Nouns, pronouns

Japanese has nouns (名詞) and pronouns (代名詞), just like English. Pronouns are less special than in English, and act just like normal nouns most of the time.

Most of the time, Japanese does not distinguish between singular and plural. Nouns and verbs don't have to agree for plurality, person, or gender. Japanese can explicitly refer to a group by attaching certain suffixes to nouns, but none of them are a true plural, they are often used to convey extra information that normal plurals don’t have.

Japanese has tons of personal pronouns (me, you, them) that English doesn't, but the demonstrative pronoun system (this, that, these, those) is much less irregular. Also, Japanese pronouns never change form for cases like English ones do (he vs him). You can just put suffixes on them.

Here are some examples. Don't bother memorizing these word lists. Learn words outside of this guide.

私・わたし me (normal, slightly formal when men use it)  
あたし me (casual, feminine)  
俺・おれ me (casual, masculine)  
僕・ぼく me (casual or polite, masculine)  
彼・かれ him  
彼女・かのじょ her  
あなた you

達 is a suffix. This suffix can be applied to pronouns and nouns. It refers to the entire group the noun/pronoun belongs to, and is one way to explicitly pluralize things.

私達・わたしたち Us  
ジム達・じむたち Jim and company  
ペン達・ぺんたち The pen and stuff

達 is usually for living things, and the usage with "pen" above is considered colloquial, or at least informal. It just shows up enough to be worth mentioning.

Japanese has compound words. They work the same way as in English.

町・まち town, district  
中・なか inside, middle  
町中・まちなか downtown, the middle of town

Japanese has prefixes and suffixes just like English. This is different from compound words. Prefixes and suffixes can't exist as their own standalone word and must be attached to something.

研究・けんきゅう research  
研究者・けんきゅうしゃ researcher

者, pronounced しゃ here, is a suffix. It can act like a piece of a compound word, but can't stand on its own as its own word. When 者 appears on its own in a sentence, it's a different word, and not pronounced as しゃ. Thanks, kanji.

Some words can have multiple ways they can be read. 明日, meaning "tomorrow", is normally read as あした, but can also be read あす (formal, not rare) or みょうにち (even more formal, much more rare). Watch out for reading variation when you start reading, or you'll be super confused.