Now that we have studied how verbs are grouped in Japanese and the various tenses of the polite (ä¸å¯§ teinei) form, it’s time to put some of them to use. I’m going to assume that you have read the first lesson and understood everything in it.
And yes, this week’s theme is Tamaki Kousaka from To Heart 2. :3
Introduction
First, here’s a very basic sentence in Japanese:
kana: 俺ã¯æ²³é‡Žè²´æ˜Žã 。
ro-maji: ore wa kouno takaaki da.
english: I am Takaaki Kouno.
俺 (ore): I / me
河野貴明 (kouno takaaki): Takaaki Kouno, the main character in To Heart 2
The hiragana 㯠(ha) is read as “wa” when used as a particle. 㯠indicates the topic of a sentence. Topic is a grammatical definition that has no equivalent in English. It’s usually okay to treat the topic as the subject, but there are times where this will not work. I’ll explain more later… For now just take it as the indicator for the subject.
ã (da) is the normal form of ã§ã™ (desu) which anyone who watches anime should know.
By the way, please do not introduce yourself in this manner in real-life. 俺 and ã should never be used when speaking to strangers unless you are looking for a fight… also known as 喧嘩を売る (kenka wo uru), literally “to sell a fight”. Payment in pain no doubt.
Let’s take a look at another sentence…
kana: ã„ã¤ã‚‚タマ姉ã¨å±‹ä¸Šã§æ˜¼é£¯ã‚’食ã¹ã‚‹ã€‚
ro-maji: itsumo tama-nee to okujou de hirumeshi wo taberu.
english: I always have lunch with Tama-nee on the rooftop.
ã„ã¤ã‚‚ (itsumo): all the time / always
タマ姉 (tama-nee): Tamaki Kousaka from TH2
屋上 (okujou): rooftop. In games and anime, this usually refers to the rooftop of a school…
昼飯 (hirumeshi): lunch, also 昼ã”飯 (hirugohan) or ãŠæ˜¼ (ohiru). hirumeshi seems to be preferred by many males.
食ã¹ã‚‹ (taberu): to eat, also 食ㆠ(kuu). kuu sounds much rougher.
I have highlighted all the particles in the above sentence. Try to figure out what each particle does. Remember that a particle is used to indicate the role of the word just before it with regards to the entire sentence.
㧠(de) indciates the location of an action.
ã‚’ (wo) indicates the object of an action.
Notice that this sentence does not have an explicit subject. It is common in Japanese to hide the subject when it is obvious, a practice that is not considered grammatically-sound in English. (e.g. “Got to go now” = “I got to go now”)
In fact, subjects in most Japanese sentences are kept implicit and only included when there is a good reason to do so, such as when the subject is ambiguous or new to the conversation. An implicit subject is often (but not always) the speaker, depending on the context and the previous dialogues.
In the sentence above, the subject is obviously “I”, the speaker.
Native English speakers learning Japanese have a tendency to think of sentences without an explicit subject as being passive (i.e. “The lunch was eaten”). It takes time to get used to it so that you don’t confuse yourself when you get to real passive forms.
Review
Sentences usually end with a verb. Particles are used to indicate the relationships of the words to the verb and to the sentence as a whole. Speaking strangers in non-polite form can result in much pain. The subject of a sentence is usually hidden but there is always an implied subject when that happens. You just have to figure out what it is.
Noun modifying clauses
Almost all sentences follow the basic sentence structure seen above, but if you actually attempt to decipher a long-ish sentence in Japanese, you might find yourself wondering why real-life doesn’t seem to work that way.
The main reason for this is because Japanese LOVE to use long-ass clauses to modify nouns. Noun modifiers often take up more than half of a sentence. A sentence that can essentially be simplified to less than five words (if you extract only the subject, object and verb) can end up taking up three paragraphs because of all the descriptions and explanations attached to each of those words. I heard this is true for German too, but I have no firsthand experience.
Example:
“My brother bought a dog last month. It died recently after being knocked down by a car. I heard that the driver was drunk.”
This will usually be written in Japanese as:
“The dog which my brother bought last month died recently after being knocked down by a car which I heard was driven by a drunk driver.”
