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Grammar lesson time.
Now I'll go over the basic structure of a sentence and teach you a simple example from which you can create other sentences.
Japanese uses a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) pattern to form sentences. In English, and many other languages you might be familiar with, the general pattern is Subject-Verb-Object (SVO). An example of this in English would be "The bear eats ice cream." The bear is the subject, eats is the verb, and ice cream is the object. In Japanese the order would go something like "The bear ice cream eats." But don't worry too much about that right now. Just remember that the basic rule is that in Japanese the verb goes at the end of the sentence, not in the middle.
If you think that the sentence "The bear ice cream eats" is a little confusing then you're not alone. If someone really were to say that in English you might think they were trying to say that the bears are the ones getting eaten. In English we rely on context to understand who eats whom, that is, the order in which words are placed makes all the difference. In Japanese this is often also the case, but Japanese relies on markers to tell us what is doing an action, what is being acted upon, where the action is happening, and so on.
So let's bring in some Japanese now. Here are three Japanese words:
Right now the words are in SVO form so let's change that to SOV form like it should be.
That's better. Now, there's another difference between Japanese and your average European language: Japanese generally doesn't use spaces between words. So now that leaves us with:
Which looks a little messy. You can still see the words in there and they're in the right sequence, but you have to add something else to mark which words are which part of speech.
What I've done is add two kana to the sentence after the two nouns I have. First, about は.Its purpose is to mark which word is the topic. Before I continue there are some very important things to note at this point! I said that は marks the topic not the subject. The difference in meaning between these two words is subtle and they often overlap, but the simple explanation is that the topic is "the thing which we are talking about" and the subject is "the thing doing an action." As I said, one word can be both at the same time, but isn't always. This is more important in more complex sentences, but we're not getting into that just now. In our example sentence they are the same thing.
The other important thing to note is that when は is being used as a topic marker it is not pronounced "ha" but as "wa". It only changes when it's doing this and any other time it is pronounced normally as "ha." In transcribing Japanese it's normal to write "wa" instead of "ha" because it's the pronunciation which matters, but again it is は which is written and not わ.
The other marker I used is を. The pronunciation of this kana doesn't change, but it does vary from person to person. Some people pronounce it "wo" and some without the 'w' sound and like "o". (Note that you should always use を as a marker and never お regardless of how you pronounce it.) Unlike は which can be used separately from its job as a topic marker, を is almost exclusively used as a marker, in this case an object marker. In other words, を marks "the thing which is acted upon" or the thing which has something happen to it. Now let's go back to our sentence.
Let's break it down into its pieces. First we have くま (bear), the topic/subject, followed by は, the subject marker, then アイスクリーム (ice cream), the object, followed by を. Last is the verb, たべる (eat).
I wrote "bear" instead of "the bear" because Japanese does not use articles ("the" "a" and "an") so when you write くま it can mean "a bear" or "the bear" or just "bear". When we translate Japanese into English we usually add "the" and so on wherever English needs it and it's generally not too difficult to figure out.
So that's the basic structure of a sentence. You can mix and match the pieces to create new sentences. Here are a few:
Try it out
So now that you know the pattern you can try it out using a number of different words to form your own sentences. Try using some of these words and see what kind of sentences you can make:
(nouns)
いぬ - dog(s)
ねこ - cat(s)
くるま - car(s)
とり - bird(s)
わたし - I (when it's the subject), me (when it's the object)
あなた - you
やさい - vegetable(s)
ほん - book(s)
きのこ - mushroom(s)
みみ - ear(s)
コダック - Psyduck
ノコッチ - Dunsparce
(verbs)
みる - look, look at, see
たべる - eat
さわる - touch
よむ - read
てつだう - help, help out
あいする - love (in a romantic/platonic sense)
Grammar lesson time.
Now I'll go over the basic structure of a sentence and teach you a simple example from which you can create other sentences.
Japanese uses a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) pattern to form sentences. In English, and many other languages you might be familiar with, the general pattern is Subject-Verb-Object (SVO). An example of this in English would be "The bear eats ice cream." The bear is the subject, eats is the verb, and ice cream is the object. In Japanese the order would go something like "The bear ice cream eats." But don't worry too much about that right now. Just remember that the basic rule is that in Japanese the verb goes at the end of the sentence, not in the middle.
If you think that the sentence "The bear ice cream eats" is a little confusing then you're not alone. If someone really were to say that in English you might think they were trying to say that the bears are the ones getting eaten. In English we rely on context to understand who eats whom, that is, the order in which words are placed makes all the difference. In Japanese this is often also the case, but Japanese relies on markers to tell us what is doing an action, what is being acted upon, where the action is happening, and so on.
