Word order in japanese sentences

When learning a new language, the grammatical part is inevitable. Even if you have a large vocabulary and can communicate well enough with native speakers of that language (which is a great way to practice at first!), you need to know the correct word order and sentence structure to continue improving. 

Japanese grammar is totally different from English grammar. However, once you get used to the Japanese sentence structure, it will be much easier for you to make sentences. This is because the Japanese language word order is more flexible than that of English.
In this article, we’ll introduce the basics of Japanese word order, which will help you better understand Japanese sentence structure as a whole. Brush up on your Japanese here at JapanesePod101.com!

Table of Contents

1. Overview of Word Order in Japanese
2. The Basic Word Order of Japanese
3. Word Order with Postpositional Phrases
4. Word Order with Modifiers
5. Asking Questions
6. Let’s Practice Making a Sentence in Japanese!
7. Conclusion: How JapanesePod101 Can Help You Learn More Japanese

1. Overview of Word Order in Japanese

1. Japanese is SOV

Japanese is an SOV language, which means that the basic word order in a sentence is S (subject) – O (object) – V (verb). English, on the other hand, is an SVO language with the order of  S (subject) – V (verb) – O (object).

　　　　　(S)    (O)      (V)

Japanese: 私は本を読みます。(Watashi wa hon o yomimasu.)

               (S) (V)     (O)

English: “I read the book.”

2. Variable/Flexible Sentence Structure

The Japanese sentence structure is flexible:

[1] The subject can be omitted when it’s clear from the context/situation. 

[2] The subject and object(s) can be placed in a variable order.

[1]

 (S)    (O)        (V)

(私は)本を読みます。 [(Watashi wa) hon o yomimasu.] = “I read the book.”

The subject 私は (watashi wa) can be omitted.

[2] 

                   (S) (V)     (O)

English: “I read the book.”

In English, the subject can’t be omitted and the verb comes before the object.

　　　　　　    (S)      (O)       (V)

Japanese: (私は) 本を読みます。 [(Watashi wa) hon o  yomimasu.]

In Japanese, the subject can be omitted and the verb is always at the end of a sentence. The basic word order in Japanese is variable in that the subject can also appear after the object, and the order of the objects (if there are multiple) is flexible.

The postpositional particles are used in a Japanese sentence to modify words.

3. The Distinguishable Features of Word Order in Japanese Sentences

Compared to English, one of the distinguishable features of word order in Japanese is that Japanese has a 述語 (Jyutsugo), grammatically translated as “predicate.”

The predicate is one of the two main parts of a sentence stating something about the subject. While an English predicate can appear in the middle of a sentence, a Japanese 述語 (Jyutsugo) is always placed at the end of a sentence. This applies to both the casual form and the polite form.

Japanese: 私は本を読みます。(Watashi wa hon o yomimasu.) >> 読みます(yomimasu) is the predicate.

English: “I read the book.” >> “read the book” is the predicate.

2. The Basic Word Order of Japanese

1. SOV in Japanese

As we saw in the previous section, the basic sentence structure of Japanese is S (subject) – O (object) – V (verb).

Japanese parts of speech are usually followed by 助詞 (Joshi), or “particles,” that modify the word in front.

The subject is the person or thing that’s being discussed or described in a sentence, and the Japanese subject is usually followed by は (wa) or が (ga), which are 格助詞 (Kaku-Joshi) meaning “case markers” or 係助詞 (Kakari-Joshi) meaning “binding particles.”

The object is usually a noun or pronoun that is acted upon by the subject. A Japanese object is followed by a particle, such as を (o) or に (ni), which are 格助詞 (Kaku-Joshi).
The verb conveys an action (eat, write, move, etc.), an occurrence (happen, change), or a state of being (be, seem, exist). Japanese verbs either end the sentence, or are followed by 丁寧体 (Teinei-tai) such as です (desu) or ます (masu) in the polite form.

Word Order	SVO :  English (subject)-(verb)-(object)
Example	“I read the book.”
	“I am a musician.”
	“The book is about music.”

SOV : Japanese (subject)-(object)-(verb)	Literal translation following the word order
私は本を読みます。 Watashi wa hon o yomimasu.	I / the book / read.
私は音楽家です。 Watashi wa ongakuka desu.	I / a musician / am.
その本は音楽についてです。 Sono hon wa ongaku ni tsuite desu.	The book  / the music / about / is.

2. Flexible Word Order

As we mentioned earlier, in Japanese grammar, word order is pretty flexible. Look at the diagram of the Japanese sentence structure in 1. 2. [2] above; the word order of the subject and object(s) is flexible. Even though the subject usually appears at the beginning of a sentence, the subject can also be placed in the middle or even be omitted.

Let’s take a look at the example. 

S (subject) – O (object) – V (verb)

• (私は)明日図書館で友達と本を読みます。

(Watashi wa) ashita   toshokan de   tomodachi to   hon o   yomimasu.      

(I)       (tomorrow) (at the library) (with a friend) (the book) (read).

“I will read the book with a friend at the library tomorrow.”

The subject and object(s) can be placed in a variable order.

For example, the sentence above can also be in the following orders:

(私は)図書館で明日友達と本を読みます。

(Watashi wa) toshokan de  ashita   tomodachi to   hon o  yomimasu. 

(私は)友達と図書館で明日本を読みます。

(Watashi wa) tomodachi to  toshokan de  ashita   hon o yomimasu.　

明日図書館で(私は)友達と本を読みます。

Ashita  toshokan de (watashi wa)  tomodachi to  hon o  yomimasu. 

3. Word Order with Postpositional Phrases

While English uses prepositions (such as “at,” “on,” and “for”) to express a relationship to another word, Japanese uses postpositional particles, or 助詞 (Joshi). These particles come after the modified noun, verb, adjective, or at the end of a sentence. 

There are several types of particles, categorized by function. However, we’ll only introduce the most essential particle: 格助詞 (Kaku-Joshi) or “case maker.”  

When there are multiple objects, their order is flexible and variable as mentioned in the previous section.