It’s doable in English, but it just sounds too long and confusing. Most written sentences in Japanese are structured like this. It is difficult for beginners to locate the main subject and object of the sentence because each of the clauses has its own subject, object, verb and even sub-clauses.
Notice that I did not actually write the sentence above out in Japanese because I don’t want to go too much into this topic. Learning to break complex sentences up into parts and extracting the key information requires a good grammar and vocabulary foundations and lots of exposure to Japanese. There’s no shortcut around it. I just brought this up as a point of interest for those who are curious.
Subject and Topic
Just now, I mentioned that subject and topic are different things but it is usually safe to treat them as the same. Now I shall explain how they can refer to very different things in the same sentence.
Subject is indicated by the particle ㌠(ga).
Topic is indicated by the particle 㯠(wa).
Subjects work the same way as their English counterparts: they indicate the performer of an action.
Topics are much more general and unrestrictive. They can indicate almost anything about a sentence.
kana: 明日ã¯è¡Œãã¾ã™ã€‚
ro-maji: ashita wa ikimasu
english: I will go tomorrow.
In the sentence above, ashita (tomorrow) is the topic and ikimasu (to go) is the verb. We can clearly see that the topic in this case is NOT the subject, because “Tomorrow goes” makes no sense.
There is a hidden subject in this sentence, and that is “I”. You can see it as “ashita wa watashi ga ikimasu.” However, as I have mentioned, the subject is often kept implicit. One only states the subject explicitly when it is needed, because otherwise it places unnecessary emphasis on the subject.
Essentially, when you define a topic you are literally defining the topic of discussion. By saying “watashi wa” for example, you are basically saying “Now I shall talk about me…” or “As for me…”. Therefore, the verb at the end of the sentence may or may not apply to watashi directly, but we know that the sentence on the whole is somehow related to watashi.
Example:
kana: タマ姉ã¯è¶³ãŒé•·ã„ã§ã™ã€‚
ro-maji: tama-nee wa ashi ga nagai desu
english: Tama-nee’s legs are long.
足 (ashi): legs / feet
é•·ã„ (nagai): long
A more literal translation would be “As for Tama-nee / Speaking of Tama-nee, her legs are long.” In this case, it is obvious that the subject of the verb ã§ã™ is NOT Tama-nee but her legs.
As I mentioned, the topic and/or the subject of a sentence may be excluded from a sentence if the context is clear. The above sentence requires both to be explicit in order for the meaning to be clear, due to a lack of context. Let me demonstrate this with two different examples.
Example 1: A few people are talking about Tama-nee and each of them lists out something about her body.
Person A: “tama-nee wa kami ga akakute nagai desu” (Tama-nee has red long hair)
Person B: “ashi ga nagai desu” (Her legs are long)
Me: “mune ga ookii desu!” (Her……nevermind)
There is no need to restate the topic “tama-nee” anymore once it has been established for conversation, unless you need to 1. change the topic or 2. emphasis the topic. Neither is there a need to use any pronouns in Japanese, because pronouns are reserved for special ocassions when you need the extra emphasis. (Like, ZOMG YOU ARE THE CRIMINALZ! 貴方を犯人ã§ã™ï¼)
Example 2: A few people are comparing the lengths of legs belonging to various people.
Person A: “doraemon wa ashi ga hikui desu” (Doraemon’s legs are short)
Person B: “konomi-chan mo hikui desu” (Konomi-chan’s legs are short too)
Me: “tama-nee wa nagai desu” (Tama-nee’s legs are long)
ã‚‚ (mo): a particle used to indicate “also / too”.
Notice that there is no need to restate the subject “ashi” after the first statement. It is understood that by “tama-nee wa nagai desu“, I don’t mean “Tama-nee is long” but rather I am referring to her legs. The topic of the sentence is not the same as the (implied) subject of the sentence.
Review
Japanese sentences contain painfully-long, noun-modifying clauses. There is no hope for gaijin.
Topic does NOT always equal subject. Topic is NOT the same as subject. There is no hope for gaijin.
Resistance is futile. Give up!…
…Just kidding. But seriously, I can’t really explain any further for these two topics. I am writing this merely as an introduction to the various quirks of Japanese language, not as a complete guide to picking up the language.
