns I did need to learn just sort of learned themselves. If I needed to talk about a tomato I just looked up how to say tomato. After using it a few times I new it and could use it in the future. Naturally, the more common (or more useful in the situation) nouns came up more often, which means I was learning the nouns via a natural IRL frequency chart / SRS, but more on that later.

In terms of what I learned from this experience, I think it’s a multi-parter. First, vocabulary is super important. Second, verbs and adjectives are the most important vocabulary to know if you want to communicate with as few words as possible. Third, nouns will come naturally. Of course, with a textbook or something like that, the nouns have to be injected in a way that makes them appear in a “natural” order, but that’s good for me to think about as well. In terms of your own Japanese learning, just be sure to focus on verbs and adjectives and really solidify your knowledge with those and build from there. It will help you to learn your grammar and nouns more quickly and effectively over the long term.

Natural SRS Of Immersion

Photo by Emily

Speaking of learning vocabulary, I found myself thinking more and more about SRS, though not so much the kind that’s found in resources like Anki (mechanical, scheduled, etc). Instead, I was thinking about “natural SRS,” which relates to how you learn a new language when you’re in an immersed environment. It’s not as scientific and probably not as efficient, though it is still very effective. Sometimes the timings will be good, sometimes they’ll be off, but the most common words will make their way into your long term memory over multiple repetitions and over a long period of time until it gets into your long term memory. It doesn’t involve flashcards but it does really work. This is why immersion is the greatest way to learn a language.

So, as I thought about this I thought about how this idea could be applied to learning resources. Of course, we have an SRS in WaniKani, though that’s not quite the same since it’s man made. In TextFugu, for example, I could introduce and then reintroduce vocabulary at set intervals throughout the text, effectively putting an SRS into the content and material without you even noticing it was an SRS. It would be a lot more natural this way and you’d find yourself learning without having to try nearly as much. Gone would be the time spent looking through flashcards because you’d be getting your repetitions in without knowing it. It would be a much more efficient way to put something in your head, compared to just saying “hey, learn this, ok, moving on.” This is definitely something you’ll be seeing in some of our future stuff.

Kanji Is Boss

Photo by Travis Juntara

This one I did know. Kanji is amazing. Everyone should learn kanji if they’re going to be learning Japanese, hands down, right from the start. Not learning kanji is why people take so long to learn the Japanese language. It’s like trying to learn English without learning the alphabet. Why should you learn kanji? Let me list the reasons:

1. Kanji meanings will help you to understand the meanings of words you don’t know. It also means you can associate new words to something (kanji) already in your head which is way better for memory. Associations are the grease that keep the wheels turning.
2. By learning the kanji readings, you’ll be able to read most words even if you don’t know the word. This makes it way easier to learn a word, since the sounds aren’t just random sounds, they’re sounds you’ve associated to kanji and already know. You start off knowing things you don’t know, if that makes sense. It would be like if you knew the words “account” and “ability” already, then learned the word “accountability.” You’re putting together only two things instead of fifteen things (the number of letters in the word “accountability”).
3. With kanji knowledge you can read more, which means the things you can use to study and get better at Japanese really expand, which means you have many more avenues to learn with. It just gives you options. Not knowing kanji gives you very few options.

With Mandarin it’s the same thing, though I found that Japanese kanji is a lot more broken and confusing. Even for things I couldn’t read out loud in Mandarin (because the readings are different most of the time… not to mention tones!) I could still understand the meanings. Watching the news, I knew that fruit prices were going up due to too much rain fall in Taiwan (random!). I could also figure out that a food place we stopped at required you to bus your own table. The list goes on and on. Things that I have no right understanding were understandable, all thanks to knowing kanji meanings. I knew things I didn’t know, which is a pretty amazing feeling. Kanji can give you that feeling in Japanese too. And, should you be interested in learning Mandarin in the future, it will help with that as well. It also will help you to envision new words and grammar in your head. Learning becomes easier. It’s just that simple. Put in the time, your future self won’t regret it.

You Learn A Lot More Being There

You probably already knew this, but being in a country that speaks the language you’re learning helps a ton. Immersion is good. That’s an obvious statement.

But, I started to think about what part of it was good. While watching a lot of television and listening to people speak is nice in huge quantities, the real learning and memorization didn’t come from this… it came from forcing myself to recall information I had learned. I’ve touched on in the past how recalling information (not stuffing it into your brain) is how memories are formed. That’s the reason why a lot of people feel like they know the content of an exam better after the test rather than before it. You’re forced to recall information during the test for the first time ever (what bad study habits you have!). In immersion situations, if you want to communicate you have to recall and pull out vocabulary and grammar from your brain and you have to do it a lot. Even though recalling shaky information is naturally an uncomfortable thing, the necessity of recall in a foreign place makes you do it more than you would if you were just sitting around in your home country watching television all day long.