So let's bring in some Japanese now. Here are three Japanese words:
くま たべる アイスクリーム
("kuma" - bear) --- ("taberu" - eat) --- ("aisukuriimu" - ice cream)
("kuma" - bear) --- ("taberu" - eat) --- ("aisukuriimu" - ice cream)
Right now the words are in SVO form so let's change that to SOV form like it should be.
くま アイスクリーム たべる
("kuma" - bear) --- ("aisukuriimu" - ice cream) --- ("taberu" - eat)
("kuma" - bear) --- ("aisukuriimu" - ice cream) --- ("taberu" - eat)
That's better. Now, there's another difference between Japanese and your average European language: Japanese generally doesn't use spaces between words. So now that leaves us with:
くまアイスクリームたべる
Which looks a little messy. You can still see the words in there and they're in the right sequence, but you have to add something else to mark which words are which part of speech.
くまはアイスクリームをたべる
What I've done is add two kana to the sentence after the two nouns I have. First, about は.Its purpose is to mark which word is the topic. Before I continue there are some very important things to note at this point! I said that は marks the topic not the subject. The difference in meaning between these two words is subtle and they often overlap, but the simple explanation is that the topic is "the thing which we are talking about" and the subject is "the thing doing an action." As I said, one word can be both at the same time, but isn't always. This is more important in more complex sentences, but we're not getting into that just now. In our example sentence they are the same thing.
The other important thing to note is that when は is being used as a topic marker it is not pronounced "ha" but as "wa". It only changes when it's doing this and any other time it is pronounced normally as "ha." In transcribing Japanese it's normal to write "wa" instead of "ha" because it's the pronunciation which matters, but again it is は which is written and not わ.
The other marker I used is を. The pronunciation of this kana doesn't change, but it does vary from person to person. Some people pronounce it "wo" and some without the 'w' sound and like "o". (Note that you should always use を as a marker and never お regardless of how you pronounce it.) Unlike は which can be used separately from its job as a topic marker, を is almost exclusively used as a marker, in this case an object marker. In other words, を marks "the thing which is acted upon" or the thing which has something happen to it. Now let's go back to our sentence.
くまはアイスクリームをたべる
Let's break it down into its pieces. First we have くま (bear), the topic/subject, followed by は, the subject marker, then アイスクリーム (ice cream), the object, followed by を. Last is the verb, たべる (eat).
I wrote "bear" instead of "the bear" because Japanese does not use articles ("the" "a" and "an") so when you write くま it can mean "a bear" or "the bear" or just "bear". When we translate Japanese into English we usually add "the" and so on wherever English needs it and it's generally not too difficult to figure out.
So that's the basic structure of a sentence. You can mix and match the pieces to create new sentences. Here are a few:
ねこはアイスクリームをたべる
("neko" - cat)
"The cat eats ice cream."
("neko" - cat)
"The cat eats ice cream."
ねこはアイスクリームをみる
("miru" - look, look at, see)
"The cat looks at ice cream."
("miru" - look, look at, see)
"The cat looks at ice cream."
ねこはくるまをみる
("kuruma" - car)
"The cat looks at the car."
("kuruma" - car)
"The cat looks at the car."
Try it out
So now that you know the pattern you can try it out using a number of different words to form your own sentences. Try using some of these words and see what kind of sentences you can make:
(nouns)
いぬ - dog(s)
ねこ - cat(s)
くるま - car(s)
とり - bird(s)
わたし - I (when it's the subject), me (when it's the object)
あなた - you
やさい - vegetable(s)
ほん - book(s)
きのこ - mushroom(s)
みみ - ear(s)
コダック - Psyduck
ノコッチ - Dunsparce
(verbs)
みる - look, look at, see
たべる - eat
さわる - touch
よむ - read
てつだう - help, help out
あいする - love (in a romantic/platonic sense)
Enjoy!
![[PokeCommunity.com] [日本語] Japanese Help/Discussion/Community Thread: Learn Japanese through Pokemon!](https://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/f/f7/Spr_5b_582.png "[PokeCommunity.com] [日本語] Japanese Help/Discussion/Community Thread: Learn Japanese through Pokemon!")
![[PokeCommunity.com] [日本語] Japanese Help/Discussion/Community Thread: Learn Japanese through Pokemon!](https://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/d/dd/Spr_5b_614.png "[PokeCommunity.com] [日本語] Japanese Help/Discussion/Community Thread: Learn Japanese through Pokemon!")