Meaning/Function	Reading	Hiragana	Example
Nominative case	-ga	ーが	彼女が一番です。 Kanojo ga ichi-ban desu.　 “She is number one.”
Location	-de	ーで	ここで食べます。 Koko de tabemasu. 　 “(I) eat here.”
Destination	-e	ーへ	彼は図書館へいきます。 Kare wa toshokan e ikimasu.  “He goes to the library.”
Dative case / Time	-ni	ーに	Dative: 彼は子供に本をあげました。 Kare wa kodomo ni hon o agemashita.  “He gave the kid a book.” Time: 私は5時に出発します。 Watashi wa go-ji ni shuppatsu shimasu.  “I depart at five o’clock.”
Origin	-kara	ーから	駅は家から徒歩5分です。 Eki wa ie kara toho go-fun desu. “The station is a five-minute walk from home.”
Co-participant	-to	ーと	彼女は彼と歌います。 Kanojo wa kare to utaimasu.  “She sings with him.”
Objective case	-o	ーを	私は本を読みます。 Watashi wa hon o yomimasu.  “I read the book.”
Possessive case	-no	ーの	これは私のカバンです。 Kore wa watashi no kaban desu.  “This is my bag.”
End point	-made	ーまで	彼は駅まで歩きました。 Kare wa eki made arukimashita.  “He walked to the station.”
Starting point / Comparative	-yori	ーより	Starting point: 会議は9時より行われます。 Kaigi wa ku-ji yori okonawaremasu.  “The meeting will be held at nine o’clock.” Comparative: これはあれより安いです。 Kore wa are yori yasui desu.  “This is cheaper than that.”

彼は駅まで歩きました。(Kare wa eki made arukimashita.), “He walked to the station.”

4. Word Order with Modifiers

With the basic Japanese word order rules in mind, let’s see how it works with modifiers to make more complex sentences.

A modifier is a word—such as an adjective, pronoun, or adverb—that expresses something about the word that follows it. Adjectives and pronouns modify nouns; adverbs modify verbs. 

Here’s the Japanese word order with modifiers by function.

1. With Adjectives

In Japanese word order, adjectives come in front of nouns to describe them.

• 赤いりんご (akai ringo), “red apple”
• 分厚い本 (buatsui  hon), “thick book”

In a sentence with a subject and verb, the format is: S (subject) – O (object) – V (verb).

• 彼は赤いりんごを食べました。(Kare wa akai ringo o tabemashita.), “He ate a red apple.”
• 私は分厚い本を読みます。(Watashi wa buatsui  hon o yomimasu.), “I read the thick book.”

To learn more about Japanese adjectives, please visit our page on the Most Common Adjectives.

2. With Possessive Pronouns

Japanese possessive pronouns—such as 私の (watashi no) meaning “my” and 彼の (kare no) meaning “his”—come in front of nouns. The Japanese possessive case is の (-no) which is the postpositional particle marked after a person or thing.

• 私の車 (Watashi no kuruma), “my car”
• 彼女の家 (Kanojo no ie), “her house”

In a sentence with a subject and verb:

• 彼は私の車を使いました。(Kare wa watashi no kuruma o tsukaimashita.), “He used my car.”
• 私は彼女の家へ行きました。(Watashi wa kanojo no ie e ikimashita.), “I went to her house.”

3. With Adverbs

Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. Japanese adverbs come in front of the words they modify.

• 静かに話します (shizuka ni hanashimasu), “speak quietly”
• ひどく疲れました (hidoku tsukaremashita), “terribly tired”

In a sentence with a subject and verb: 

• 彼女は静かに話します。(Kanojo wa shizuka ni  hanashimasu.), “She speaks quietly.”
• 彼女はとても静かに話します。(Kanojo wa totemo shizuka ni  hanashimasu.), “She speaks very quietly.”
• 私はひどく疲れました。(Watashi wa hidoku  tsukaremashita.), “I got terribly tired.”

For more about Japanese adverbs, please check out our page on Must-Know Adverbs and Phrases for Connecting Thoughts.

4. With Numerals

When numerals modify a noun, they come before that noun. When numerals are used as an object, they come before verbs. 

•  一冊の本 (Issatsu no hon), “one book”
• 二つのりんご (Futatsu no ringo), “two apples”
• 5匹います (Go-hiki  imasu), “there are five (kinds of animals)”

In a sentence with a subject and verb: 

• 私は１冊の本を読みます。(Watashi wa issatsu no hon o yomimasu.), “I read one book.”
• 木から落ちたのは二つのりんごです。(Ki kara ochita no wa futatsu no ringo desu.), “What fell from a tree are two apples.”
• 動物園にパンダが5頭います。(Dōbutsuen ni panda ga go-tō imasu.), “There are five pandas in the zoo.”

There’s a great variety of Japanese counter words which are used when talking about things, actions, or events. 

For more about the basics of Japanese numbers, please visit Numbers and Kanji for Numbers and Counters.

Dōbutsuen ni panda ga go-tō imasu. (“There are five pandas in the zoo.”)

5. Asking Questions

Making an interrogative sentence in Japanese is surprisingly easy! It doesn’t involve changing the word order or adding an auxiliary verb to form a question, like in English (e.g. You swim. >> Do you swim?).

In Japanese, you only have to add か (ka), a question marker, to the end of a sentence and pronounce it with a rising intonation. 

Polite / Basic Sentence

• 私は本を読みます。(Watashi wa hon o yomimasu.), “I read the book.”

　　　Question: 私は本を読みますか。 (Watashi wa hon o yomimasu ka.), “Do I read the book?”

• これは100円です。(Kore wa hyaku-en desu.), “This is 100 yen.”

          Question: これは100円ですか。 (Kore wa hyaku-en desu ka.), “Is this 100 yen?”

• 彼女は肉を食べません。(Kanojo wa niku o tabemasen.), “She doesn’t eat meat.”

          Question: 彼女は肉を食べませんか。(Kanojo wa niku o tabemasen ka.), “Doesn’t she eat meat?”

Casual Sentence

In casual and colloquial speech, just change the pronunciation to have a rising intonation at the end of a sentence, without adding か (ka). 

• 今日は寒い。(Kyō wa samui.), “Today is cold.”

　　　Question: 今日は寒い? (Kyō wa samui?), “Is today cold?”

• 私に小包が届いた。(Watashi ni kozutsumi ga todoita.), “The parcel was delivered to me.”

          Question: 私に小包が届いた？ (Watashi ni kozutsumi ga todoita?), “Was the parcel delivered to me?”

• （あなたは）犬が好き。[(Anata wa) inu ga suki.], “You like dogs.”

          Question:（あなたは）犬が好き？ [(Anata wa) inu ga suki?], “Do you like dogs?”

6. Let’s Practice Making a Sentence in Japanese! 

Learning by doing is the best way to master! Now, let’s practice making a Japanese sentence, step by step, with the Japanese word order rules you’ve learned today. If you don’t remember anything, feel free to review the sections above! 

Try to translate the following sentences in Japanese.

1. “You went to the library.”  : _________________

2. “You went to the library in the morning.”  : _________________

3. “You went to the library in the morning at eight o’clock.” : _________________

4. “Did you go to the library in the morning?” : _________________

5. “She ate sushi today.”  : _________________

6. “She ate sushi with Mariko today.”  : _________________

7. “She ate sushi with Mariko for lunch today.”  : _________________

8. “Did she eat sushi with Mariko for lunch today?” :_________________

If you don’t know certain vocabulary words, please check out our lists for the 50 Most Common Verbs and our School Vocabulary.

