Beginning Japanese for Professionals: Book 1

80 with certain verbs (transitive verbs, explained later) and usually does not occur in an adjective or noun sentence. In Lesson 1, it was explained that the object of the verb is placed before the verb with or without the particles wa (contrast) or mo (addition). In this lesson, the particle o is added. Consider the following. Kore tabemasu. I’ll eat this. Kore wa tabemasu. This, I’ll eat (while I won’t eat that). Kore mo tabemasu. I’ll eat this, too. Kore o tabemasu. It’s this that I’ll eat. In all these sentences, kore is the object of the verb tabemasu . When the object is marked by the particle o, the focus is on this item and this item only as the one that you eat. So the last sentence above is typically the answer to the question of ‘what will you eat.’ Depending on the context, what is focused on may be 1) the o -marked object alone or 2) the entire sentence, which presents new information that has not yet been mentioned in the conversation. A very common situation for 1) is in combination with question words (what, who, which, etc.) Question words are inherently focused and thus followed by the particle o (not wa or mo .) Similarly, in a yes-no question, the object, when focused, is marked by the particle o . 1) The object noun is focused. Dore o tabemasu ka. Which one will you eat? - Kore desu. It’s this. - Kore o tabemasu. I’ll eat this. (This is the one I’ll eat.) Now let’s see how yes-no questions are answered when the wrong object is presented. The following are two typical answers. Pasokon o tsukaimasu ka. Is it a laptop that you use? - Iya, pasokon ja nai desu. Sumaho desu. No, it’s not a laptop. It’s a smartphone (that I use.) -Iya, pasokon wa tsukaimasen. Sumaho o tsukaimasu. No, I don’t use a laptop. I use a smartphone. Note that in the second answer pasokon takes the particle wa , while sumaho takes the particle o . This is because sumaho is the focused item being newly presented. On the other hand, pasokon has been already mentioned and the particle wa here indicates that pasokon is in contrast to sumaho . 2) The entire sentence presents new information. For example, in the dialogue above, the fact that Michael will use Excel is new information and explains why he does not need help. Here are more