In fact, that brings up another point: the necessity. Necessity is a huge motivator. In fact, it’s not too different from procrastinating on a big school essay. For the first seven days, you don’t work on your paper. Then, for the last twelve hours you go gangbusters and finish it all up at the last minute. Being at home in your home country is like those first seven days. Being in another country that speaks the language that you’re learning is like the final twelve hours before the essay is due. Except instead of being just twelve hours it’s all the time. You will learn a lot this way.

This is why I’ve said in the past that flying to a country for two weeks instead of joining and paying for a six month language class can often be more effective. It’s also sometimes less expensive, depending on which language class you’re looking at, and you’ll surely have a lot of fun. There’s something to say about the power of necessity when paired with recall. The intensity is just so hard to replicate.

Lastly, I want to point out that immersion is great for all these reasons, but it only gets better with study. It’s not like you can be using the language you’re learning all the time, even if you’re in Taiwan or Japan or wherever. Use your off time to do some actual study. In high school in Japan they made me do Kumon. And while I hated it, I learned a lot more because of it. Things you study while you’re in an immersive language environment seem to magically pop up. You notice them, and then you recall what you studied, and then you use it. Things that would normally go over your head suddenly become familiar, and by pairing regular study with this you’ll learn much, much faster. In fact, I’d say it’s a necessity to do regular study while being immersed. A lot of people will rely solely on immersion. You can look back on these people as you leave them in your dust. Studying just puts more things into your natural SRS queue.

I’m glad I was reminded about all this because it’s going to make me think a lot more about these ideas for TextFugu. I’ve already focused on straight-up motivation over there, but attempting to replicate the feeling of “necessity to learn” and focusing on forcing recall within that necessity is going to be a big goal of mine. I don’t know if I’ve figured out the best way to do it just yet, but it’s something I’m thinking about a lot right now.

New Languages = Intelligence

Photo by mxmstryo

Whatever happens, learning a new language means a lot of other non-language learning as well. They say that the more languages kids know the more intelligent they become. I want to believe that this is because you have to learn new concepts that are unlearnable in certain languages, meaning you expand your mind to concepts that the people around you just can’t comprehend, making you a more “complete” person. I also feel like more things in your brain just gives your brain a lot more items you can associate new things with. The more that’s recallable in your brain the easier it will become to add even more into it.

Whether it’s Japanese or another language, I hope you think about language learning. It’s one of the most rewarding things you can do. You get smarter, you can travel to new places, you can meet new people, and you just become a better person overall. Hopefully the things I learned these three weeks and shared just now will allow me to help you to achieve your goals with learning Japanese more in the future. Or, perhaps they will help you to learn Spanish, Mandarin, or even Gaelic. I look forward to applying this new knowledge soon on my end, but feel free to get started yourself right now!

Full-Width Spacing

One of the things that stand out to me in Japanese punctuation (as well as Japanese in general) is the space. While it differs between operating system, handwriting style, your Japanese IME, and so-on, Japanese typography tends to be something known as “full-width.” What you see here, in English, is half-width. Can you see the difference?

なんでだろう？

nandedarou?

While you can type in half-width in Japanese, it looks too crowded. The Japanese language was made to be nice and spread out, and that also carries over to the punctuation as well. There’s technically no spaces between letters or words in Japanese. You don’t hit the space bar often, except to choose the kanji you want to input while typing. So, with a lot of Japanese punctuation, an extra space is added in (once again, sometimes depends on operating system). So, a lot of punctuation includes an extra space on one side or the other, so you don’t have to put it in.

Basically, to sum things up, you don’t usually have to worry about adding spaces between sentences. Punctuation has you covered. For example:

皆さんこんにちは、トウフグのコウイチでございます。ハロー！

Find the comma and the period. There’s a little half-width (normal width in English) after them, even though I didn’t add them in. All I added in was the comma and period themselves – it all counts as one “letter,” even when you try to highlight it.

Okay, so now you know about the spacing, so what about learning about all the (main) punctuation available to you? Let’s do it!

Japanese Punctuation

Japanese punctuation is quite similar to Western-style punctuation, and there’s a lot of overlap. Still, even when there is overlap, there tends to also be a lot of subtle differences, which I’ll go over below (along with the big-picture ideas each punctuation mark has as well).

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Japanese Period

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The Japanese period is used much in the same way the English period is used (same spot, except in vertical writing, then it’s in the bottom right below the character right before it), though the rules tend to be a little bit more liberal. If a sentence is on its own or has quotes, for example, a lot of times the Japanese period is omitted. It would look like this:

ワニは怖いですね。

The period itself is a small circle, and not a dot (though occasionally you’ll see Western-style periods ending things when the sentence ends with something in English, strangely).