“Library” in Japanese is 図書館 (toshokan).

[Answers]

1. “You went to the library.” 

　 あなたは図書館へ行きました。(Anata wa toshokan e ikimashita.)

2. “You went to the library in the morning.” 

　あなたは朝図書館へ行きました。(Anata wa asa toshokan e ikimashita.)

3. “You went to the library in the morning at eight o’clock.” 

   あなたは朝8時に図書館へ行きました。(Anata wa asa hachi-ji ni toshokan e ikimashita.)

4. “Did you go to the library in the morning?” 

　あなたは朝図書館へ行きましたか。(Anata wa asa toshokan e ikimashita ka.)　

5. “She ate sushi today.”  

     彼女は今日寿司を食べました。(Kanojo wa kyō sushi o tabemashita.)

6. “She ate sushi with Mariko today.” 

     彼女は今日まりこと寿司を食べました。(Kanojo wa kyō Mariko to sushi o tabemashita.)

7. “She ate sushi with Mariko for lunch today.” 

     彼女は今日お昼ご飯にまりこと寿司を食べました。(Kanojo wa kyō o-hirugohan ni Mariko to sushi o tabemashita.)

8. “Did she eat sushi with Mariko for lunch today?” :

    彼女は今日まりこと寿司を食べましたか。(Kanojo wa kyō Mariko to sushi o tabemashita ka.)

*The word order of objects can vary when there are many in a sentence.

7. Conclusion: How JapanesePod101 Can Help You Learn More Japanese

In this article, we introduced you to Japanese word order. Now you understand how the Japanese sentence structure works. At first, you might feel confused about the flexibility of Japanese word order, but you’ll find it’s actually a lot easier to make complex sentences once you get used to it!   

If you would like to learn more about the Japanese language and practice other useful Japanese phrases for any situation, you’ll find a lot more helpful content on JapanesePod101.com. We provide a variety of free lessons to help you improve your Japanese language skills. Here’s some more information about the basics of Japanese with audio: Top 10 Sentence Patterns for Beginners and Most Useful Pronouns.

And there’s so much more we can offer you! Learn faster and enjoy studying Japanese at JapanesePod101.com!

Before you go, let us know in the comments if you still have questions about Japanese word order. We’d be glad to help.

So, here you are, thrilled to have learned your very first Japanese words and ready to put them to use into a sentence. But how does Japanese sentence structure work…? How should you put different types of words together to make a grammatical sentence? 

After reading this quick guide, you will know the basics of Japanese sentence structure and particles. You’ll be set to speak and write Japanese in no time! 

Japanese Sentence Structure: How are Japanese sentences structured?

At the beginning, Japanese sentence structure will confuse you, especially if you try to translate the sentence literally. The word order will kind of look the opposite of what it should be in an English sentence. 

Japanese Sentence Structure: Word Order 

Well, that’s because English (and romance languages in general) is an SVO, Subject-Verb-Object, language. Japanese, in comparison, is an SOV, Subject-Object-Verb, language. Speaking very simply, the word order is different in Japanese, with the object coming in between the subject and the verb. 

Here’s a short sentence to help you visualize how a simple Japanese sentence looks like:

ジョンは	パンを	食べる
John	bread	eat
Subject	Object	Verb

While the order is off in English, you can easily infer the meaning: “John eats bread”. 

Here’s another example, with a more complex sentence:

ジョンは	私に	パンを	くれました
John	To me	bread	gave
Subject	Indirect Object	Direct Object	Verb

Between “John” and the final verb “gave”, you’ll have two groups of words which translate “to me” and “bread”. You can still guess the meaning, but as you keep on learning Japanese and build more complex sentences, literal translations in English are like puzzles you need to reassemble. 

So having a fundamental understanding of how Japanese sentence structure works is important to help you get the pieces in a flash. 

 Japanese Sentence Structure vs English

The very first rule you learn is that a Japanese sentence only needs a verb to be grammatically complete. One verb equals one sentence! 

Of course, like in English, a sentence can also contain nouns, adjectives and additional verbs. So as your vocabulary expands, you build more complex sentences, adding bits of information between the subject and the verb. 

Now, in English and most romance languages, the word order is rigid because it serves a purpose. The order is here to tell us the grammatical function of each word or group of words. A sentence starts with a subject – a noun or pronoun for example, followed by a verb and one or more objects. 

But in Japanese, the word order is more flexible and words can be arranged in various ways. So how does it make sense? 

With the help of grammatical particles.

Japanese Sentence Structure: Particles You Must Know

Looking back at one of our examples, you can see the adjunction of little words to nouns and verbs.

ジョン	は	私	に	パン	を	くれました
Jon		me		bread		gave
Subject	?	Indirect Object	?	Direct Object	?	Verb

These little words are what we call grammatical particles. Take a Japanese sentence and imagine it’s like a wall made of bricks. The words are the bricks and the particles act like the cement that sticks them all together. 

How Do Particles Work in Japanese Sentence Structure

Particles are grammatical markers, or suffixes, that you attach to nouns, adjectives, verbs and even sentences, to assign them a grammatical function. 

Plainly saying, they assign a role to words and groups of words, telling us: 

• what’s the senten ce is about,
• who is doing what,
• where the action is done, or where it’s from or going to,
• when the action is done,
• how the action is done,
• with whom
• and so on. 

As you can see in the example below, は and を show the relationship between pieces of information (John, bread) and the verb (eat).

ジョン	は	パン	を	食べる
John		bread		eat
Subject (noun)	Particle	Object (noun)	Particle	Verb

Let’s follow up with more details. We see that the particle は marks the subject, を the direct object and に the indirect object.

ジョン	は	私	に	パン	を	くれました
John		me	to	bread		gave
Subject	Particle	Indirect Object	Particle	Direct Object	Particle	Verb

What’s tricky for beginners at first, is that Japanese particles can rarely be translated because they have no counterpart in English. Depending on the context, however, some of them can be close to English prepositions such as “to, from, in, at, on, etc.”

Particles are the very foundations in Japanese sentence structure after the verbs, and each one has multiple grammatical functions that you need to memorize. Keep things easy at first and focus your attention on their main functions. As you progress, you’ll develop a more complex understanding of their usage. 

You’re now set to learn the main particles in Japanese, starting with the は and が pair. 

Wa　は

The particle は (“wa”) is called the topic marker for a good reason, as は introduces the topic or theme of a sentence, basically what you’re talking about. 

• 明日の天気はどうでしょう = What will be tomorrow’s weather like? 

The theme in the above example is the weather. In English, it can be confusing to understand the concept of sentence thematic, as it often overlaps with what we consider to be the subject.