Conclusion
In the second chapter, we talked about:
- Basic sentence structure
- Some common particles
- A particle usually indicates the role of the previous word
- Japanese are lazy and like to hide their subjects and topics
- Japanese are crazy and like to modify their nouns with long clauses
- Topic is NOT subject
Have fun~ Check back some time again for the third chapter soon. I realized that I should not structure my lessons like a real textbook because I won’t be able to cover much of the basic grammar anyway.
Instead, I’ll be spending the next chapter talking about some random quirks I’ve come across while studying the Japanese language so that you can show off to your fellow anime fans your newfound l33t Japanese trivial knowledge. Until next time, jya.
P.S. feel free to leave a comment on which girl you want me to focus on for the next chapter… ;)
Which girl? Nagato Yuki’s the flavour of the month.
I’ve really been enjoying these little lessons. I’m already pretty familiar with the stuff you’ve discussed so far, but I like reading your explanations and getting a new understanding of why, how, etc. I especially liked the topic/subject explanation — everything I’ve ever read just skirts the topic and says, “Well, that’s complicated…” ^^; I have a much better understanding of the two now, so thanks. :D I’m looking forward to the future posts.
Yes, that’s what I noticed too. Most textbooks just teach you specific cases of when you should use “ga” and when you should use “wa” instead of explaining why there is a difference in their usages in the first place.
Personally, I think that this book explains the whole issue the best.
Anyway tj han, I already did Yuki for Chapter I, didn’t I…
“In this case, it is obvious that the subject of the verb ã§ã™is NOT Tama-nee but her legs.”
Desu isn’t a verb is it? I vaguely recall this point being stressed in a textbook I read a while back.
Why not focus on Lacus-sama?
Because you can’t write sentences like “mune ga ookii desu!”?
Technically, yes, desu is not a verb.
However, you can replace ANY instance of desu with dearu. They are considered interchangeable. Interestingly, dearu is considered a verb.
I personally treat desu as a verb.
I want Suiseiseki. Or Shana-tan. Or the Inukami girl… I don’t watch any of the anime, but the girls look cute *g*
> Most textbooks just teach you specific cases of when you should use “ga” and when you should use “wa” instead of explaining why there is a difference in their usages in the first place.
Uh… what the hell? I think I have learnt more languages than I have read textbooks, but the few textbooks I’ve seen so far, even when they are for kids, explain *how* a language works, because it’s not only better to understand a language, but also it helps you improve a lot faster when you have understood the rules… Are all english textbooks total crap then?
hey dark in the above “ã‚ãªãŸã‚’犯人ã§ã™ï¼â€
shouldnt it be “ã‚ãªãŸãŒçŠ¯äººã§ã™!”？typo error?
correct me if i am wrong. thanks.
It should be… but ã‚ãªãŸã‚’犯人ã§ã™ï¼ is a running joke that originated from Hisui’s line in Tsukihime.
I’ve just taken up Japanese in the past few months and this stuff is good coz it continues to drum the stuff I’ve been reading into my head properly (and in some instances explains it better)
Still, I dunno if it’s just my n00b gaijin ways, but it feels as though you have to really read through an entire sentence and then re-comprehend it, since all the particles come after the word and the verb is at the end.
Whereas English seems like you can easily understand the sentence on the fly… but it could just be conditioning I guess. They do say that English is the hardest language to learn (or something similar) so we must be doing something wrong :)
can i put in a request for mahoro to be the title character of a chapter? XD
btw, even though i don’t understand japanese (at all XD), these are kinda a nice thing to read… a little information goes a long way :)
oh, and on the germans using long ass clauses to modify a single noun, your very correct… and its quite annoying :(
wish i could have studied german more than i did though…
Love the lessons so far… I’m starting to understand them more now. As for the next character… LoL! Nanaka from DC2 FTW! How about Saber from Fate/Stay Night?! LoL!
Well~ Either ways, I hope you’ll give us the next chapter soon! >.
Is always Tamaki this hot? god-dam-mit, I’m drowning in her sexiness right now. mattaku.
