Japanese Example Sentences: Where to Find Them and When to Memorize Them

Example sentences are invaluable for improving your Japanese. One reason is that for a particular word or grammar point, example sentences can help clarify its nuance and natural usage. Another reason is that memorizing example sentences gives you a stock of material to draw on to make your Japanese sound more natural and forces you to attend to the details of the language.

We’ll first go over a list of resources and strategies to get example sentences, then we will discuss the benefits of memorizing sentences. The resources listed below are places to find pre-existing example sentences. But we will also take it a step further and discuss having original example sentences made for you and even making them yourself!

Places and strategies to get Japanese example sentences

It might be best to start with a simple search, for example on google. If it’s a word you want example sentences for, you could just search “word + example sentence”, or you could use the following “word + を使った例文” (example sentence(s) using word), e.g. 言葉を使った例文. Input the word in kanji if possible. The following might be common search results.

Japanese-English dictionary and example sentence corpus
英辞郎 on the WEB (mobile app available: Apple, Play). This is probably the resource I use most often. It has a huge repertoire.

Japanese-English dictionaries
Weblio英和辞典・和英辞典 (mobile app available: Apple, Play)
Tangorin
Jisho
Japan Dict

Japanese dictionaries
goo辞書 (navigation in Japanese)

Japanese-English example sentence corpuses
Weblio (navigation in Japanese. Mobile app available: Apple, Play)
Gogakuru (navigation in Japanese)
Sentence Search
Kanshudo
The Ultra Handy Japanese and English Example Sentence Finder
Linguee (mobile app available: Apple)
Reverso (mobile app available: Apple, Play)

Japanese example sentence corpus
用例.jp (navigation in Japanese) 

Japanese-English Dictionary Mobile Apps
Yomiwa (Apple, Play) 
Imiwa (Apple)

Detailed descriptions of Japanese words with example sentences
Meaning Book (navigation in Japanese)

Note: If you are looking for example sentences for grammar structures, this is actually a little easier. You can try searching the grammar structure as the keyword on its own, or “grammar structure + grammar”, e.g. “に関して grammar”. Often a lot of results will come up. I have written a separate article with a list of great places for grammar here. Most grammar resources provide a lot of example sentences.

Sentence mining and making original example sentences

Let’s discuss a strategy in which you don’t find the sentence, the sentence finds you! I am referring to sentence mining, which is one of the best strategies to obtain example sentences because they come from your own immersion. Sentence mining is slightly different in that you don’t start with a target word looking for a sentence for it, rather, you come across a sentence containing an unknown word.

When you come across a new word, grammar point, or expression while reading or listening to some Japanese content, take note and save the whole sentence. I find sentence mining very helpful for learning and remembering a word’s correct usage. I think it is because the words were embedded in a broader context that I engaged with.

Let’s move on to having original example sentences made for you. There are several ways to do this. You could ask an AI service, such as ChatGPT, or you could ask on HiNative. HiNative has an AI feature as well, but it also has a big community of native speakers that you can ask directly. You may get multiple responses. Be sure to also answer other users’ questions about your native language.

The next strategy is to ask your private tutor. Your tutor will know your level, your interests, and what information you should be currently learning. I have written more about learning with a private tutor here. By the way, if you do come across a really tough sentence in your studies, ask the community on HiNative or bring it to your tutor to help you decipher it.

Another strategy is to make an example sentence yourself! In fact, a study that examined the strategies employed by high and low achieving students of Japanese, found that the high achievers all made their own sentences for learning kanji, vocabulary and grammar [1]. Ask your tutor (or HiNative) for help to craft and adjust your sentence so it is both grammatically correct and natural.

Memorize Sentences to Boost Your Japanese Proficiency

Whether you’ve been learning Japanese for a while or are still new to it, you’ve probably noticed that understanding spoken, or written Japanese is much easier than speaking or writing it yourself. It’s tough enough just to put together a coherent sentence let alone one that sounds natural. This is where memorization of some prefabricated native language can be a big help.

Memorizing lexical chunks, complete sentences, and even longer texts have the following benefits:

Facilitates fluent processing of the language [2]
Enables the ability to sound native-live [2]
Forces a focus on form [3, 4]

Let’s first look at the definition of a lexical chunk (or just chunk) given by the Cambridge papers on ELT which is “an all-purpose word that embraces any formulaic sequence, lexical/phrasal expression or multi-word item” [2]. Some English language examples of chunks given in the paper are collocations, sentence starters, and idioms.

As it relates to the benefits (particularly the first) mentioned above, the following quote expresses the utility of memorizing chunks. “…the possession of a memorized store of ‘chunks’ allows more rapid processing, not only for production but also for reception, since ‘it is easier to look up something from long-term memory than compute it” [2].

The following are elements of Japanese that could be considered chunks:

Set expressions 決まり文句 (kimarimonku)
Idioms 慣用句 (kanyouku)
Collocation 連語 (rengo)
Four kanji compound words 四字熟語 (yojijukugo)
Proverbs 諺 (kotowaza)
Many grammar structures

Examples of set expressions:
やってみないと分からない。You don’t know unless you try.
お疲れ様です。You must be tired after working so hard.