• 今日は何をしましたか。= What did you do today (introducing for the theme “today”)

You’ll quickly notice that は is very often at the beginning or near the beginning of a sentence. While to be grammatically correct the word order doesn’t matter much in Japanese, native speakers naturally place topic phrases at first. 

Ga　が

In a subtle contrast with は, the particle が is called the subject or identifier marker, meaning it marks the subject of the action or the verb. 

• 頭が痛い = my heart hurts
• 私がやる！= I’ll do it! 

が can also be used instead of the particle を with some verbs and conjugation, as well with adjectives, that express like or dislike, desire, knowledge, and other feelings.

• 本が好き = I like book
• 意味がわからない = I don’t understand the meaning 

Wa vs Ga　は vs が

The nuance between the topic marker (は) and the subject marker (が) is a blurry one for more. 

The bad news is that it’s probably one of the Japanese language’s most difficult concepts to grasp, one that Japanese linguists themselves can’t seem to agree on. With time and practice, you’ll develop an intuition and know which one is appropriate to use. Thankfully, until then, know that native speakers will have no problem understanding you if you mix up the two! 

So, what’s going on between は and が? A good way to keep things simple for now, is to understand that the particle は refers to information that everyone taking part in the conversation is familiar with. And by information, we mean that the parties taking part in the conversation are aware of what we’re talking about. は has therefore a rather broad usage and can even replace other particles for emphasis. 

On the other hand, the particle が is down to earth the marker of the verb’s subject, meaning the who or the what doing the action. 

• リーさんは中国から来た。= Lee came from China
• リーさんが中国から来た。= Lee (in a group of people: is the one who) came from China. 

Another way to look at this pair is to consider that (broad) は provides context, while (limited)が provides action or identification. 

While you take time to digest this big chunk of grammar complexity, let’s move on to an easier particle. 

O　を

The particle を, whose written wo but read “o”, is your go-to particle to indicate the direct object in a sentence. So basically を marks to what or whom the action is done. In English, it doesn’t necessarily have an equivalent. 

• パンを食べる = I eat bread
• ピアノを弾く = I play piano 

Playing around with を shows you how a Japanese sentence structure can be changed with no influence on its meaning as long as you properly use particles. 

• 太郎はのりこを見る = Tarou sees Noriko
• のりこを太郎は見る = Tarou sees Noriko

Of course, grammatically correct doesn’t necessarily mean that it sounds natural. Japanese people tend to place the direct object at first or after the topic of a sentence, following the SOV order. 

太郎は	のりこを	見る
Sentence Topic	Direct Object	Verb

E　へ

The particle へ (written “he” but read “e”) marks a motion movement towards a direction and is used with directional verbs such as “go” (行く)  and “send” (送る). 

• スーパーへ行く = I go to the supermarket. 
• 海外へ送る = to send abroad

The emphasis is on the movement of heading toward something more than the intended destination. 

Ni　に

Despite being short, the particle に is busier than it seems! This particle’s main functions are to indicate the time something takes place on (at, in, on) and to focus on the location in which something is (in, at). 

Time

• 午後3時に来る = I will come at 3PM

Location

• 学校にいる = I’m at school 

Finally, に can mark an indirect object and work hand in hand with verbs in a lot of set expressions such as になる (“to become”).  

Indirect Object

•  ジョンは私にプレゼントした = John offered me a gift. 

Ni vs E　に vs へ 

Both に and へ can be attached to a direction and are grammatically interchangeable. Both sentences below are correct: 

• Direction: 学校に行く = I go to school
• Direction: 学校へ行く  = I go to school

Surprisingly, native speakers themselves, when asked to think about one or the other, don’t always know how to explain why they’ll choose naturally one or the other. So how do you distinguish the two? 

If you open a grammar book, you’ll be taught that between に and へ, it’s just a matter of focus. So a very clever way to sort them out is to memorize that に focuses on your destination as a “goal”: you intend to reach a place. 

• 学校に行きます = I go to school (and I have for intention to get there on time for classes)

On the contrary, へ emphasizes the movement toward a destination, regardless of whether you reach the said destination. 

• スーパーへ行きます = I go to the supermarket (but might actually not go there, I can change my mind on the way!)

If the distinction is still blurry, a more down to earth tip is to memorize that に is naturally used with a verb such as “to arrive (to)” (着く),  “乗る” (to get on), “to come back (to)” (帰る) because these verbs give somewhat a sense of reaching a final point. 

De で

The particle で has three main functions. The first is to give the location of an action, for example, a sporting event at the school, the means by which an action is done, such as writing with a pen, or a cause or reason for a negative event. 

Means 

• ペンで書く = I write with a pen

Location

• 学校で運動会をする = We do a sport event at school

Cause

•  風邪で学校休んだ = I missed school due to a cold

De vs Ni　で vs に

Can で somewhat overlap with the particle に when it comes to giving a location? Lucky for you, not really. The particle で focuses on the action and the location is not a goal, but accessory information. 

Here’s an example to help you sort them out. 

• 都会で暮らす = I live in the city.
• 都会に暮らす= I live in the city.

While the translation in English is the same, the use of で or に brings in a nuance that native speakers easily understand. In the first sentence, what で emphasizes really, is the verb “to live”. The speaker is focused on the “act of living” and the city is just a detail. With the second sentence, however, the speaker simply gives information. 

Kara　から

The first usage of the particle から is to indicate the origin or the beginning of something. 

• 午後3時から始まる = It starts from 3 PM
• アメリカから来た = I came from America 

It’s often paired with the particle まで which marks the end or limit of something. 

• 午後3時から5時まで = from 3pm to 5pm
• いつまで日本にいますか = Until when will you be in Japan?

With a more complex twist to it, から can also be used to give a reason or cause for something. Note that the reason comes before the consequence. 

• この本は面白いから、読んでください = This book is interesting, so please read it (literally, “because this book is interesting, please read it!”)

To　と

The particle と is one of the first particle beginners learn because it’s a very convenient connector expressing that something is done “with” someone or something. と also comes in to list multiple things as in “A and B”. 

1. ジョンと、海に行く = I go to the sea with John. 
2. パンはバターとジャムを食べる = I eat bread with butter and jam. 

This particle is used in a lot of set verbal phrases in particular to express conditions and to make quotations. But for now, just keep in mind that と = and/with. 

Mo　も

In a way, the particle も has been compared to the topic marker は in the sense that も, which translates “too, also”, makes a reference to the sentence theme. This particle helps make an analogy and add emphasis. 

• ジョンはパンを食べる。私もパンを食べる = John eats bread. I eat bread too. 

No　の

The particle の is one of the most important particles there is. 

You use の to stick nouns or even partial sentences together in order to mark possession, belonging or to give details. 