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Japanese Comma

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The Japanese comma, like the Japanese period, is used in much the same way as the English one. It’s put in the same place as the period (bottom right of the last word), and can either be the style you see to the left (line from top left to bottom right) or a regular period you see in English (like this: ,). Comma usage in Japanese is super liberal compared to English. You can pretty much stick it wherever you want a break in your sentence. Just don’t abuse the power, please, it, is, irritating.

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Single Quotes

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Instead of things that look like “this” for their quotation marks (it would get confusing, because of dakuten, which add little quote-like things to kana), the Japanese use little half-brackets to indicate quotes. Although these are called “single quotes” which would make you think they’d be like ‘this’ – they are the most common style of quote to use in Japanese. Almost any time you need to use a marker for quotes, you’ll use the single quotes one, though there are exceptions (which you’ll read about in Double Quotes, below).

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Double Quotes

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The double quotes are a lot less common than the single quotes, but they do have one good purpose. You know when you have to quote something that’s quoting something else? When you do that, usually it looks like this: “The dog said ‘woof’ and ran away.” In Japanese, these double quotes would be the outside quotes, and the inner quotes would be the single quotes. Other than that, I don’t see much use out of the double quotes.

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Wave Dash

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The wave dash isn’t really that similar to the Western (straight) dash in use, but I’m guessing the wave dash became popular because straight-line-dashes are already used in katakana to show a long vowel, and not making this look different would be confusing. There are some uses that are like the Western dash, like showing a range of something (４〜５, ９時〜１０時, etc), but there are some other Japanese-only uses of this punctuation as well, including drawing out drawing out a vowel sound (そうだね〜), showing where something is from (アメリカ〜), marking subtitles (〜こんにちは〜), and so on.

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Japanese Question Mark

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You’d think the Japanese question mark is self explanatory, so I shouldn’t need to put it here, but there’s a thing or two you ought to know about it. Just like a Western-style question mark it marks a question, but the thing about Japanese is that there’s already a grammar-based marker (か) to show that a sentence is a question already, making it redundant to use a lot of times. You won’t see question marks in formal writing, because formal writing will have the か, but in more casual writing you’ll see the question mark more often because 1) it’s casual and 2) most casual speech forms drop the か in exchange for a questioning tone of voice, which you can’t really put in writing very well without a question mark.

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Interpunct

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The interpunct is a round circle that vertically aligns center with the words next to it. It’s usually used to break up words that go together, most often in katakana, for example:

ザー・モンキー

It’s also used with Japanese words, too, though the use is more specialized. Some Japanese words, when placed side by side, can be ambiguous (because combinations of kanji can mean different things, and if you have too much kanji next to each other for some reason, it can get confusing). It’s also used to break up lists, as decimal points when writing numbers in kanji (why would you do that, please don’t do that), and break up anything else that needs breaking up in order to make certain things or phrases less ambiguous.

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Japanese Exclamation Mark

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The Japanese exclamation mark is used just like the Western one. It shows volume or emotion or both. You won’t see exclamation marks in formal Japanese, though it’s really common everywhere else.

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Bonus: Part Alternation Mark

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This one will probably be totally useless to you, unless you’re planning on joining the Noh Theater. This punctuation mark shows the beginning of the next player’s part in a song. It’s also found in Noh chanting groups, which makes it kind of awesome.

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There are plenty of other punctuation marks in Japanese, but these are the main ones (or the ones that I thought were important to learn). You’ll see brackets, colons, and so on in Japanese as well, but it should be pretty simple to understand how they’re used and what they’re doing there.

That does bring me to one other thing, which I think is pretty interesting though, and that is:

Kaomoji As Punctuation

Kaomoji (顔文字), which basically translates to “Face Letters” is basically when someone uses text to draw little faces which show some kind of emotion. While kaomoji is probably never officially going to be considered punctuation (and I probably also just don’t understand the definition of punctuation either, but hang in there with me), I feel like it sort of is punctuation, in a way.

When put together, they are characters that represent emotion, kind of like the exclamation mark. They can also represent confusion, or a questioning tone, like a question mark. On top of all that, there are probably 20-30 different “feelings” they can represent too, that add to your sentences or paragraphs or phrases. While they aren’t a single character (neither is an ellipses, so take that punctuation nazis!), they do represent something which adds something to the sentence. Seems to me basically what punctuation does, so why not kaomoji too?

If kaomoji could indeed be considered punctuation, there’d be a lot of them – too many to add to this list. Facemark Party, one of my favorite sites ever, organizes kaomoji by emotion, feeling, and action. The action part probably doesn’t really correlate well to my argument, but the others do pretty nicely. For example, if you’re writing something and you feel bad about it, because you’re really sorry or something, you might add the following kaomoji “punctuation” to your sentence:

m(*T▽T*)m

Shows you’re sad and you’re sorry. Or, let’s say you’re really happy about something, you could add this kaomoji “punctuation.”

