N5 Grammar List

Particles are the single most important thing at N5. は marks the topic, が marks the subject, を marks the object, に and で handle place and time, へ shows direction. A sentence with the right words but the wrong particle is still wrong — and the exam tests this constantly.

Compare 学校に行きます ("I go to school" — destination) with 学校で勉強します ("I study at school" — location of an action). Same place, different particle, different meaning. Drill particles until choosing them feels automatic.

At N5 you need the polite present/past (ます／ました), the negative (ません), and the all-important て-form, which is the gateway to requests (〜てください), ongoing actions (〜ています), and permission (〜てもいいです). The て-form has predictable conjugation rules based on the verb group — learn the groups once and every new verb falls into place.

Three patterns trip up beginners repeatedly: mixing up は and が in question-word sentences (誰が来ましたか, never 誰は), forgetting that adjectives conjugate (さむい → さむかった, not さむいでした), and confusing あります (for objects) with います (for living things). The exam loves all three. If you can handle them cleanly, you are already ahead of most candidates.

The grammar section has two main question types: fill-in-the-blank, where you choose the grammar item that completes a sentence, and sentence rearrangement, where you order scrambled parts and identify what goes in the starred slot. Both reward understanding how patterns connect, not rote memorization. Practising each pattern inside real sentences — the way they appear in the list above — is the most direct preparation.