Examples of idioms:
首の皮一枚で繋がる。English equivalents might be: “to hang on by a thread” or “by the skin of one’s teeth”. 
猫の手を借りる。I am not sure if there is an English equivalent, but it means something like “I’m so busy I would ask a cat to lend me a hand (paw)”. 

Examples of collocations:
写真を撮る。To take a picture.
役にたつ。To be useful (verb). 

Note: In Japanese collocations most often seem to be of the form noun + particle + verb, as in the first example. The second example also follows this pattern, but it forms a verb as a whole.

Here are some links to long lists of idioms and collocations:
慣用句 (kanyoku)
連語 (rengo)

Examples of yojijukugo:
一石二鳥。To kill two birds with one stone (lit. one stone, two birds).
一期一会。Once in a lifetime meeting (lit. one lifetime, one meeting).

Note: knowing jukugo (compound kanji words) is extremely important in Japanese. I write in detail about the importance of jukugo (which includes yojijukugo) here.

Examples of proverbs:
猿も木から落ちる。Even monkeys fall from trees.
旅は道連れ、世は情け。On the road you need a companion, in life you need compassion.

Examples of grammar structures: 
～たらどうですか？ How about… How is it if…  
～というわけではない。Not the case that… It does not mean that…

The benefits of memorizing complete sentences and longer texts

The major benefit of memorizing longer sentences is the focus on form. When you memorize a sentence, you are forced to attend to the details of the language [4]. To sound nativelike, it is important to get things right like particles, structures, verb conjugations… In my experience, I really need to look at a sentence closely and practice a lot to finally be able to recite it verbatim.

This ties back to understanding vs. being able to produce Japanese (verbal or written) for yourself. Without paying deliberate attention to the details, when you speak or write, you will make errors and those errors may never go away, they will fossilize. One way to remedy this is to take time to memorize sentences as part of your study regimen.

But how much time and effort should be devoted to text memorization? It should not be your major focus [3]. Consider that not every sentence can be memorized and rehearsed in advance [5]. There is no replacement for studying grammar and building your vocabulary. Instead, think of this as a small activity that you do regularly alongside your other studies.

The reasons you do it are threefold:

to analyze text closely (as you would when doing intensive reading).
to train yourself to use correct form.
to provide you with a reasonable stock of material that you could (possibly) use verbatim or modify as necessary.

Here are a couple of self-deprecating (but still fun) sentences that I memorized and that I use (half) jokingly. I usually say them verbatim.

10年も日本語を勉強した割にはあまり話せません。
Considering I have been learning Japanese for 10 years, I cannot really speak it.
必死にがんばっても、どうにもならないこともあります。
There are situations where no matter how hard you try it might still be futile.

Let’s borrow one of the short sentences from earlier and use it as an example of something that you could modify. You will almost certainly come across the expression やってみないと分からない at some point in your studies. This sentence can be modified in many ways just by changing the て form verb at the start. The ～みないと分からない part stays the same.

Examples:
聞いてみないと分からない。You won’t know unless you ask.
行ってみないと分からない。You won’t know unless you go.
申し込んでみないと分からない。You won’t know unless you apply.

Now let’s look at memorizing longer texts. If I’m being honest, I have not really done this type of exercise since I was learning beginner Japanese in a classroom setting. But a good argument is made for doing it when you consider that high school students in many countries are often required to memorize textual passages in their own language [3].

One of the main reasons to do it would be as a drill to train your output. But before memorizing anything, the first thing you want to do is understand the meaning; don’t just mechanically memorize [3]. Once you understand, you have the opportunity to engage deeper with the text and be able to recite something coherently as a native would. For best practice try to recite out loud [3].

Choosing what sentences and chunks to memorize

In my experience, I think you can be fairly liberal with memorization of set expressions, idioms and collocations. They come up often and are helpful to know. You can be more conservative with yojijukugo and proverbs, they are not used that often. As for grammar structures, you will want to memorize and learn to use a lot of them, but you will do this anyway as a natural process of learning Japanese.

Here is an example of why memorizing set expressions is important. Set expressions include greetings like お疲れ様です (you must be tired after working so hard). This expression does not exist in English, but it would be hard to get by in daily life in Japan without knowing it. People will say it to you and once you know it, you’ll find yourself saying it to others as well.

As your proficiency improves you might become overwhelmed with the number of sentences you could possibly memorize, so you will want to be judicious in your selections. One good selection criterion would be utility. If a sentence or chunk seems like it could be used often and in a variety of situations, it’s probably worth the effort to memorize.

References

[1] Mori, Sachiho. (2010). “Japanese Language Learning Strategies by High and Low Achievers”. 小出記念日本語教育研究会18 2010.3.

[2] Thornbury, Scott. (2019). “Learning language in chunks”. Part of the Cambridge Papers in ELT series. [pdf] Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[3] Harris, Timothy (2015). “Text and Dialogue Memorization in English Language Learning”. Journal Of Osaka Sangyo University Humanities & Social Sciences 23.

[4] Wang, Qunfeng. (2023). “Memorization strategy and foreign language learning: a narrative literature review“. Front. Psychol. 14:1261220. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1261220.

[5] Meunier, F. & Granger, S. (eds.) (2008). “Phraseology in Foreign Language Learning and Teaching“. Benjamins: Amsterdam & Philadelphia, 2008, 247-252.