ヾ(＠⌒▽⌒＠)ﾉ

So much happiness. There’s hundreds, maybe thousands more examples, but you can look them up on your own (careful, it’s a black hole of awesome time suck over there).

In terms of using kaomoji in Japanese, they usually go at the end of sentences or phrases. They’re a lot like periods that also convey emotion. Take that period. Go back to your soulless home in the country of boring-ville.

Anyways, there you have it. I hope you learned something new, and thought about kaomoji a little bit as well. There really isn’t a lot to learn when it comes to Japanese punctuation because you have most of the concepts down already (assuming you’re not super young and reading this). It’s really the subtleties that are interesting, I think, so I hope you got something from there as well.

P.S. You should follow us on Twitter。
P.P.S. Or, if that’s not your bag, there’s Facebook and Google+ as well 〜

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Some Examples Of Rendaku Words:

I think the first thing to do is take a look at some words that have this behavior – it’s much easier to see what I mean than anything else, I think. That way you’ll have a base to work off of when we get into the nitty-gritty of explaining why and when it happens.

山桜（やまざくら）
さくら turns to ざくら

雨合羽（あまがっぱ）
かっぱ turns to がっぱ

草花（くさばな）
はな turns to ばな

人々（ひとびと）
ひと turns to びと

時々（ときどき）
とき turns to どき

株式会社（かぶしきがいしゃ）
かいしゃ changes to がいしゃ

See how the first kana in the second section / word changes to its dakuten counter part (that’s when you add the ” to it to change its sound). These are all examples of rendaku words. Now let’s look at some you’d think are rendaku words, but aren’t.

What Doesn’t Cause Rendaku?

That’s the question we should be asking rather than “what does cause rendaku?” Why? Simply because there are more solid rules around this than the other way around. Also, this will allow us to categorize the combo-nouns in a way that lets us examine them more effectively. And, let me warn you. Things are about to get crazy…

1. Already Has a Dakuten/Dakuon

If the second word already has a dakuten then there’s nothing you can do to make it go rendaku. If the dakuten is there in the second word/section, then the dakuten stays. There’s no anti-rendaku or anything like that which will take it away.

2. Lyman’s Law

Lyman’s law is perhaps the most famous way to figure out whether or not a word will get the rendaku treatment or not. Lyman’s law states that:

Rendaku does not occur when the second element of the compound contains a voiced obstruent in any position.

First off, we should probably define what a voiced obstruent is (seriously, wth linguistic people?). A voiced obstruent, put simply, it is a consonant sound (so, not a vowel) which is formed by obstructing airflow in your throat. It took me a while to figure this out, but if you do a lot of these sounds slowly, you’ll find your throat has to close a bit (and obstruct airflow) in order to be made. “Voiced Obstruent” sounds are b, d, g, v, j, and z (which make a vibration in your throat, too, if you want try it out!). Of course, not all of these or applicable. The voiced obstruents “B” and “G” for example would mean the kana is already in dakuon/dakuten status, meaning (according to the first point) they’d never go rendaku status. Also, “V” doesn’t exist in Japanese sounds.

That being said, though, there are exceptions to this “law” but it’ll keep you in the clear most of the time.

Anyways, the idea is basically this: Rendaku won’t occur as much when the second word/section has a voiced obstruent in it. Let’s take a look at some examples:

人々（ひとびと）＝　People
The second section (the びと, originally ひと) has no voiced obstruent in it. When it has a voiced obstruent, the rendaku won’t occur. Because it didn’t have a voiced obstruent in it, it does get the rendaku treatment. b, d, g, v, j, and z.

時々（ときどき）＝　Sometimes
This has no voiced obstruents in it, so it goes rendaku.

山火事（やまかじ）＝　Forest Fire
The second word/section (かじ) does contain a voiced obstruent. Therefor, rendaku does not occur (it is やまかじ not やまがじ).

There are exceptions and rendaku has continued to be one of those things that’s hard to pin down perfectly (sounds like the entire Japanese language, right?). Beyond Lyman’s law (which is probably the safest bet) there are other things you can do as well to help you on your rendaku quest.

3. Foreign Words

Another thing you can add to your rendaku knowledge-base arsenal is the behavior of foreign words. There are two pieces to this, so let’s start with the easiest one first (non-Chinese foreign words).

Japanese has a lot of loan words, where non-Japanese words have been added to the language. These are usually written in katakana. In cases like this, you’ll hardly ever see rendaku being used:

アイスコーヒー
As you can see, it’s not アイスゴーヒー (also following Lyman’s Law, on top of this)

Beyond this, though, there’s another class of (less) foreign words. These are words imported via kanji. Kanji has both the on’yomi and the kun’yomi readings. The on’yomi reading are the “Chinese” readings of the kanji. A lot of words consist of two or more kanji combined together to make a word. These jukugo (combo-kanji) are also rarely get the rendaku treatment, though it definitely does happen (at least more often than really foreign words). Still, overall native (kun’yomi) Japanese words tend to be more prone to rendaku than Sino-Japanese (words of Chinese origin… on’yomi readings) words. That being said – never trust any Chinese words, they’re tricky (was that racist? I’m not sure…).

