{"id":52,"date":"2009-02-11T23:57:33","date_gmt":"2009-02-12T03:57:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/?p=52"},"modified":"2009-02-11T23:57:33","modified_gmt":"2009-02-12T03:57:33","slug":"simple-japanese-sentences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/simple-japanese-sentences\/","title":{"rendered":"Simple Japanese Sentences"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is going to be a great post for beginners of Japanese.\u00a0 Today I’m going to show you how to construct simple sentences.\u00a0 Let’s start with a simple sentece such as, “I am Takeshi”.\u00a0 To say “I” you would use the word “watashi” (\u308f\u305f\u3057<\/strong>).\u00a0 For the verb “am” you would use “des” (\u3067\u3059<\/strong>).\u00a0 In Japanese the entire sentence would be, “Watashi wa Takeshi des” (\u308f\u305f\u3057\u306f \u305f\u3051\u3057\u3067\u3059<\/strong>).\u00a0 The “wa” is a particle marking the topic of a sentence.\u00a0 In this case “watashi” is the topic of the sentence and “wa” is attached indicate this.\u00a0 So if we were to mimic this grammatical structure in English, it would be: “I-topic marking particle-Takeshi-des”.\u00a0 Notice how the verb comes last in Japanese.\u00a0 This contrasts with the English sentence “I am Takeshi” where the noun comes last.<\/p>\n

One thing to note is that certain subjects can be dropped in Japanese.\u00a0 In English, you wouldn’t be able to say “Am Takeshi”.\u00a0 That would not be a good sentence in English, while in Japanese it’s perfectly fine to just say “Takeshi des” (\u305f\u3051\u3057\u3067\u3059<\/strong>).\u00a0 One more thing to note is that the particle \u00a0\u306f<\/strong> is pronounced as “wa” instead of “ha”.\u00a0 Normally\u00a0 \u306f <\/strong>is pronounced as “ha” but for our sentences for today, it’ll be pronounced as “wa”.<\/p>\n

Let’s construct a different senctence.\u00a0 This is a useful phrase to know: “Namae wa nan des ka” (\u306a\u307e\u3048\u306f \u306a\u3093<\/strong> \u3067\u3059\u304b<\/strong>).\u00a0 It means, “What is your name” in Japanese.\u00a0 Namae (\u306a\u307e\u3048<\/strong>) means name.\u00a0 Nan (\u306a\u3093<\/strong>) = the word “what” and ka (\u304b<\/strong>) is\u00a0a particle indicating that a sentence is a question.\u00a0 In Japanese, it’s not customary to write a question mark.\u00a0 It’s actually kind of redundant to put a question mark, because the ka (\u304b<\/strong>) particle already indicates that the sentence is a question.\u00a0 One thing I’d like you to note is the placement of the interrogative word “nan” (\u306a\u3093<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

In English the interrogative word comes in front, at the beginning of a sentence.\u00a0 For example the question “What is your name” clearly demonstrates that the word “what” is at the beginning of a sentence.\u00a0 In Japanese, this is not so.\u00a0 The grammatical construction “What is your name” would be: name-wa particle-interrogative word-is-ka particle.\u00a0 In the last sentence above with “I am Takeshi”, the des (\u3067\u3059<\/strong>) meant “am”.\u00a0 In the case of “what\u00a0is your name” the des (\u3067\u3059<\/strong>) takes on the meaning of “is”.\u00a0 The des (\u3067\u3059<\/strong>) verb is very flexible in Japanese.\u00a0 In English you wouldn’t be able to use the verb “to be” in such a flexible way.\u00a0 The sentence “I am<\/strong>” changes to “She\/He is<\/strong>” depending on the subject.<\/p>\n

Ok, I’m going to wrap this up.\u00a0 Grammar is always an unpleasant, complicated matter in learning a language, but it’s absolutely necessary.\u00a0Thank you everyone, for sitting through this post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is going to be a great post for beginners of Japanese.\u00a0 Today I’m going to show you how to construct simple sentences.\u00a0 Let’s start with a simple sentece such as, “I am Takeshi”.\u00a0 To say “I” you would use the word “watashi” (\u308f\u305f\u3057).\u00a0 For the verb “am” you would use “des” (\u3067\u3059).\u00a0 In Japanese…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2748],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","tag-japanese-grammar"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t