Japanese and Mandarin Grammar Guides
A growing library of practical grammar guides connected to Constructing Language courses and interactive games.
About the author
Luke McLaughlin created Constructing Language after living in Japan and later learning Mandarin Chinese from scratch. The lessons, games, and guides are built from that first-hand learner experience and checked against native-speaker course work with Hiro for Japanese and Xiang for Mandarin Chinese.
- Lived in Japan and studied Japanese through immersion and structured self-study.
- Learned Mandarin Chinese from scratch as an adult learner.
- Created the Construction Method: audio-first sentence building, grammar graphics, and active recall.
- Built Japanese course material with Hiro and Mandarin course material with Xiang, both native-speaker collaborators.
What to study first
Beginners should start with sentence structure, pronunciation, and the small grammar markers that make each language work.
- Japanese learners: sentence order, particles, verbs, and te-form.
- Mandarin learners: tones, word order, measure words, and aspect markers.
- Use the games after each guide to turn the topic into active recall.