Possession

• ジョンのレストラン = the restaurant of John/ John’s restaurant
• 私のバッグ = my bag

Belonging

• 大阪の人= a person from Osaka
• 夏目漱石の詩 = Natsume Soseki’s poem (= the poem Natsume Soseki composed)

Giving more details

• 日本語の本 = a Japanese book (you provide details on what is the book) 
• 学校の前 = in front of the school (you provide details on the location)
• こちらは田中の同僚だ = Here’s Tanaka, my colleague

Another major grammatical function of の is to turn an adjective or verb phrase into the equivalent of a noun. 

Nominalization

• 青いのはいい = the blue one is nice
• 友達と話すのが好き = I like talking with my friends

The newly formed “noun phrase” is used exactly like a noun and therefore can be connected to the rest of the sentence with other particles. 

While it may be obvious, it’s worth telling that in a noun phrase, the particle の loses its freedom and cannot be moved around, or the phrase will break down and lose all meaning. 

So far, we’ve seen particles that you can find in the middle of a sentence to connect words and phrases together. The Japanese language also has ending particles, the most important of all being the “question” particle か. 

Build Japanese Questions with Ending Particle か

Once you know basic Japanese sentence structure, you basically know how to ask a question in Japanese. All you have to do is add the ending particle か after your sentence’s final verb. 

This is how you can turn every sentence into yes-no questions. 

• パンをたべます = I/you eat bread.
• パンを食べますか = do you eat bread?
• できました = I/you did it. 
• できましたか = did you do it?

Beyond yes and no questions, you can also ask wh-questions and the like by using question words at the beginning of your sentence. The sentence’s word order does not change. However depending on the context, the question word may need to be attached to the correct particle for the question to work. 

Thinking about the answer and reversing back to the question will help you figure out what particle should be used. 

What: 

• 何を食べますか = What do you eat?
• パンを食べます = I eat bread. 
• 何ですか = What’s this?
• パンです = Bread. 

Where: 

• どこで食べますか = Where do you eat?
• うちで食べます = I eat at home. 
• どこですか = Where is it?
• 学校です = At school. 

Who: 

• 誰ですか  = Who is this?
• ジョンです = John. 
• 誰と海に行きましたか = With whom did you go to the sea?
• ジョンと行きました = I went with John. 

When: 

• いつ食べますか = When do you eat?
• 12時に食べます= I eat at noon.

You can express “how” with two question markers, どう that focus on the state of something and どうやって, which has a narrower meaning, focusing on the means for something to happen. Very often, the answer to a どうやって question will include the particle で we previously read about. 

How (state): 

• どうですか = How is this?
• いいです = Good. 

How (means): 

• どうやって日本語を勉強しますか = How do you study Japanese?
• LingoDeerで勉強します = I study with LingoDeer. 

Good job on reading this far! Now, let’s quickly get over a few more characteristics of Japanese sentence structure.

Other Characteristics of Japanese Sentence Structure

Learning about how to make a Japanese sentence, you might have noticed a few things missing, while not figuring them out quite yet. Let’s have a brief overview of what a Japanese sentence structure doesn’t “have”.

Japanese Sentence Structure: No Articles 

What a relief! While you have to deal with particles, Japanese language doesn’t have an equivalent for the English indefinite  “a” and definite “the”. 

Which leads us to an even brighter side. 

Japanese Sentence Structure: Nouns Do Not Inflect

Yes! Japanese nouns are basically immutable. Nouns do not inflect based on gender, number or grammatical function. 

Another good news. Japanese language doesn’t inflect based on gender, number or grammatical function. So, all you have to do, really, is master particles! 

Japanese Sentence Structure: Ommissions

When you start practicing Japanese, you spend a lot of time building fully formed sentences, careful to state the subject, use all the particles and all the objects, indirect objects and bits of information you want to share. 

In reality, Japanese language is highly context-sensitive and allows you to omit information whenever it can be inferred from the context by the listener. Native speakers drop pronouns (私, あなた, etc.) and sentence’s topic (は) in a heartbeat. 

Grammatical Order vs Natural Order

Throughout this guide, we’ve seen that as long as words and phrases are used with the correct grammatical particle and attached to a final verb, a Japanese sentence will be grammatically correct. However, will your sentence sound natural? 

Native speakers do follow a logical order when they make a sentence. So here’s the structure you should keep in mind whenever you are making complexes sentences: 

Sentence Topic – Time – Location – Subject – Indirect Object – Direct Object – Verb

Memorize this “skeleton” of the Japanese sentence structure and your Japanese will flow like a native. 

The Basic of Japanese Sentence Structure: A Quick Summary

To sum up, what you’ve learned so far, the word order doesn’t really affect a sentence’s meaning, as long as your sentence ends with a verb. 

To build a Japanese sentence, you use grammatical particles, one or two hiragana words, that you attach to nouns, verbs, adjectives, or sentences, to assign them a grammatical function. They help build a sentence regardless of how groups of words are arranged. The main difficulty for beginners is to understand the subtleties of Japanese particles, especially when they have no equivalent in English. 

The word order and the particles can affect the emphasis, so understanding Japanese sentence structure early is key to learning intermediate and advanced grammatical concepts.

Finally, the most important obstacle you face in Japanese, is how native speakers very naturally omit some parts of a sentence, leaving you to guess what’s been left out. Only a good knowledge of Japanese syntax helps you fill in the gap instinctively.

If you’re looking for some more useful tips on learning Japanese, this guide from a fellow Japanese learner might help you along the way. 

Writer based in Japan.
Loves how learning languages opens our mind to see the world differently and helps bridging the cultural gap among people.
View all posts by Amelie Nishizawa

Japanese is an agglutinative, synthetic, mora-timed language with simple phonotactics, a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent. Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure is topic–comment. Its phrases are exclusively head-final and compound sentences are exclusively left-branching.^[a] Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or make questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender, and there are no articles. Verbs are conjugated, primarily for tense and voice, but not person. Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a complex system of honorifics with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned.

In language typology, it has many features different from most European languages.

Distinctive aspects of modern Japanese sentence structure[edit]

Word order: head-final and left-branching[edit]

The modern theory of constituent order («word order»), usually attributed to Joseph Harold Greenberg, identifies several kinds of phrases. Each one has a head and possibly a modifier. The head of a phrase either precedes its modifier (head-initial) or follows it (head-final). Some of these phrase types, with the head marked in boldface, are:

• genitive phrase, i.e., noun modified by another noun («the cover of the book», «the book’s cover«);
• noun governed by an adposition («on the table», «underneath the table»);
• comparison («[X is] bigger than Y», i.e., «compared to Y, X is big«).
• noun modified by an adjective («black cat«).