Groups Of Rendaku Behavior

Lyman’s law and other “behavior rules” aren’t always reliable. There are some other things you can do to help figure out when rendaku takes place or doesn’t take place. There are different “groups” of words that have different kinds of rules – if you know these groups (especially the first one) you’ll be able to figure figure out rendaku words more effectively.

1. Never Go Rendaku (Immune)

This set of Japanese (“Yamato”) nouns (versus nouns imported from China … we’re talking kun’yomi here) never undergo the rendaku treatment. Out of allllll the Japanese word nouns out there, this is a tiny fraction. It’s the exception so to speak, but it’s also solid, without any exceptions of its own.

• 浜（はま）＝　Beach
• 下（した）＝　Below
• 土（つち）＝　Earth
• はし（はし）＝　Edge
• かまち（かまち）＝　Framework
• 滓（かす）＝　Garbage, Scum
• 艶（つや）＝　Gloss
• 枷（かせ）＝　Handcuffs
• 暇（ひま）＝　Leisure
• 北（きた）＝　North
• 姫（ひめ）＝　Princess
• 形（かたち）＝　Shape
• 煙（けむり）＝　Smoke
• 紐（ひも）＝　String

So, with these examples, you can conclude that none of them will appear in the rendaku form (ひま will never be びま, けむり will never be げむり, and so on). Want some examples of this? Here you go:

横浜（よこはま）＝　Yokohama (the city)
よこはま doesn’t turn to よこばま
As far as I can tell, this doesn’t have a voiced obstruent in the はま, but because it’s one of the exception words it doesn’t change to ばま.

顔形（かおかたち）＝　Facial Features
かたち stays at かたち. It is immune to rendaku.

血煙（ちけむり）＝　Squirt Of Blood
けむり stays at けむり, just like it should.

You can also do a search on jisho.org where you take the word (above) and put a * before it. That will show you all the words with something before the word you put in. For example, if you put in *暇 you’ll get all the words with stuff before 暇 in them. You’ll have to look for the ones that are pronounced ひま though, rather than the on’yomi or other pronunciations.

Example: Look up *暇

If you learn this group of words (and you will eventually, though it’ll happen automagically over time as you gain more experience), you’ll at least know a list of words that never get the rendaku treatment. There are others, as well, though, and they’re not quite as friendly.

Then again, just like with everything rendaku, there’s exceptions with the “never go rendaku” words too. Not so “never go rendaku” are you, rendaku? Just shows why this topic is so difficult to pin down.

2. Rendaku Resistors

The above Group never gets all rendaku up in your face. This group of nouns just resists the rendaku treatment, where it is the exception when it happens.

According to a study done by Eric Rosen (“Systematic Irregularity in Japanese Rendaku: How the grammar mediates patterned lexical exceptions” … seriously, a mouthful of a title), these 8 nouns consist of 50% of all the cases of rendaku resisting words. That means if study these eight words and the combo-words they’re involved in, you can make educated guesses on some of the words you’re not sure about when you see them written in kanji.

• 草（くさ）＝　Grass　→　Resists rendaku 84% of the time
• 原（はら）＝　Field　→　Resists 57%
• 癖（くせ）＝　Habit→　Resists 75%
• 皮（かわ）＝　Skin　→　Resists 42%
• 先（さき）＝　Tip　→　Resists 100%
• 木（き）＝　Tree　→　Resists 61%
• 子（こ）＝　Child　→　Resists 38%
• 手（て）＝　Hand　→　Resists 75%

Now, there’s something interesting about the rendaku resisters. Their resistance occurs only in “short-short” compounds. That is, compounds that are two or less kana long (on both sides). When there is a long compound, these “rendaku resistant” words can no longer resist. For example:

常盤木（ときわぎ）＝　ときわ　＋　ぎ
You can see the first compound is three kana long. Thus, it is a “long-short” compound. Anything that’s not a short-short compound will not resist rendaku (if it is a rendaku resisting word).

But, when 木 is used in a short-short compound, things are totally different. Even though it doesn’t resist all the time, the percentage is much better (i.e. not 100% rate of rendaku like long compounds).

丸木（まるき）＝　Log
This is a short-short compound

本木（もとき）＝　Original Tree Trunk
もとき is a short-short compound (both sides are two or less kana long), and it is more resistnat.

生木（なまき）＝　Live Tree
Also resistant.

That being said, there are still short-short compounds for the rendaku resisting words that still can’t resist. It’s just that they don’t occur as often (though they still do occur).

山木（やまぎ）＝　Mountain Trees
Even though it’s a short-short compound, it can’t resist the rendaku (き becomes ぎ). There are exceptions, since it’s only rendaku resistant and not immune.

