Word Order in Japanese
We all know Japanese is a different language from English, that is something that is majorly obvious. One of those differences happens to be the order of the parts of speech in full sentences.
In the English language, you can’t exactly change the location of the noun, verb, and pronoun of the words in the sentence “There is a dog.” around. It wouldn’t sound right!
In Japanese, the parts of speech used can be changed around in some way and the sentence would still mean the same thing. Generally the rule is that there is of course a subject followed by a particle with other nouns and particles and ending with a verb or an adjective.
For example:
私は今日映画館に行きます。きょう、わたしはえいがかんにいきます。I am going to the movie theater today.
Notice how this sentence uses noun+は to denote the subject+今日 to denote the time+location+に to denote the location+verb. This is generally how sentences will go but as with all languages there will be some changes with different grammar lessons as well as some nuance when talking to a native Japanese person.
The Topic Particle Ha
は in a sentence simply denotes the topic of the sentence.
For example:
私はビデオゲームをします。わたしはビデオゲームをします。I am playing video games. The topic is 私 (I).
The thing with は is that once you have established a subject in a conversation, you do not need to bring up the topic again! This is just like in English. If someone says “That test was hard!” You do not need to say “Yes, that test was hard.” You can just say “Yes, it was hard.”
For example:
A: 映画を見ませんか。えいがをみませんか。 Do you want to watch a movie with me?
B: うーん、ちょっと。Um…that’s kind of..
(When you want to say no you cannot do something, this is what you will say. It’s like saying no without saying no if that makes sense. The Japanese language is much more polite than English in that way. You never want to harshly shut someone down.)
The removal of the subject is one of the reasons why Japanese is such a nuanced language. Without proper context you probably couldn’t just jump into a conversation in the beginning of your Japanese education. Hopefully as we go along you will be able to start conversations with your friends!
Let me know what you will be doing this weekend in Japanese! Leave the sentence below.
じゃあね！！