Some languages are inconsistent in constituent order, having a mixture of head-initial phrase types and head-final phrase types. Looking at the preceding list, English for example is mostly head-initial, but nouns follow the adjectives which modify them. Moreover, genitive phrases can be either head-initial or head-final in English. By contrast, the Japanese language is consistently head-final:

• genitive phrase:

• noun governed by an adposition:

• comparison:

• noun modified by an adjective:

Head-finality in Japanese sentence structure carries over to the building of sentences using other sentences. In sentences that have other sentences as constituents, the subordinated sentences (relative clauses, for example), always precede what they refer to, since they are modifiers and what they modify has the syntactic status of phrasal head. Translating the phrase «the man who was walking down the street» into Japanese word order would be «street down walking was man».^[b]

Head-finality prevails also when sentences are coordinated instead of subordinated. In the world’s languages, it is common to avoid repetition between coordinated clauses by optionally deleting a constituent common to the two parts, as in «Bob bought his mother some flowers and his father a tie», where the second bought is omitted. In Japanese, such «gapping» must proceed in the reverse order: «Bob mother for some flowers and father for tie bought». The reason for this is that in Japanese, sentences (other than occasional inverted sentences or sentences containing afterthoughts) always end in a verb (or other predicative words like adjectival verbs, adjectival nouns, auxiliary verbs)—the only exceptions being a few sentence-ending particles such as ka, ne, and yo. The particle ka turns a statement into a question, while the others express the speaker’s attitude towards the statement.

Word class system[edit]

Japanese has five major lexical word classes:

• nouns
• verbal nouns (correspond to English gerunds like ‘studying’, ‘jumping’, which denote activities)
• nominal adjectives (names vary, also called na-adjectives or «adjectival nouns»)
• verbs
• adjectives (so-called i-adjectives)

More broadly, there are two classes: uninflectable (nouns, including verbal nouns and nominal adjectives) and inflectable (verbs, with adjectives as defective verbs). To be precise, a verbal noun is simply a noun to which suru (する, «do») can be appended, while an adjectival noun is like a noun but uses -na (〜な) instead of -no (〜の) when acting attributively. Adjectives (i-adjectives) inflect identically to the negative form of verbs, which end in na-i (ない). Compare tabe-na-i (食べない, don’t eat) → tabe-na-katta (食べなかった, didn’t eat) and atsu-i (熱い, is hot) → atsu-katta (熱かった, was hot).

Some scholars, such as Eleanor Harz Jorden, refer to adjectives instead as adjectivals, since they are grammatically distinct from adjectives: they can predicate a sentence. That is, atsui (熱い) is glossed as «hot» when modifying a noun phrase, as in atsui gohan (熱いご飯, hot food), but as «is hot» when predicating, as in gohan wa atsui (ご飯は熱い, [the] food is hot).

The two inflected classes, verb and adjective, are closed classes, meaning they do not readily gain new members.^[1][2] Instead, new and borrowed verbs and adjectives are conjugated periphrastically as verbal noun + suru (e.g. benkyō suru (勉強する, do studying; study)) and adjectival noun + na. This differs from Indo-European languages, where verbs and adjectives are open classes, though analogous «do» constructions exist, including English «do a favor», «do the twist» or French «faire un footing» (do a «footing», go for a jog), and periphrastic constructions are common for other senses, like «try climbing» (verbal noun) or «try parkour» (noun). Other languages where verbs are a closed class include Basque: new Basque verbs are only formed periphrastically. Conversely, pronouns are closed classes in Western languages but open classes in Japanese and some other East Asian languages.

In a few cases new verbs are created by appending -ru (〜る) suffix to a noun or using it to replace the end of a word. This is most often done with borrowed words, and results in a word written in a mixture of katakana (stem) and hiragana (inflectional ending), which is otherwise very rare.^[3] This is typically casual, with the most well-established example being sabo-ru (サボる, skip class; play hooky) (circa 1920), from sabotāju (サボタージュ, sabotage), with other common examples including memo-ru (メモる, write a memo), from memo (メモ), and misu-ru (ミスる, make a mistake) from misu (ミス, mistake). In cases where the borrowed word already ends with a ru (ル), this may be punned to a ru (る), as in gugu-ru (ググる, to google), from gūguru (グーグル, Google), and dabu-ru (ダブる, to double), from daburu (ダブル, double).^[4]

New adjectives are extremely rare; one example is kiiro-i (黄色い, yellow), from adjectival noun kiiro (黄色), and a more casual recent example is kimo-i (きもい, gross), by contraction of kimochi waru-i (気持ち悪い, bad-feeling).^[5] By contrast, in Old Japanese -shiki (〜しき) adjectives (precursors of present i-adjectives ending in -shi-i (〜しい), formerly a different word class) were open, as reflected in words like ita-ita-shi-i (痛々しい, pitiful), from the adjective ita-i (痛い, painful, hurt), and kō-gō-shi-i (神々しい, heavenly, sublime), from the noun kami (神, god) (with sound change). Japanese adjectives are unusual in being closed class but quite numerous – about 700 adjectives – while most languages with closed class adjectives have very few.^[6][7] Some believe this is due to a grammatical change of inflection from an aspect system to a tense system, with adjectives predating the change.

The conjugation of i-adjectives has similarities to the conjugation of verbs, unlike Western languages where inflection of adjectives, where it exists, is more likely to have similarities to the declension of nouns. Verbs and adjectives being closely related is unusual from the perspective of English, but is a common case across languages generally, and one may consider Japanese adjectives as a kind of stative verb.

Japanese vocabulary has a large layer of Chinese loanwords, nearly all of which go back more than one thousand years, yet virtually none of them are verbs or «i-adjectives» – they are all nouns, of which some are verbal nouns (suru) and some are adjectival nouns (na). In addition to the basic verbal noun + suru form, verbal nouns with a single-character root often experienced sound changes, such as -suru (〜する) → -zuru (〜ずる) (rendaku) → -jiru (〜じる), as in kin-jiru (禁じる, forbid), and some cases where the stem underwent sound change, as in tassuru (達する, reach), from tatsu (達).

Verbal nouns are uncontroversially nouns, having only minor syntactic differences to distinguish them from pure nouns like ‘mountain’. There are some minor distinctions within verbal nouns, most notably that some primarily conjugate as -o suru (〜をする) (with a particle), more like nouns, while others primarily conjugate as -suru (〜する), and others are common either way. For example, keiken o suru (経験をする, to experience) is much more common than keiken suru (経験する), while kanben suru (勘弁する, to pardon) is much more common than kanben o suru (勘弁をする).^[8] Nominal adjectives have more syntactic differences versus pure nouns, and traditionally were considered more separate, but they, too, are ultimately a subcategory of nouns.

