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The Surprisingly Simple Logic Behind Japanese Sentence

Structure

Most people nd Japanese sentence structure to be dicult and confusing.

One of the biggest reasons for this is thatthe usual way of learning Japanese involves remembering random phrases and sentence
patterns in isolation, without actually being taught why those sentences work the way they do. This is ne in the beginning when
youre just trying to learn a few basic phrases, but it makes it very hard to take the next step.

The truth is, Japanese sentence structure is actually incredibly logical, and a solid understanding of it will save you a huge amount
of time trying to make sense of Japanese grammar.

In this guide, I break it all down and show you exactly how Japanese sentences work. Every aspect of Japanese grammar ts within
the structure outlined below.

Contents
Basic desu sentences
How particles work
Dening dierent roles
Expanding individual elements

Basic desu sentences

Lets start by looking at basic sentences that use the special verb desu (pronounced dess), which is eectively equivalent to the
English verb be (am, are, is).

Sentences using desu usually follow this basic structure:
 [topic] wa (something that describes the topic) desu

Here are a few simple examples:

Use these buttons to hide/show each version of the Japanese sentences:

Romaji Kana Kanji Furigana

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I am a person.
52.7k watashi wa hito desu.

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This is a car.
kore wa kuruma desu.

The car is red.

kuruma wa akai desu.

The rst step to understanding this structure is knowing what wa is.

Wa is what is known as a particle. Particles are like markers that identify what role each word or phrase plays within a sentence.

The particle wa tells us that the word or phrase before it is the topic of that sentence.

The topic is basically the thing that is being talked about in that sentence, and usually appears near the beginning. In our examples
above, the things that are being talked about are I, this, and the car, respectively, so the topics of these sentences in Japanese
are watashi, kore and kuruma.

The topic of a Japanese sentence is very similar to what other languages refer to as the subject. The subject of a sentence is the
person or thing that does the action described by the main verb in thesentence. These are, in fact, slightly dierent concepts, but
for now, we will treat them as being the sameso as to keep things simple.

Particles like wa do not exist in English, but they are the backbone of Japanese grammar. Well look at particles in more detail
soon.

These sentences also show us another important rule that applies to all Japanese sentences:

The main verb comes at the end of the sentence.

In all of the above examples, that verb is desu, which takes the form of is or am in the English translations. However, this rule
also applies for other verbs, which we will look at shortly.

First, lets take another look at the rst two sentences above. Text with the same formatting has the same meaning.

I am a person.
watashi wa hito desu.

This is a car.
kore wa kuruma desu.




First of all, we can see that wa has no English equivalent. This is because its entirepurpose is to show that watashi or kore is
the topic of these sentences. That is, wa denes these words as the topic. In English, there is no need for a particle like wa
because the subject of a sentence can be determined based on the word order. Well look at this more closely in the next section.

54.9k Secondly, since hito means person and kuruma means car, we can see that thereis no Japanese equivalent of a.
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The articles a, an and the do not exist in Japanese.

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What this means is that the sentences, This is a car, and, This is the car, would both be, kore wa kuruma desu. There is no
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dierentiation.

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This makes things simpler in some ways, but can be hard to get used if youve spent your entire life speaking English or similar
languages, as not having these words can sometimes make a sentence feel incomplete. Without them, it can be hard to know
ifsomeone is referring to a specic car, or just any car. There are other ways to specify which car is being talked about, but in many
cases, this is implied purely by context. This is something you will get used to over time.

We now know three very important rules relating to Japanese sentence structure:

The particle wa identies the topic of a sentence

The verb comes at the end of the sentence
The articles a, an and the do not exist in Japanese

These rules apply to everything, so using the rst two in particular, we can adapt our sentence structure model from earlier to this:

[topic] wa (other information) [verb]

When the verb is desu, the other information can just be a noun (kore wa kuruma desu) or adjective (kuruma wa akai desu). In
fact, the last thing immediately before desu should be either a noun or an adjective.

For verbs other than desu, however, basically everything in the other information section needs to be accompanied by a particle.

How particles work

The main thing that dierentiates Japanese from most other languages is its use of particles. Weve already seen the particle wa,
but there are many more particles, and a proper understanding of what they are and how to use them will make the Japanese
language much easier to decipher.

As stated earlier:

Particles are like markers that tell us the role each word plays in a sentence.

In any language, a combination of words only makes sense if the role of each word is clear. The biggest dierence between
Japanese and English (and many other languages) is how these roles are dened.

First, lets understand what is meant by the role each word plays in a sentence.

In English, for the main elements in a sentence, this role is determined by word order. Heres a very basic example:

Taro saw Noriko.

This sentence has three words: Taro, saw and Noriko. The central word in any sentence, in both English and Japanese, is the main
verb, which in this case is saw. The other words in a sentence always relate to the main verb, either directly or indirectly, so every
sentence must have a main verb.

