![]() ![]() The topic is basically the thing that is being talked about in that sentence, and usually appears near the beginning. The particle “wa” 「は」 tells us that the word or phrase before it is the topic of that sentence. Particles are like markers that identify what role each word or phrase plays within a sentence. “Wa” 「は」 (pronounced “wa”) is what is known as a particle. The first step to understanding this structure is knowing what “wa” 「は」 is. Every aspect of Japanese grammar fits within the structure outlined below. In this article, I break it all down and show you exactly how Japanese sentences work, using plenty of examples and charts showing very clearly how Japanese sentences are structured. This basic word ordering is why Japanese is often considered an SOV language, but as long as the right particles are used with the right words, the actual order of the words can be changed. The verb appears last, but the order of the other words can vary because it is the particles, not word order, that tell us who did what.įor example, a basic sentence might have a topic (which is often the same as the subject) followed by the particle ‘wa’, then an object with the particle ‘wo’, and finally the verb. Each particle indicates how the word before it relates to other words in the sentence, usually to the verb. Japanese sentences are structured around grammatical markers called ‘particles’. In English, it is the word order that tells us who did what. eat), then the thing that the action is done to (the object, eg. I) is first, followed by the word that describes the action (the verb, eg. The person doing the action (the subject, eg. Instead of trying to fit a Japanese-shaped peg into an English-shaped hole, let’s start again.įirstly, in English, the main pieces of a sentence go in a specific order. The SOV label is also wrong sometimes, as it is not uncommon in Japanese to see sentences with the object appearing before the subject. ![]() I subject sushi object eat verb). This description makes it easier to compare with English, for example, which follows an SVO structure, but the truth is, this comparison is mostly meaningless because the two languages function in completely different ways. Usually, the basic structure of Japanese sentences is considered to be SOV – subject-object-verb (eg. This is completely understandable considering how fundamentally different it is to other languages, but the truth is that Japanese grammar is actually incredibly logical – it just needs to be looked at from the right angle. Most people find Japanese sentence structure to be difficult and confusing. Japanese Sentence Structure: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide ![]()
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