Beginning Japanese for Professionals: Book 1

84 Vocabulary sukoshi すこし 少し a little ocha おちゃ お茶 tea, green tea ga subject marking particle iremasu いれます 入れます make (tea, coffee), put in Tanaka たなか 田中 Tanaka (family name) koohii コーヒー coffee oishii おいしい delicious, tasty ＋ mazui まずい not tasty ＋ koucha こうちゃ 紅茶 black tea ＋ mizu みず 水 cold water ＋ juusu ジュース juice ＋ gyuunyuu ぎゅうにゅう 牛乳 milk ＋ okashi おかし お菓子 snacks, sweets ＋ suiitsu すいいつ スイーツ sweets ＋ pan パン bread ＋ keeki ケーキ cake ＋ kukkii クッキー cookie ＋ kudamono くだもの 果物 fruit ＋ ringo りんご apple ＋ mikan みかん mandarin orange ＋ ichigo いちご strawberry Grammar Notes 4-2-1 Particle Ga Marking the Subject Recall that the subject of a sentence can be placed in front of a verb, adjective or noun + desu in spoken Japanese without any particle or with the particles wa or mo . In this lesson, the particle ga is added. Kono apaato, takai desu. This apartment is expensive Kono apaato wa takai desu. This apartment is expensive (while others may not). Kono apaato mo takai desu. This apartment is also expensive. Kono apaato ga takai desu. It’s this apartment that is expensive. The particle ga follows the subject noun in situations where 1) special focus is placed on the subject, or 2) the entire sentence presents new information. Situation 1) commonly occurs in combination with question words. In answering these questions, it is common to use particle ga with the noun, or to just give the noun + desu .