辞書 Dictionary

1.ba iina to omou ~ばいい(な)と思う: I would like to ~
    This expression is NOT literally “I would like to.” Almost all of the Japanese language students learn at first “~たいです” for expressing their own wish/desire. This “~ばいいと思う” is another version for that, but sounds a bit indirect (it literally means “I am thinking it would be good if I ~”) therefore sounds a sort of modest. You could also use “~たら” instead of “~ば” like “~書けたらいいなと思っています”.

2. yooni  ~ように: so that~
   This expression is used to describe purpose for a certain action. Purpose should come before “ように” and what you do/will will come after “ように”. So the part of “難しい漢字にはひらがなをつけます” describes what I will do, which “I will add hiragana to difficult kanji” – what’s the purpose of doing this? – “日本語を勉強しているみなさんが読める: People who are studying Japanese could read”

3.soo ieba そう言えば: speaking of that,
    When you are talking/writing about something, and then it reminds you of something a sort of irrelevant, you could use this expression and start talking/writing about the irrelevant issue.

4.~ni totte にとって: for
    This expression describes a certain standpoints. For example, when you are talking about a certain book, it is hard to say whether or not it’s difficult to read generally. But you could say with this expression like “この本は小学生にとっては難しいですけど、高校生にとってはやさしいです(this book is difficult for primary school kids, but it’s easy for high school students) .”

5. ~reru/rareru れる・られる:passive form 受身形
   When an event is held and we want to mention it, there are several ways to do it: if we are the organiser, we could say “we will hold a concert this Saturday今度の土よう日にコンサートを開[ひら]きます(開く is “to hold” in this context).” If we are not the organiser of the concert however, we cannot say this and most of the times we are indeed in this situation. Then we could say “a concert will be held this Saturday  今度の土曜日にコンサートが開かれます” This 開かれる is passive form of 開く.

6. (verb stem form) + hajimeru 始める:to start ~ing
This expression is used to say “to start ~ing” in Japanese. For example, if you want to say “I started studying Japanese” in Japanese, your sentence could be “日本語を勉強し始めた.” The verb used before 始める has to be stem form like 書き(→書き始める) 読み(→読み始める) 食べ(→食べ始める).

7. D.F. (Dictionary Form) + bakari D.F. + ばかり
    This means “only~” or “just~”. So if you say “祈るばかりです” means “I just hope.” “トムさんはビールを飲むばかりです” means “Tom just drinks beer”.

8. D.F. (Dictionary Form) + koto ni natteiru D.F. + ことになっている
    This phrase is used to describe rules, regulations, and schedule. For example, There are all sorts of regulations related to the exam and we could use this sentence pattern to describe them; i.e. 試験では、ペンを使うことになっています。えんぴつを使わないことになっています。試験では、IDカードを机の上におくことになっています。(For the exam, we are supposed to use pens and we are not supposed to use pencils. We are supposed to put ID card on the desk).