I’d say the most tricky ones are the resistant words. They tend to not go rendaku (if you had to bet, you’d at least have better than 50% odds most of the time, I suppose?) but they sometimes do as well. It’s a tricky business, but not something that’s too hard once you’ve studied Japanese for a while and you know a decent number of words.

3. Rendaku Lovers

Then, there’s a group of nouns that love rendaku. They never resist, and you’ll almost always see them in the rendaku form if they are the second part of the word. This is Rosen’s short list of of words that make up 39% of all the occurances of these rendaku loving nouns.

• 風呂（ふろ）＝　Bath　→　100% Rendaku’d
• 腹（はら）＝　Belly　→　100% Rendaku’d
• 船（ふね）＝　Boat　→　100% Rendaku’d
• 骨（ほね）＝　Bone　→　100% Rendaku’d
• 花（はな）＝　Flower　→　100% Rendaku’d
• 笛（ふえ）＝　Flute　→　100% Rendaku’d
• 金（かね）＝　Gold　→　100% Rendaku’d
• 口（くち）＝　Mouth　→　100% Rendaku’d
• 底（そこ）＝　Bottom/Sole　→　100% Rendaku’d
• 箱（はこ）＝　Box　→　100% Rendaku’d
• 紙（かみ）＝　Paper　→　100% Rendaku’d
• 人（ひと）＝　Person　→　100% Rendaku’d
• 形（かた）＝　Shape　→　100% Rendaku’d

Then, these ones are still Rendaku Lovers, but they don’t love rendaku quite as much as the previous list.

• 鳥（とり）＝　Bird　→　80% Rendaku’d
• 雲（くも）＝　Cloud　→　80% Rendaku’d
• 川（かわ）＝　River　→　61% Rendaku’d
• 玉（たま）＝　Ball　→　80% Rendaku’d

These words tend to be a little bit more reliable (at least compared to the rendaku resistors). Most of them are 100%, and the ones that aren’t 100% tend to be a lot closer (80% for all but one). If you take a look at these words, they should voice the rendaku every (or almost every) time.

戸口（とぐち）＝　Doorway

入り口（いりぐち）＝　Entrance

That being said, I found some exceptions to these rules (as in, some of the 100% ones aren’t 100%). There’s 悪口 (わるくち, which to be fair can also be written わるぐち) and there’s 仕口 (しくち, which isn’t a super common word, but you get my drift). There are others as well, but I think Rosen’s 100% list is pretty close, though I’d bring some of them down to around 90% (still close enough to make smart bets in my book).

Then Again, You Could Just Learn The Words

This is a huge amount of information. I never knew any of this until just recently and somehow got by just fine. I also doubt that anyone else learns about this either, and they somehow get by okay too. I think the above information is helpful, don’t get me wrong, but I think it’s more helpful for making guesses when you aren’t sure how to read a word written out in kanji. With tools like rikaichan (not to mention regular old dictionaries) needing to be able to guess isn’t as necessary as it may have once been.

Still, I think this kind of thing is pretty fascinating. I thought it was all totally random. The Japanese Language Gods were punishing everyone learning Japanese, I thought. I mean, half the Japanese language seems random anyways, so why not this (actually, I think most of the Japanese language makes sense, once you take the time to look at more of the linguistic elements of it).

Most students of Japanese will probably never learn any of this, though – so if you’re learning Japanese, and you made it through this epic post, thumbs up to you. You know more than 99.9% of all Japanese students out there. You could even show off some of your new found crazy linguistic knowledge to your Japanese teacher, too, but I doubt they’ll have any idea what you’re talking about.

Oh, and almost everything above has exceptions (damn you, Japanese Language Gods! *shakes fist at the sky, screams a bit*). Sorry about that :P

P.S. Wish this post was 140 characters instead of 2200 words? You should have followed us on Twitter.

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What Is Evernote?

First off, you should probably learn more about how Evernote works, on a whole, before I dive into how you can use it to study Japanese. Evernote is a tool that helps you capture and remember everything. Because it syncs with your phone, computer, and so on, no matter how or where you gather the information, it will appear on all of your devices. These can be things like grocery lists (I write down my grocery list in Evernote on my computer, and it syncs with my iPhone, which I use in the store), remembering your favorite vintage of wine (take a picture of the bottle in the restaurant), or even saving entire articles with the click of a button (if you have a plugin installed in your browser). Because the organization and search features (you can separate your notes into notebooks, and then further break them up with tags) it’s easy to find your notes later. I use Evernote to take pictures of books I want to buy, movies I want to watch, to copy and paste articles I’ll read on my phone later, backups of newsletters / important information, shortcut keys for different applications, instructions on pieces of paper I don’t want to physically keep, my license plate number (in case I need to remember it), and more. Really, it’s good for almost any type of information you could ever want to store and have easy access to later. It’s not the prettiest UI in the world, but it does its job really well (that job being storing information and allowing me to retrieve it easily later). Best part is that it’s free unless you want to upgrade to a bigger plan, which I may actually have to do pretty soon.