To gure out what the role of each of the other words is, we look at the word order:
 Taro comes before saw, which tells us that Taro is the one that saw something.
Noriko comes after saw, which tells us that Noriko is the thing that was seen.

If we change the order and put Noriko rst, we end up with the sentence:

Noriko saw Taro.

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This has an entirely dierent meaning because changing the word order changes the role that each word plays, which in turn,
changes the overall meaning of the sentence.
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Japanese is dierent.In Japanese, particles determine the role of each word in a sentence.
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Given that the Japanese word for saw is mimashita, we would normally write the above sentence as:
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Taro saw Noriko.

Tar wa Noriko wo mimashita.

This sentence has two particles:

wa, which tells us who we are talking about

wo, which tells us what they saw

In more general terms:

wa denes the topic of a sentence, which is usually the person or thing that performed the main action being described
wo, pronounced o, denes to whom or to what that action was done, which is known as the object of the verb

Importantly, particles dene the role of the word that comes before them. In the above example:

The word before wa is Tar, so we know that Taro is the person who performed the act of seeing.
The word before wo is Noriko, so we know that Noriko is the thing that was seen.

If we put this all together, it means: Taro saw Noriko.

Because of particles like these, word order is not as important as it is in English. In Japanese, we can actually change the order of
the words without changing the fundamental meaning of the sentence, as long as the same particles are paired with the same
words. Both of the following mean eectively the same thing:

Tar wa Noriko wo mimashita.

Noriko wo Tar wa mimashita.

These two sentences both mean Taro saw Noriko. The word order doesnt aect the fundamental meaning because the particles
tell us what each word in the sentence does.

That said, we wouldnt normally use sentence two above because, as our sentence structure model shows, the topic is usually near
the beginning of the sentence. This is not a hard rule, but it is unnatural in most situations for the topic to be placed after other key
elements in the same clause.

Defining different roles

 In our basic example sentence involving Taro and Noriko, the only roles that have actually been dened are the topic(Taro) and
the object (Noriko).

These, together with the verb, are the three most important pieces of information in a sentence. They tell us:

What action is done

54.9k Who does the action
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To what or whom the action is done
Roughly when the action occurs (past, present, future etc. as dened by the verb tense)
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Of course, there are many more pieces of information that can be added to a sentence.
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Lets start by considering some basic information that relates directly to the action itself, such as:
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When (more precisely) the action takes place

Where the action takes place
The destination of the action
The origin of the action
The means by which the action is done

When we include this information, we need to specify how that information relates to the other parts of the sentence, and to
the main verb in particular.

Before we look at how this is done in Japanese, lets consider how the role of additional information is dened in English.

Defining roles in English

We know that the subject and the object are determined based on word order. For most additional information, however, word
order alone is not enough we need prepositions like in, on, at, to and from.

For example, we cant just say Taro saw Noriko the library. We need a preposition to tell us how the library relates to everything
else. The preposition we use depends on what role we want to attribute to the library.

The diagram below shows some examples of how prepositions are used to dene the relationship between dierent pieces of
information and the action described by the main verb.

How dierent roles are dened in English sentences

We can usually just add this additional information together with the appropriate preposition to the end of the sentence after
the object. For example, to dene the location where Taro saw Noriko, we could use the preposition at and insert it after Noriko

(the object of the verb saw):
 Taro saw Noriko at the library.

It can also go at the beginning of the sentence:

At the library, Taro saw Noriko.

54.9k Either way, the at is essential to understanding what role the library plays. Without it, we dont know if Taro saw Noriko at the
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library, in front of the library, on his way to the library, or while he was thinking about what he would do when he got to the library.
The role needs to be dened.
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Defining roles in Japanese

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In Japanese, just as we did with the topic and the object, we dene the roles of additional elements using particles. The
Japanese version of the above diagram looks like this:

How dierent roles are dened in Japanese sentences

The rst major dierence, as weve already discussed, is that the topic and the object, like everything else, are determined by
particles, not word order as they are in English.

Each of the elements including the topic and object need to be included in a sentence with the appropriate particle after them.
There are a few exceptions to this (such as time words, where ni is only required in some cases), but in general, particles are
required.

To build a sentence, we just need to insert each piece of information together with its particle into the sentence structure we
identied earlier:

[topic] wa (other information) [verb]

Note that, as mentioned, the topic is only placed at the beginning of the sentence because that is its natural location in most
situations. It is not, however, a requirement.

Lets do this with our example sentence:

Taro saw Noriko at the library.

We know that Taro is the topic, and the verb is saw (mimashita). The other information is:

Noriko, who is the thing that was seen (the object)

The library, which is where he saw her (the location)

This ts into our diagram like so:
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Taro saw Noriko at the library

The other information can go in basically any order, so we just need to insert it together with the appropriate particles:

Taro saw Noriko at the library.