There are a few minor word classes that are related to adjectival nouns, namely the taru adjectives and naru adjectives. Of these, naru adjectives are fossils of earlier forms of na adjectives (the nari adjectives of Old Japanese), and are typically classed separately, while taru adjectives are a parallel class (formerly tari adjectives in Late Old Japanese), but are typically classed with na adjectives.

Japanese as a topic-prominent language[edit]

In discourse pragmatics, the term topic refers to what a section of discourse is about. At the beginning of a section of discourse, the topic is usually unknown, in which case it is usually necessary to explicitly mention it. As the discourse carries on, the topic need not be the grammatical subject of each new sentence.

Starting with Middle Japanese, the grammar evolved so as to explicitly distinguish topics from nontopics. This is done by two distinct particles (short words which do not change form). Consider the following pair of sentences:

Both sentences translate as «the sun rises». In the first sentence the sun (太陽, taiyō) is not a discourse topic—not yet; in the second sentence it is a discourse topic. In linguistics (specifically, in discourse pragmatics) a sentence such as the second one (with wa) is termed a presentational sentence because its function in the discourse is to present sun as a topic, to «broach it for discussion». Once a referent has been established as the topic of the current monolog or dialog, then in (formal) modern Japanese its marking will change from ga to wa. To better explain the difference, the translation of the second sentence can be enlarged to «As for the sun, it rises» or «Speaking of the sun, it rises»; these renderings reflect a discourse fragment in which «the sun» is being established as the topic of an extended discussion.

Liberal omission of the subject of a sentence[edit]

The grammatical subject is commonly omitted in Japanese, as in

Subjects are mentioned when a topic is introduced, or in situations where an ambiguity might result from their omission. The preceding example sentence would most likely be uttered in the middle of a discourse, where who it is that «went to Japan» will be clear from what has already been said (or written).

Sentences, phrases and words[edit]

Text (文章, bunshō) is composed of sentences (文, bun), which are in turn composed of phrases (文節, bunsetsu), which are its smallest coherent components. Like Chinese and classical Korean, written Japanese does not typically demarcate words with spaces; its agglutinative nature further makes the concept of a word rather different from words in English. The reader identifies word divisions by semantic cues and a knowledge of phrase structure. Phrases have a single meaning-bearing word, followed by a string of suffixes, auxiliary verbs and particles to modify its meaning and designate its grammatical role.

Some scholars romanize Japanese sentences by inserting spaces only at phrase boundaries (i.e., «taiyō-ga higashi-no sora-ni noboru«), treating an entire phrase as a single word. This represents an almost purely phonological conception of where one word ends and the next begins. There is some validity in taking this approach: phonologically, the postpositional particles merge with the structural word that precedes them, and within a phonological phrase, the pitch can have at most one fall. Usually, however, grammarians adopt a more conventional concept of word (単語, tango), one which invokes meaning and sentence structure.

Phrasal movement[edit]

In Japanese, phrasal constituents can be moved to the beginning or the end of the sentence. Leftward movement of a phrasal constituent is referred to as «scrambling».

Word classification[edit]

In linguistics generally, words and affixes are often classified into two major word categories: lexical words, those that refer to the world outside of a discourse, and function words—also including fragments of words—which help to build the sentence in accordance with the grammar rules of the language. Lexical words include nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and sometimes prepositions and postpositions, while grammatical words or word parts include everything else. The native tradition in Japanese grammar scholarship seems to concur in this view of classification. This native Japanese tradition uses the terminology jiritsugo (自立語, independent words), for words having lexical meaning, and fuzokugo (付属語, auxiliary words), for words having a grammatical function.

Classical Japanese had some auxiliary verbs (i.e., they were independent words) which have become grammaticized in modern Japanese as inflectional suffixes, such as the past tense suffix -ta (which might have developed as a contraction of -te ari).

Traditional scholarship proposes a system of word classes differing somewhat from the above-mentioned.^{[citation needed]} The «independent» words have the following categories.

katsuyōgo (活用語), word classes which have inflections

dōshi (動詞), verbs,

keiyōshi (形容詞), i-type adjectives.

keiyōdōshi (形容動詞), na-type adjectives

hikatsuyōgo (非活用語) or mukatsuyōgo (無活用語), word classes which do not have inflections^{[citation needed]}

meishi (名詞), nouns

daimeishi (代名詞), pronouns

fukushi (副詞), adverbs

setsuzokushi (接続詞), conjunctions

kandōshi (感動詞), interjections

rentaishi (連体詞), prenominals

Ancillary words also divide into a nonconjugable class, containing grammatical particles (助詞, joshi) and counter words (助数詞, josūshi), and a conjugable class consisting of auxiliary verbs (助動詞, jodōshi). There is not wide agreement among linguists as to the English translations of the above terms.

Controversy over the characterization of nominal adjectives[edit]

Uehara (1998)^[9] observes that Japanese grammarians have disagreed as to the criteria that make some words inflectional and others not, in particular, the nominal adjectives – keiyōdōshi (形容動詞) or na-adjectives. (It is not disputed that nouns like hon ‘book’ are non-inflectional and that verbs and i-adjectives are inflectional.) The claim that nominal adjectives are inflectional rests on the claim that the element da, regarded as a copula by proponents of non-inflectional nominal adjectives, is really a suffix—an inflection. That is, kireida (‘it is pretty’) is a one-word sentence, not a two-word sentence, kirei da. However, numerous constructions show that da is less bound to the roots of nouns and nominal adjectives than -i and -(r)u are to the roots of i-adjectives and verbs, respectively.

(1) Reduplication for emphasis

Hora! Hon, hon! (‘See! It is a book!’)

Hora! Kirei, kirei! (‘See! It is pretty!’)

Hora! Furu-i, furu-i! (‘See! It is old!’) (the adjectival inflection -i cannot be left off)

Hora! Ik-u, ik-u! (‘See! It does go!’) (the verbal inflection -u cannot be left off)

(2) Questions. In Japanese, questions are formed by adding the particle ka (or in colloquial speech, just by changing the intonation of the sentence).

Hon ka? (‘Is it a book?’)

Kirei ka? (‘Is it pretty?’)

Furu-i ka? (‘Is it old?) (-i cannot be left off)

Ik-u ka? (‘Does it go?’) (-u cannot be left off)

(3) Several epistemic modality predicates, e.g., mitai (‘seem like’)

Hon mitai da (‘It seems to be a book’)

Kirei mitai da (‘It seems to be pretty’)

Furu-i mitai da (‘It seems to be old’) (-i cannot be left off)

Ik-u mitai da (‘It seems to go’) (-u cannot be left off)

On the basis of such constructions, Uehara finds that the copula da is not suffixal and that nominal adjectives pattern with nouns in being non-inflectional.

Similarly, Eleanor Jorden considers this class of words a kind of nominal, not adjective, and refers to them as na-nominals in her textbook Japanese: The Spoken Language.