So how about using it to learn Japanese, or perhaps some other language? I haven’t started doing this yet personally (I told you, I just had my epiphany today!), but I’ve thought about it, and here are some great ways to use Evernote to practice your Japanese. After I’m done, I’d love to hear from Evernote users out there on how you would use it for Japanese practice as well. I feel like there’s a lot of untapped potential in this simple little app!

Copying Articles To Practice Later

A lot of times when I’m scrolling through Japanese content, I find something I want to read and use as study material, but don’t have the time to study it right then. There are a couple of problems with this. 1. A lot of newspaper sites pull their content after a little while, which means bookmarking it won’t work. 2. I’m not going to remember it if I just bookmark it anyways.

With Evernote, you can install their browser plugin, highlight the text you want, and then click the Evernote button. From there, a popup will appear allowing you to add it to a particular notebook (I’d create a “Japanese” notebook) and then add tags (highly recommend you tag everything! In this case, I might tag it as “asahi,” “readlater,” and “Japanese.”

By using Evernote, it’s easy to gather a lot of content (and only the content you want, i.e. the article) and store it away for later in a place that’s easily searchable. Other options besides newspapers are Japanese blogs, Japanese Tweets, and any other sites that have regularly updated Japanese content.

Studying Vocabulary

Vocabulary study on it’s own probably shouldn’t be done on Evernote (use Smart.fm or Anki if you want to do that). There is, however, a lot of potential for compiling sentences that use the vocabulary that you’re learning. There’s probably a couple of ways you could do it.

1. Create a new note for every vocabulary word that you’re studying. As you come across sentences (either through dictionary searches, or Smart.fm example sentences) that use the word you’re studying, add them to that vocab’s note. That way, whenever you search for that vocab word, you’ll be able to find sentences that go along with it, and you can use that to study.

2. Just create one big note that has all your practice sentences in it. Using the search feature, you can find sentences that use the word you’re looking for and just scroll through looking at those. Not quite as organized, but less time-intensive as well.

Another thing you could try is using the tag feature to tag notes with the vocab you are learning. This, I imagine, could get kind of overwhelming, though, so try it at your own risk.

Keeping Track Of Grammar

One really neat thing you could do with Evernote is use it to keep track of grammar you’ve learned. All you would need to do is create a “Grammar” notebook (or even a note) and put all the grammar you’ve learned in one place. This way, if you’re having trouble with a particular grammar point (or just learned something new about a grammar point), you can open up Evernote no matter where you are, get the information you need, and move on with your life. No more searching your textbook or searching the Internet. It’s all there at your fingertips and you can always add more info whenever you need to, and it’s written in your own style, which means you’ll understand it.

Personally, I think this would be a great way to study for the JLPT, since a lot of the learning is pretty grammar-centric. As you’re going through other study material, this could be a great reference and help you study faster and more effectively.

Keeping A Language Log

Keeping track of the things you’ve done, the things you had trouble with, and then everything in between is pretty important, I think. Normally, I’d recommend using a blog platform (like WordPress) to do this, since being “public” with your log should help motivate you more, but this article is about Evernote, so let’s stick to that. Keeping a log with Evernote is fairly easy, and it’s a good way to keep track of what you had trouble with and what you should study more of. Here is a list of things you could log in Evernote in regards to your Japanese learning:

• What you did today / What you studied today
• What was giving you trouble? Can you write more about it and figure out the root cause of the problem?
• Breakthroughs
• Vocabulary words you learned / studied / need to study more
• What you’ll be studying next (so you don’t forget the next day)
• Sentences, paragraphs, etc., that you wrote today
• Ideas for studying better based on what happened earlier
• etc.

There’s a lot to keep track of when you’re learning a new language, and Evernote is a great platform to help you do it. By keeping a language log, you’re deconstructing a lot of what you’re doing, which is actually really helpful and will assist you in understanding what you’ve done and what you need to do. I’d recommend trying it out for a week or two if you haven’t before. It does a lot more than you might think!

Collecting Inspiration

Staying inspired and motivated is one of the most difficult things when learning a new language (especially on your own). This is something that TextFugu does a pretty good job tackling and taking care of – but you can find and compile the things that inspire you personally, right in Evernote! By collecting articles, quotes, notes, etc., into an “inspiration” notebook or tag, anytime you’re feeling down, or feeling like you can’t do it anymore, you can go straight to that section of Evernote and get a boost of energy.

Although I haven’t done this with Evernote myself, I do have a stack of books with chapters marked off anytime I need an inspirational “you can do it” lift. If those books were in Evernote, it would be that much easier. You’d be surprised at how much of a pick-me-up something like this can do, especially with something that really does need a lot of motivation, like language learning (especially if you study on your own).

