Here are a couple of early lessons from the book, Japanese Conversation-Grammar by Oreste Vaccari and Mrs Enko Elisa Vaccari, published 1973, originally published 1937.

First Lesson.

The Japanese language has no article and, except in a very few cases, no distinction is made between singular and plural nouns. Thus hon, book, may mean a book, the book, books, or the books…

The conjunction and is expressed by to.

Vocabulary.

Book= hon; box= hako; bread=pan; butter=bata; chair=isu; fish= sakana; fork=foku; inkstand=inkitsubo; man=otoko; meat=niku; pen=pen; pencil=empitsu; spoon=saji; table=teburu; woman=onna.

Exercise.

1.Hon to pen. 2.Isu to teburu. 3.Otoku to onna…

1.A book and a pen. 2. The chair and the table. 3. Man and woman…

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