O-matase! [Sorry to keep you waiting.] It's been a while, hasn't it? Sorry for being so lazy. I am finally back with a new lesson. Arigatou again to Krusty-sensei for putting up lesson 2 before. :3

Hai! Jaa, kyou no ressun wa...grammar! [Today's lesson is grammar.] I'm using this little nifty handbook as a guide; the title is "Japanese Phrasebook", published by Lonely Planet. I highly recommend it. It has lots of useful lessons in it. So yeah, grammar. I will tell you a bit about sentence structure and particles.

Word Order
As you may or may not know, Japanese sentences are not organized like those in English. The verbs are found (almost all the time) at the end of the sentence. But at the same time, Japanese sentence structure has a lot of freedom; as long as you have the right words with the right particles, it doesn't matter where you put things (but the verb is still at the end!)

So take the sentence, "I bought a book." In the Japanese, it would be "I a book bought." Watashi ga hon o kaimashita. (watashi=I; hon=book; kaimashita=bought) But what are those little letters and words in between? "ga" and "o" are particles.

Particles
They can be very tricky to understand, and me introducing them now might not make all the sense in the world since you probably don't know many verbs or nouns, but you will understand them soon enough. Particles are markers that are placed after nouns or pronouns to mark what that word is, like the subject, object, etc. Since sentences can be organized in any way, these particles help identify what is happening to what!

Subject particle: ga This marks the subject of the sentence, which is what/who is doing the action. ex. Kono hito ga Suzuki-san desu. Suzuki-san ga totemo ii hito desu. "This person is Suzuki-san. Suzuki-san is a very good person."

Topic Particle: wa This marks the topic of the sentence, or what the main subject is. It is sometimes used in place of ga, or if there is another subject in the sentence. It is sometimes translated as "is". So again, the example could be the same as above, only replacing ga with wa. Or, here's another: Watashi wa hontou ni ureshii desu! Watashi wa supoutsu ga suki desu! "I am really happy! I like sports!" [In the second sentence, "sports" would be the subject that "I", the topic, likes.]

Object Particle: o Just one simple letter! "o" or "wo" marks the object of the sentence, which is easy to remember because both object and o start with, well, o's! This is place after the object of the sentence to make it clear that that is what the action is happening to. ex.Watashi wa sushi o tabemashita. "I ate the sushi." Sushi is the object of the action of eating, so that requires the particle 'o' to come after it.

Possessive Article: no This one is probably the easiest to recognize and use. It marks possession, or owning something. Think of it as translating to the word "of," or ----'s. (apostrophe s) Place 'no' after who or what is owning the word that comes after. ex.Watashi no neko wa kawaii. Neko no namae wa Mihashi desu. "My cat is cute. (my) Cat's name is Mihashi." Or "The cat of me is cute. The name of the cat is Mihashi."

Other particles: -ni, e, -de These three generally refer to directions. However, -ni can also be used to say "on" or "at" when referring to dates and times. Each one means and is used at different times, and those I can explain at some other time since they are somewhat confusing. To be general, ni means "at" or "to", e means "at", "to", "towards" (used in directions), and de can mean "by", "from", or "with" (when using something; like I write WITH a pen).

Pronouns
I, you, me, we, him/her, etc. You know those? Well, here they are in Japanese. Each one has a formal and informal way to say them. And certain ones also have a specifically male way to pronounce them as well.

--I/me = watashi (normal), watakushi (formal), ore/boku (informal/male), atashi (informal), as well as other variations depending upon accent.
--you = anata (normal/formal), kimi (informal), omae (informal)
--he = kare
--she = kanojo
--plurals (we, they, them, you plural) = add "-tachi" to the end of the pronoun's version, like watashi-tachi (we) or kimi-tachi (you, plural informal)

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Owari! (end) There you have the lesson...it's long and somewhat confusing (gomen!), but yeah. I felt like writing this for you guys~ It took like 40 minutes to do. XD Next time, I'll try to teach some more useful things, like common sentences and whatnot. :3 Ganbatte!

Guide: 10/04/08 | Posted By: Angel Zakuro | 13 comments