Taking Plain Ol’ Notes

I wish I had Evernote when I was in school. I would have used it to take notes in class (well, actually, I’d probably have used Google Wave, and just collaborated on notes with 3-4 other people). If you’re in a class, though, Evernote is a pretty sweet way to do it, especially since you can sync your notes between computers and study no matter where you are (of course, there are things like Google Docs, Dropbox, and others which can do this part pretty well too). Still, it’s a pretty good way to do things. At the end of class (or during class, if you sit in the front), you can even take a picture of the whiteboard and save it to your note (it will even make the words in the image searchable!), that way you have the teacher’s scrobbles, your own scrobbles, and all the scrobbles in between right in one place. It certainly beats pen and paper, at least in terms of searching for things later. If anything, the tagging system makes Evernote a really worthwhile option for taking notes in class.

Sharing And Collaborating

One cool little feature that Evernote has is the ability to share your notes with others. If you want to allow people to modify your notes, you do have to be a premium member (which may or may not be worth it to you). I could see this being useful for people who are studying Japanese with others and want to share notes and ideas. I can also see this being useful for those of you who are learning in a class and taking class notes (and want to share those as well). There are any number of ways to use the share / collaborate feature of Evernote to your advantage. Other alternatives which also let you collaborate include Google Docs and Google Wave, which I would probably recommend more for the collaboration angle of things.

What Are Your Ideas?

Contribute to the Evernote-Japanese-Studying Idea-Pool by commenting below. I’m curious how you use or would use Evernote to your advantage when it comes to language learning. Like I’ve said a couple times already, I think there’s a ton of untapped Japanese-studying potential hidden away in Evernote, and it’s only a matter of figuring out the different uses. So, how would you use the big green elephant? [Evernote]

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The other day I stumbled across of a list of “at the same time” grammar points in one of my Japanese text books. I’m studying for the Japanese Proficiency Test, ikkyu level, so all the Japanese I’m learning now either appears only in writing or is used by pompous bastards (sometimes). Still, I thought I’d share them with you anyways. Included in each paragraph will be the grammar point, a definition (though they are all basically the same), an example or two, how “usable” they are, and finally, how and when to use them. If you don’t know a kanji in a sentence, please look it up over at Mr. Breen’s house. And now…grammar!

• ついでに：While doing [purpose 1], you do [purpose 2] along the way / at the same time
  -Example 1: Safewayに行くついでに、Starbucks（スタバ）のコーヒーを買いました
  -Translation 1: While going to Safeway, I bought a coffee (on the way/at the same time)
  -How: (v.plain)ついでに、(noun)のついでに
  -Usability: Very Usable
  -When: Casual situations. Don’t use it on your teachers / superiors

• かたがた：While doing [action 1], you do [action 2] as well
  -Example 1: スタバで日本語の勉強かたがたコーヒーを買いました
  -Translation 1: While studying at Starbucks, I bought a coffee
  -Example 2: ポートランドに行くかたがたIKEAに行きました。
  -Translation 2: When going to Portland, I went to Ikea (as well)
  -How: (v.plain)かたがた、(noun)かたがた
  -Useability: Somewhat Useable
  -When: Formal situations. Try using it with your teacher / superiors!

• がてら：While doing [action 1], you do [action 2] as well
  -Example 1: 日本語を教えがてら日本語を勉強しています
  -Translation 1: I am teaching Japanese, but at the same time I’m studying Japanese (as well).
  -Example 2: 散歩がてら、牛乳を買いました。
  -Translation 2: While out walking, I bought some milk.
  -How: (v.stem)がてら、(noun)がてら
  -Usability: Not really usable.
  -When: Very formal situations, used more in writing.

• 一方で：At the same time, (on the other hand)
  -Example 1: 今年サッカーをやっている一方でバレーボールもやっている
  -Translation 1: This year I’m doing Soccer, but at the same time / on the other hand -I’m doing Volleyball as well.
  -How: (v.plain)一方で、(noun)の一方で
  -Usability: Fairly Usable
  -When: Both Casual and Formal Situations. Fairly neutral in terms of formality.

• かたわら：On the Other hand / At the same time
  -Example 1: 文法の勉強のかたわら漢字も勉強しています
  -Translation 1: I’m studying Grammar, but at the same time I’m also studying kanji
  -How: (v.plain)かたわら、(noun)のかたわら
  -Usability: Fairly Usable
  -When: Pretty casual. Use it with your stylin’ friends

Try to keep in mind the “usability” factor of each grammar point. When speaking Japanese, it is really important to know what kind of speech to use (or not to use) in any one situation. I tried to lay it out in general terms, but there are always exceptions to the rules. Sadly, you’ll have to figure those out on your own. Hopefully everything makes some sense, please comment below if you have any questions!