Beginning Japanese for Professionals: Book 1

18 Grammar Notes 1-2-1 Noun + Verb As seen in Dialogue 1 above, subject, object and other elements are usually not explicitly mentioned in Japanese when they are clear from the context. But when not clear, you can place them before the verb. Are, tabemasu ka. Do you eat that? Kore, zenzen wakarimasen. I don’t understand this at all. Nouns can relate to sentence verbs in a variety of ways. Subject Honda-san nomimasu ka. Does Ms. Honda drink? Object Kore tsukaimasu ne . We’re going to use this, right?’ More categories will be introduced later. More than one of these can appear in a sentence. The common word order is: Time--Subject--Object--Adverb--Verb Watashi kore ypoku wakarimasu. I understand this well. However, while the verb needs to appear at the end, noun order is relatively flexible. When sentence elements are not in the common order above, the element moved forward has more focus. Kore, watashi yoku wakarimasu This, I understand well. 1-2-2 Ko-so-a-do series When referring to things in English, a two-way distinction between this (close to the speaker) and that (away from the speaker) is made. In Japanese, a three-way distinction is made: kore this thing (close to me) or this thing I just mentioned sore that thing (close to you) or that thing which was just mentioned are that thing (away from both of us) or that thing we both know about dore which one This is the first set of expressions based on the ko-so-a-do distinction. There are more sets that are based on the same distinction. We refer to that group as the Ko-so-a-do series, which includes expressions such as ‘X kind’, ‘X way’, X place’, etc. These will be introduced later. 1-2-3 Clause Particle Kedo Kedo ‘but’ connects two sentences to make one. The two sentences typically contain