With the last post, we looked at simple sentences and negated formal sentences that contained nouns. I’m going to add a little more to these sentences, but the basic structure will more or less stay the same.

Let’s say you want to say, “I am also a student” in Japanese. In Japanese, this would be, “わたしも　がくせいです” (watashimo gakuseedes). Just like the sentences in the previous post, we have the subject watashi (わたし), meaning ‘I’, the noun gakusee (がくせい), meaning ‘student’ and the verb ‘des’ (です), which in this case means ‘am’. The particle that I haven’t gone over is mo (も). Mo (も) can be translated as ‘also’ or ‘too’ in English. Just tack the mo (も) to the subject of the sentence.

Usually sentences with mo (も) are used when the person is responding to another person’s statement. For example, if I say, “わたしは　がくせいです” (watashiwa gakuseedes) which means ‘I am a student’, than I could respond by saying, “わたしも　がくせいです” (watashimo gakuseedes) which means, ‘I too am a student’.

I’ll give you a couple of pointers here: Don’t worry about translating the ‘a’ in the sentence ‘I am a student.’ Nothing really changes between the two sentences displayed above. The only thing you have to do is replace the wa (は) particle with the mo (も) particle. Another thing you want to consider is that you can shorten your statement to “わたしも” (watashi mo) when it’s really obvious as to what you are talking about. If someone states his/her occupation as a student, and you answer “わたしも” you’re obviously stating that you are a student as well.

Now let’s say that someone says, “I am not a student” (わたしは　がくせいじゃありません) ‘watashiwa gakusee jaarimasen’. In that case you can also say, “I am also not a student” (わたしも　がくせいじゃありません) ‘watashimo gakusee jaarimasen). Notice that the two sentences are nearly identical. The only thing that was changed between the two sentences is the wa (は) and the mo (も) particle.