I will start by defining what a noun is in terms of general grammar, then ease into how they are used in Japanese.
Nouns are words that name a person, place, or thing.
There are two types of nouns: 1) Proper nouns and 2) common nouns.
Proper nouns name SPECIFIC people, places, and things. For example…
Specific people = Elvis Presley, Taylor Swift
Specific places = Mount Everest, Mount Fuji
Specific things = Coca-Cola, Pepsi
Think of proper nouns as unique individuals, irreplaceable locations, and well-known brands. No other person, place, or thing can replace their individual charm. Their real name is important; you want to know who you are talking to, where you are, and what brand name you purchased so that you can buy it again.
The opposite of a proper noun is a common noun.
A common noun defines what it is or what role it has. Common nouns are pretty generic; it doesn’t really matter who they are, where this is, or what brand it is, just as long as it is what it’s supposed to be.
A non-specific person = singer
A non-specific place = mountain
A non-specific thing = soda pop
For example, if you write “soda pop” on a shopping list and give it to your mom, she has no clue that you actually wanted “Coca-Cola”! She might buy you Pepsi instead, or any random type or brand of soda! Common nouns are vague, so use proper nouns when you want there to be no question!
Now that we’re done with the generic explanation of nouns in general, we can move on to how nouns are specifically used in Japanese!
To start, on Learn JP Lyrics, we color nouns orange. Why? Because nouns usually have a red na-adjective in front of it or a pink i-adjective in front of it. This is the beginning of a rainbow. Many Japanese sentences start with a noun or a noun being modified by an adjective or verb!
I won’t bother labeling individual nouns as being proper or common, it just takes up too much room and is kind of obvious which is which (specific label vs unspecific label). And in online dictionaries, both common and proper nouns are simply labeled as “(n)” for “noun”. I think just being able to tell what is a noun versus something like an adjective or verb at first glance is the most important thing.
So, most nouns on Learn JP Lyrics will be labeled simply as NOUN, like this:
Here are a few often-used nouns. (We will be using them again on upcoming pages so you won’t forget them.)
Sorry to break it to you, but you can’t build a sentence with only nouns (I’m not counting titles as sentences)…
But on the next page, you will learn how to say “is” in Japanese and therefore be able to create simple sentences! Hurray!
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