Tar wa Noriko wo toshokan de mimashita.

Tar wa toshokan de Noriko wo mimashita.

To say that the order doesnt matter is oversimplifying things a little, as it does make a subtle dierence to where the emphasis
lies, and certain orderings are generally more natural than others (https://8020japanese.com/japanese-word-order/). However, this
is far less important than using the right particles, as using the wrong ones would change the meaning entirely. If we swap wo
and de, for example, we get:

Taro saw the library at Noriko.

Tar wa Noriko de toshokan wo mimashita.

Although grammatically correct, this obviously makes no sense. When it comes to the meaning of a sentence, particles are critical.

Subject vs. Topic

You may have noticed that for English I described Taro as being the subject, while for Japanese I described him as being the
topic. These are subtly dierent concepts, but they are not the same, and in fact Japanese sentences can also have a subject,
which is marked by the particle ga.

Although ga is actually a very common particle that you need to know, I have purposely left it out of this discussion, as the
dierence between the particles wa and ga is one of the most confusing concepts you are likely to face learning Japanese.
You can read more about that here (//8020japanese.com/wa-vs-ga/), but for now, gaining a solid understanding of sentence
structure is far more important.

Now lets add another elementand try building the following sentence in Japanese:

 On Sunday, Taro saw Noriko at the train station

If we put this into our diagram, we get this:

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On Sunday, Taro saw Noriko at the train station

As indicated, we attribute the particles as follows:

Tar wa
Noriko wo
nichiybi ni
eki de

Using our three basic rules, we can then create our sentence to be any of the following:

Tar wa nichiybi ni Noriko wo eki de mimashita.

Tar wa nichiybi ni eki de Noriko wo mimashita.

Tar wa Noriko wo nichiybi ni eki de mimashita.

There are other possible combinations too, and as long as all the pieces of information are followed by the correct particles, they
are grammatically correct and have the same fundamental meaning.

Again, some orderings are more natural than others. For example, time phrases usually appear near the beginning of the
sentence, so in most cases, the third option above is less preferable. Time phrases are also unique in that they often appear even
before the topic, like so:

[time phrase] + [topic] wa (other information) [verb]

This would make our example look like this:

nichiybi ni Tar wa Noriko wo eki de mimashita.

 The actual dierence between this and the other orderings above is negligible. Its like the dierence between the following:

On Sunday, Taro saw Noriko at the train station

Taro saw Noriko at the train station on Sunday

As you can see, the word order doesnt really aect the meaning.
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Lets look at another example:

52.7k Taro went with Noriko from the train station to the library by car.

946 Heres the diagram for this:

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Taro went with Noriko from the train station to the library by car

This gives us:

Tar wa
toshokan ni
eki kara
Noriko to
kuruma de

Note that Norikos role has changed from object to co-participant, hence the particle after her name has changed too. The same is
true for eki.

Our sentence could be written as:

Tar wa Noriko to kuruma de eki kara toshokan ni ikimashita.

Tar wa kuruma de Noriko to eki kara toshokan ni ikimashita.

Tar wa eki kara Noriko to kuruma de toshokan ni ikimashita.

Tar wa Noriko to eki kara toshokan ni kuruma de ikimashita.



Again, these are all correct and have essentially the same meaning, with just a slight dierence in emphasis.

Now letslook at another way that we can add more information to a sentence.

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52.7k An important point about the diagrams above are that they show the relationship between certain pieces of information and the
main verb. This is because each of them relates directly to the action. For example:
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nichiybi ni denes when the action takes places

75 eki de denes where the action takes place
toshokan ni denes the destination of the action

We can, however, add other information that doesnt relate directly to the verb. Instead it relates specically to one of the
individual elements in the sentence.

The simplest example of this is adjectives.

In Japanese, adjectives are used in much the same way as they are in English immediately before the noun they describe. (This is
in addition to their use in simple sentences where the main verb is desu, such as kuruma wa akai desu).

Lets take a shorter version of our sentence from earlier

Taro went to the library by car.

Tar wa kuruma de toshokan ni ikimashita.

and change it to specify that the car was blue:

Taro went to the library in a blue car

Tar wa aoi kuruma de toshokan ni ikimashita.

(Note that in English, by changes to in, but the meaning is essentially the same).

What were essentially doing is expanding the individual element, kuruma, to add more detail. In this case, the means of
transport has changed from kuruma to aoi kuruma. When we do this, aoi kuruma as a whole should be marked by de, since
a blue car is the means of transport, not just a car.

