JLPT N4 Grammar: All 57 Patterns, in the Order They Build On Each Other

The short answer first: N4 grammar runs to 57 patterns, the list further down carries every one of them with an example that has been through review, and the sequence is built for studying rather than for looking things up. One caveat before you read it: the JLPT has not published a content specification since the 2010 revision, so the N4 inventories in circulation — this one included — are reconstructions of what the exam keeps drawing on. They converge on the same core and diverge at the margins by a handful of entries. Ours settles at 57 because that is how our own shelf is cut: one pattern, one lesson.

The jump from N5 is a change of kind rather than a change of volume. At N5 you assemble a sentence. At N4 a sentence becomes a component: a whole clause can sit in front of a noun, an action can be turned into something you like or are bad at, and a question can be tucked inside a larger statement. Meanwhile the verb itself starts carrying meaning in its shape — 泳ぐおよぐ bends into 泳げるおよげる for ability, into 泳がれるおよがれる for what is done to you, and into 泳がせるおよがせる for making or letting someone act.

Then a third thing arrives that vocabulary cannot stand in for: distance. んです lets you frame why you are saying something at all; requests climb a ladder from てください up to ていただけませんか; and the honorific verbs of 敬語けいご give you two parallel systems, one for lifting the other person, one for lowering your own side. Composition, verb shape, register — that is the actual N4 syllabus, and the order below follows it.

Why the list runs in this order

Stage one (1–7) is intent and its social wrapper. んです explains the situation behind what you just said; つもり and 予定よてい split what you mean to do from what is already on the calendar; the volitional and ことにする announce a decision you made, while ことになる reports one that was made for you. Favors close the stage: the three-way てあげる・てくれる・てもらう, and the politeness ladder that tops out at ていただけませんか.

Stage two (8–19) is the second career of the て form, plus aspect. Once you can tell a verb that simply happens from one you do to something, ておく・てみる・てしまう・てある give you preparation, trial, completion and the state someone left behind; ていく・てくる add direction; and ところ, たばかり, まま and the compound endings let you point at the exact slice of an action you mean. Stage three (20–34) is the modal block: ability through the potential form, growth through ようになる, the four conditionals laid side by side, and then seven separate ways to say you are not certain — heard it, looks like it, must be, resembles. Test writers love this stage precisely because the members overlap.

Stage four (35–47) is where sentences begin to nest. Passive and causative — and the させられる that stacks one on the other — change whose story the sentence is telling; noun-modifying clauses, の・こと and かどうか let a clause do a noun's job; and the connectives (のに, ても, し, cause-て, 間にあいだに, までに) hold the two halves together. Stage five (48–57) is shading and distance: degree with すぎる and ほど〜ない, the senses with がする, casual quoting with って, and finally the honorific verbs — 尊敬語そんけいご for what the other person does, 謙譲語けんじょうご for what you do, でございます for the Japanese that greets you at a front desk.

The 57 patterns, in order

Each example is the sentence its own lesson teaches with, carried over word for word after review — so the Japanese in this table is the Japanese you will meet again when you study the pattern properly. Reading the Example column straight down is worth a few minutes on its own: these are ordinary adult sentences, so patterns from later rows turn up early in them. Natural Japanese does not wait for the syllabus to catch up.

How to work through it

N4 is where recognition stops being enough. Many of these patterns arrive in sets whose members are each grammatical — four conditionals, several ways to hedge a guess, three rungs of politeness for the same request — so what gets tested, on the exam and in a real conversation, is the choice rather than the form. Study the sets as sets: take ば, たら, と and なら in one sitting, write the same sentence four ways, and decide which version you would actually say out loud.

The second habit is to write from your own week. These patterns carry attitude — regret in てしまう, deference in ていただけませんか, resignation in させられる — and attitude does not stick to sentences invented about textbook strangers. Say what you were made to do at work, what you have decided about next month, what you left exactly as it was. Two or three sentences aloud per pattern will move you further than another read-through of the list.

On the app side, every entry above opens as a lesson on the same shelf, each built around examples that have been through review, and the N4 section sits directly after the N5 one — the three bridge lessons you may already know from N5 study stand at the top of it, and the rest run in the order above. Start with んです, which turns out to be doing quiet work under a surprising amount of everyday speech. If you came here from a search, that first lesson is also the honest answer to what makes intermediate Japanese feel different.