BTW: may the next featured girl be Shirakawa Kotori.
Yeah German’s bad about that too. What’s really fun is the verb forms that split the verb into two parts and put them in different places in the sentence. Sometimes I swear stuff like that was invented to torture people…
Enjoying the lessons. :D
貴方を犯人ã§ã™ï¼
“anata wo hannin desu” is that right? sorry, my Japanese sucks, but doesn’t this mean some thing more like “YOU have become a criminal”?
>>They do say that English is the hardest language to learn (or something similar) so we must be doing something wrong :)
I’m pretty sure that’s not it. Sure, English is illogical as hell (thank god I learned it before puberty; at that point any language is whole lot easier), but Danish can beat it to that any day. (As I native speaker, I suppose I’d know). Not only does it have NO sense of grammatical consistency, extra vowels unpronounceable for anyone not native to scandinavia, and snips off the ending of every second word, it boast some of the most illogical and inconsequential pronounciation rules I’ve ever heard of. Chinese beats it in the writing department, though. ^_~
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–Yeah German’s bad about that too. What’s really fun is the verb forms that split the verb into two parts and put them in different places in the sentence. Sometimes I swear stuff like that was invented to torture people…–
If we (I’m german) invented that to torture foreigners we fell into our own trap cause poor girls like me have to explain german grammar to my american bf who insists on learning german but keeps nagging on how unreasonable it is. :P
About the example:
“The dog which my brother bought last month died recently after being knocked down by a car which I heard was driven by a drunk driver.â€
Yeah, we loooove to make this kind of monster sentences too. ^^
3-5 paragrapher with like 4-10 commas were my special “attack” in essays. :D
The example in german would be:
“Der Hund, den mein Bruder, letzen Monat gekauft hatte, ist vor kurzem gestroben, nachdem er von einem Auto überfahren wurde, dessen Fahrer, soweit ich gehört habe, betrunken war.”
Well thanks again for this lesson. (though I guess I will read it some more times again before I move on to make sure I got all of it ^^)
SABER!!
I dont know japanese and understood almost none of this o_o i wanna learn but it looks hard lol
@canis there are some mistakes in ur german sentence… well nevertheless germans a strange language…
With possible sentences like : “Wenn Robben hinter Robben robben, robben Robben hinter Robben her!”
Funny to notice how both plural Noun and plural verbform can sound the same and are only seperated by writing the first letter big. (And even that can be confusing if the verb starts the sentence and has to be written big!)
Other examples :
Fliegen – fliegen
Sägen – sägen
Spinnen – spinnen (
Hi. I’m just slowly making my way through your Japanese guides and I just wanted to say that your clarifications between subjects and topics made a lot of sense and were easy to follow. Actually, pretty much everything you’ve written in these guides have made a lot of sense. Thanks a lot for writing them. ^^
What does “desu” means?.Sori i’m just a newbie on learning japanese…Hehe..:)
Aha, I read that little blurb about German. I really don’t think German is that hard (I’m learning it in school). The verbs that split are annoying..the only one I know is mitkommen (assuming I spelt that right), and I can’t even seperate it properly -_-.
Well, thanks for another lesson. I love learning the basics of languages…but it confuses me later on when I mix them up with each other..hehe..
Useful and comprehensible lessons… helped me quite a bit. ^^
BTW, I’ve heard that portuguese is the hardest language for one to learn… it has loads of grammatical nonsense. XD
If you think stringing a few modifiers onto a noun makes for long sentences, you should study ancient Greek, wherein a literate writer would routinely go on for a page or more, nesting participals and subjunctives and relative clauses and whatnot to ten or twenty levels deep, modifying not just nouns but also verbs and prepositional phrases and everything else, delving into many points, so that in the long run careless readers, caught up in the details and missing the forest for the trees, cruising along through the words without paying attention to the grammar, might easily lose track of what the original main verb was, before finally wrapping up the sentence at long last and moving on to a new independent clause with its own indicative verb.
(And yes, I realize the English there has a dangling participle. In Greek, “wrapping” would inflect to match the case, number, and gender of “writer” rather than “readers”, so the sentence would be completely unambiguous — if you could keep track of the whole thing in your head at once.)
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