This has no impact on the other parts of the sentence, so it ts into the diagram dierently:

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Taro went to the library in a blue car

Expanding on a single noun like this creates what is called a noun phrase. A noun phrase is essentially a phrase that, as a whole,
represents a single thing. Technically, car by itself is a noun phrase, but so are all of the following:

a car
a blue car
my car
my blue car
the blue car over there
the blue car thats always parked in the street next to the mailbox

All of these represent a single thing a car and can be substituted into sentences in the same way, like so:

He is driving a car.
He is driving my blue car.
He is driving the blue car thats always parked in the street next to the mailbox.

Noun phrases are just as common in Japanese as they are in English, and serve the same fundamental purpose to add more
information about a specic noun.

There are many dierent ways that noun phrases can be formed, in both English and Japanese. Another very common example is:

Taro went to the library in my car.

Here, weve taken the noun car and expanded on it to indicate that it belongs to me. The result is the noun phrase, my car,
which in Japanese is:

my car
watashi no kuruma

This makes use of another very common particle: no.

The particle no indicates possession.

Eectively, no converts I, you, he, she and they into my, your, his, her and their, respectively. For other things like
peoples names, animals, places and objects, it has the same eect as adding s (apostrophe s).

 If instead we wanted to say Taros car, for example, we would say Tar no kuruma, with the no indicating that the car belongs
to Taro.

The one-size-ts-all way of dening no would be to say it is equal to English of . For example, instead of my car or Taros car,
watashi no kuruma and Tar no kuruma could be thought of as the car of me or the car of Taro.

54.9k No can be used to connect just about any two things, where one of the two things belongs to the other in some way, such as the
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back of the door, the color of your eyes or even the rain of yesterday.

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Now that we know this, lets substitute watashi no kuruma into our example sentence. First, heres the diagram:

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Taro went to the library in my car

Thiscan be turned into the following:

Taro went to the library in my car.

Tar wa watashi no kuruma de toshokan ni ikimashita.

Here, the means of transportation is my car, so the noun phrase watashi no kuruma needs to be followed by the particle de.

Its important to note that even though no is a particle, it cannot be moved around freely like the other particles weve looked
at.This is because it is part of a noun phrase, and noun phrases cannot be separated. Doing so would be like separating my
from car. The result might be something like this:

Taro went to my library by car.

Tar wa kuruma de watashi no toshokan ni ikimashita.

If we want to change the word order, we can, but we need to move the whole noun phrase watashi no kuruma, and the
associated particle de, together as a single block. Heres one way we could do this:

Taro went to the library in my car.

Tar wa toshokan ni watashi no kuruma de ikimashita.

 This is true for any noun in any sentence. That is, any noun can be expanded into a more detailed noun phrase. The resulting noun
phrase can then be used in the same way as the original noun, no matter what role that noun has in the sentence. It just has to be
kept together as a single block.

For example, the destination could be changed from the library to the university library:

54.9k Taro went to the university library by car.

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Tar wa kuruma de daigaku no toshokan ni ikimashita.

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Or my car could be used as the object, dened by wo:

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Taro saw my car.
Tar wa watashi no kuruma wo mimashita.

It can even be used as the topic:

My car is red.
watashi no kuruma wa akai desu.

Any noun, no matter where it is used, can be expanded as long as the resulting phrase is a valid noun phrase.

Our diagram can therefore be modied to look like this:

The dierent roles in Japanese sentences can be expanded using noun phrases

In Japanese, noun phrases are used in a lot of dierent ways, from simple examples like the ones above, to more complex
expressions like:

This is the book that he bought yesterday (kore wa kare ga kin katta hon desu)
When I went to Japan, I ate lots of ramen (watashi wa nihon ni itta toki, rmen wo takusan tabemashita)
I think it would be better to go tomorrow morning (ashita no asa itta h ga ii to omoimasu)
Please wash your platebefore you watch TV (terebi wo miru mae ni sara wo aratte kudasai)

The various ways of building dierent noun phrases and using them in sentences are covered in detail in 80/20 Japanese

(http://8020japanese.com/).
 Japanese sentence structure summary
The most important things to remember about Japanese sentence structure are:

The verb comes last

54.9k Particles dene the roles of each of the dierent elements within a sentence
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Word order is less important, and only inuences the emphasis
Each noun in a sentence can be expanded into a more detailed noun phrase
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It is usually more natural to put the topic and time phrases near the beginning of the sentence

946 The result is that basic sentences usually look like this, withthe other information appearing optionally and in any order:

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Structure of a typical basic Japanese sentence

This basic structure is thefoundationof the entire Japanese language. If you understand this, Japanese will start to make a lot
more sense.

You can learn more about particles, noun phrases and everything else essential to the Japanese language in my book, 80/20
Japanese (http://8020japanese.com/). To receive a free sample chapter, click here.

Standard April 18 Richard Webb Uncategorized

Developing a Better Understanding of Japanese Sentence Structure [NSJLE 2016] (https://8020japanese.com/nsjle-2016/)

Copyright Raw Lisard 2016. All rights reserved.