こそ Part One: Precisely X

Introduction

Welcome to part one of 「こそ」. This is one of those big points, that will add a new and exciting tool to your grammatical toolbox.

こそ can take a little bit of brain power to unpack at first, but hey, not only did you survive conditionals, you also got through であるーheck you even survived the deep-sea leviathans! You've come this far, you can handle a bit of grammatical wrestling, right?

Let's get to it!

～こそ: Precisely the Lesson We Needed

構成こうせい

• 

  Nounこそ
  Example:
  → 今回こんかいこそ勝かつつもり。
  "I intend to win this time for sure.”

Thankfully, こそ is simple to use in that it only attaches to nouns (or to 「から」, but we'll save this for part two). Not only that, it can be used in both informal and formal situations!