Japanese - Grammar I - は、です、か、の

Japanese grammar is extremely different from English grammar. EXTREMELY. One of the biggest mistakes you can make when learning Japanese is trying to translate everything back and forth from Japanese to English and from English to Japanese. You just can't do that with Japanese. So before we start you should toss out any preconceptions you have about languages out the window. Doing this from the beginning will make a huge difference. Seriously.

First we need to cover some of the aspects of Japanese grammar. Knowing what to expect can really help. Here are some of the big characteristics of Japanese grammar.

1) Word order is Subject-Object-Verb (SOV.) Note that English is SVO.

2) Japanese has NO noun gender, NO verb-noun agreement issues, and NO noun cases.

3) There are no articles (no words for a, an, or the.) So いぬ can translate as "dog" "a dog" "the dog" or "dogs"

4) As you might have noticed from the example in 3, Japanese usually (though sometimes) doesn't worry much about singular and plural unless the number is crucial information.

5) Adjectives have conjugations similar to that of verbs.

6) There are different levels of politeness in Japanese (casual, normal/polite, polite, humble, honorific)

7) There are little grammatical markers called "particles" in Japanese. These follow nouns and they mark the previous noun as the subject, object, indirect object, etc. (NOTE that these are different from noun cases!)

Now to dive into actually learning about all of these things! Don't be scared.

This entry is just focusing on FOUR grammar points. The particle は、 the word です、the question marker か and the possessive marker の.

It seems like a lot but it's all simple and will tie together.

Vocab for this unit

わたし = I/me

あなた = you

かれ = he/him

かのじょ = she/her

だれ = who/whom 

ほん = book

 

いぬ = dog

ペン = pen

これ = this (NEVER followed by a noun!!)

この = this (ALWAYS followed by a noun!!)

Here is a little about each grammar point and then at the bottom are several examples of how to make sentences using these points.

Grammar 1 - は

First off I should warn you. は is usually read ha BUT not in this instance. The particle は is written with "ha" but it is ALWAYS read as wa. This can be hard to remember but try and keep it in mind as we go through the lesson.

は is the subject marker. This means that the noun following は is the subject of the sentence.

We haven't covered verbs yet but just as an example↷

わたしは　いぬを　かっています。 = I own a dog.

わたしは = I + subject marker. "I" is the subject of this sentence.

Grammar 2 - Next we will cover the word です

です translates as "to be/is/am/are." This word acts as an equal sign.

Remember that Japanese is SOV so です is always at the END of the sentence!

Here is an example of how to use は and です.

わたしは　アンナ　です。 = I am Anna.

I + は+ Anna + です

Grammar 3 - Making Questions with か

Of all the languages I've studied, Japanese is one of the easiest (second only to Korean) when it comes to making questions. There are no weird word order changes like in English, no complicated conjugations, no odd pronunciation changes. Just slap か onto the very, very end of everything. Here's an example.

これは　ほん　です。 = This is a book.

これは　ほん　です　か。 = Is this a book? (don't write ? after か even though it's a question)

Grammar 4 - Possession

Another easy thing about Japanese is creating possessive nouns. In many languages you have to use a whole new word for possessive pronouns (He becomes his, You becomes your, etc.) but in Japanese you just add の to the end of the noun.

So:

わたし = I/me and わたしの = my

あなた = you and あなたの = your

かれ = he/him and かれの = his

いぬ = [the] dog and いぬの = the dog's

Now lets put it all together with examples!!　

※Japanese usually has no spaces between words but for reading ease I will add them for now.

わたしは　アンディ　です。 = I am Andy.

あなたは　だれ　です　か。 = Who are you? 

(You + subject marker + who + です + question marker)

これは　あなたの　ほん　です　か。 = Is this your book?

(This + subject marker + you + possessive marker + book + です + question marker)

これは　わたしの　ほん　です。 = This is my book

これは　だれの　ペン　です　か。= Who's pen is this?

(This + subject marker + who + possessive marker + pen + です + question marker)

この　ペン　は　かのじょの　ペン　です。 = This is her pen.

(This + pen + subject marker + she + possessive marker + pen + です)