Basic Japanese Grammer
By quanglv | April 5, 2008
Japanese grammer is very simple but very different from English grammer. In English, simple sentence is: [Subject] [Verb] [Object]
But in Japanese, verb always comes at the end.
[Subject] [Object] [Verb]
This japanese grammer lesson will give you details Japanese language, and begin to teach how exactly to formulate phrases and sentences to convey more complex ideas.
The main particles in japanese grammer are following:
 |
wa (Hiragana “ha” is pronounced “wa” if it follows the subject) |
Subject Marker |
 |
ga | Topic Marker |
 |
to | and |
 |
mo | too (similar) |
 |
wo (Pronounced as ‘o’) |
Direct Object Marker |
 |
ni | Direction or Time Marker, Indirect Object Marker |
 |
e (Hiragana “he” is pronounced “e” if it follows a place or direction) |
Direction Marker |
Particles wa and ga:
Particle wa marks the subject of the sentence. Particle ga marks the topic of the sentence. In the example, “I know where you live” (watashi wa anata ga doko ni sunde iru ka shitte iru), “I” would be the subject while “you” would be the topic.
Not all sentences have both a subject and topic and, in many cases, the subject is implied in Japanese (for example, the “I” (watashi wa) would be left out of this sentence because it is implied that since I am talking I am the one that knows where you live). Many Japanese books and teachers teach that “wa” and “ga” are the same thing and it doesn’t matter which you use when. This is not the case but I wouldn’t worry too much about keeping them straight at first.
Particle to:
to is used for connecting nouns. Nouns combined with ‘to’ can then be used as a single noun in the sentence.
Example: Noun1 to Noun2
Particle mo:
mo indicates that there is a similar object to Noun.
Particle wo:
The particle “wo” (or “o”) marks the direct object of the sentence. In the example, “I’m going to take her home” (watashi wa kanojo wo ie ni okuru), “her” would be the direct object.
Particle ni:
The particle “ni” can be used to mark the direction, time, or the indirect object of a sentence.
An example of a direction marker can be seen in the previous example “I’m going to take her home” (watashi wa kanojo wo ie ni okuru). In this case, the “ni” acts like a “to” - “I’m going to take her ‘to’ home”.
Particle e:
Particle e can be used in this as well but usually implies more of a general direction as opposed to a specific places.
The particle “ni” is also used to mark time in a sentence. For example, “I’m leaving at 3 o’clock” (watashi wa sanji ni hanareru).
The final use for the particle “ni” is that of indirect object marker. In the example, “I was taken home by him” (watashi wa kare ni ie made okurareta), “him” is the indirect object.
Topics: Japanese |
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