Nouns[edit]

Japanese has no grammatical gender, number, or articles; though the demonstrative sono (その, «that, those»), is often translatable as «the». Thus, linguists agree that Japanese nouns are noninflecting: neko (猫) can be translated as «cat», «cats», «a cat», «the cat», «some cats» and so forth, depending on context. However, as part of the extensive pair of grammatical systems that Japanese possesses for honorification (making discourse deferential to the addressee or even to a third party) and politeness, nouns too can be modified. Nouns take politeness prefixes (which have not been regarded as inflections): o- for native nouns, and go- for Sino-Japanese nouns. A few examples are given in the following table. In a few cases, there is suppletion, as with the first of the examples given below, ‘rice’. (Note that while these prefixes are almost always written in hiragana as o- (お〜) or go- (ご〜), the 御 kanji represents both o and go in formal writing.)

Respectful forms of nouns

meaning	plain	respectful
meal	meshi (飯)	go-han (ご飯)
money	kane (金)	o-kane (お金)
body	karada (体)	o-karada (お体)onmi (御身)
word(s)	kotoba (言葉)	o-kotoba (お言葉)mikotonori (詔)

Lacking number, Japanese does not differentiate between count and mass nouns. A small number of nouns have collectives formed by reduplication (possibly accompanied by voicing and related processes (rendaku)); for example: hito (人, ‘person’) and hitobito (人々, ‘people’). Reduplication is not productive. Words in Japanese referring to more than one of something are collectives, not plurals. Hitobito, for example, means «a lot of people» or «people in general»; it is never used to mean «two people». A phrase like edo no hitobito would be taken to mean «the people of Edo», or «the population of Edo», not «two people from Edo» or even «a few people from Edo». Similarly, yamayama means «many mountains».

A limited number of nouns have collective forms that refer to groups of people. Examples include watashi-tachi (私たち, ‘we’); anata-tachi (あなたたち, ‘you’ [plural]); bokura (僕ら, ‘we’ (less formal, more masculine)). One uncommon personal noun, ware (我, ‘I’, or in some cases, ‘you’), has a much more common reduplicative collective form: wareware (我々, ‘we’).

The suffixes -tachi (達) and -ra (等) are by far the most common collectivizing suffixes. These are, again, not pluralizing suffixes: tarō-tachi does not mean «some number of people named Taro», but instead indicates the group including Taro. Depending on context, tarō-tachi might be translated into «Taro and his friends», «Taro and his siblings», «Taro and his family», or any other logical grouping that has Taro as the representative. Some words with collectives have become fixed phrases and (commonly) refer to one person. Specifically, kodomo (子供, ‘child’) and tomodachi (友達, ‘friend’) can be singular, even though -[t]omo and -[t]achi were originally collectivizing in these words; to unambiguously refer to groups of them, an additional collectivizing suffix is added: kodomo-tachi (子供たち, ‘children’) and tomodachi-tachi (友達たち, ‘friends’), though tomodachi-tachi is somewhat uncommon. Tachi is sometimes applied to inanimate objects, kuruma (車, ‘car’) and kuruma-tachi (車たち, ‘cars’), for example, but this usage is colloquial and indicates a high level of anthropomorphisation and childlikeness, and is not more generally accepted as standard.

Grammatical case[edit]

Grammatical cases in Japanese are marked by particles placed after the nouns.^[10] A distinctive feature of Japanese is the presence of two cases which are roughly equivalent to the nominative case in other languages: one representing the sentence topic, other representing the subject. The most important case markers are the following:

• Nominative – ga (が) for subject, wa (は) for the topic
• Genitive – no (の)
• Dative – ni (に)
• Accusative – o (を)
• Lative – e (へ), used for destination direction (like in «to some place»)
• Ablative – kara (から), used for source direction (like in «from some place»)
• Instrumental/Locative– de (で)

Pronouns[edit]

Common pronouns

person	very informal	plain, informal	polite
first	ore (俺, male)atashi (あたし, female)	boku (僕, male)watashi (私, gender neutral)	watashi (私)watakushi (私)
second	anta (あんた)omae (お前)	kimi (君)anata (あなた)	anata (貴方)sochira (そちら)
third	aitsu (あいつ, pejorative)	kare (彼, referring to males)kanojo (彼女, referring to females)ano hito (あの人)	あの方 (ano kata)

Although many grammars and textbooks mention pronouns (代名詞, daimeishi), Japanese lacks true pronouns. (Daimeishi can be considered a subset of nouns.) Strictly speaking, linguistic pronouns do not take modifiers^{[citation needed]}, but Japanese daimeishi do. For example, se no takai kare (背の高い彼, lit. «tall he») is valid in Japanese. Also, unlike true pronouns, Japanese daimeishi are not closed-class; new daimeishi are introduced and old ones go out of use relatively quickly.

A large number of daimeishi referring to people are translated as pronouns in their most common uses. Examples: kare (彼, he); kanojo (彼女, she); watashi (私, I); see also the adjoining table or a longer list.^[11] Some of these «personal nouns» such as onore (己, I (exceedingly humble)), or boku (僕, I (young male)), also have second-person uses: onore (おのれ) in second-person is an extremely rude «you», and boku in second-person is a diminutive «you» used for young boys. Kare and kanojo also mean «boyfriend» and «girlfriend» respectively, and this usage of the words is possibly more common than the use as pronouns.

Like other subjects, personal daimeishi are seldom used and are de-emphasized in Japanese. This is partly because Japanese sentences do not always require explicit subjects, and partly because names or titles are often used where pronouns would appear in a translation:

The possible referents of daimeishi are sometimes constrained depending on the order of occurrence. The following pair of examples from Bart Mathias^[12] illustrates one such constraint.

Reflexive pronouns[edit]

English has a reflexive form of each personal pronoun (himself, herself, itself, themselves, etc.); Japanese, in contrast, has one main reflexive daimeishi, namely jibun (自分), which can also mean ‘I’. The uses of the reflexive (pro)nouns in the two languages are very different, as demonstrated by the following literal translations (*=impossible, ??=ambiguous):

example	reason
＊ * 歴史 Rekishi は wa 自分 jibun を o 繰り返す。 kurikaesu. History repeats itself.	the target of jibun must be animate
ひろし Hiroshi は wa 健司 Kenji に ni 自分 jibun の no こと koto を o 話した。 hanashita. Hiroshi talked to Kenji about himself (=Hiroshi).	there is no ambiguity in this translation, as explained below
？？ ?? 誠 Makoto は wa 静子 Shizuko が ga 自分 jibun を o 大事 daiji に ni する suru こと koto を o 期待 kitai して shite いる。 iru. *Makoto expects that Shizuko will take good care of himself (=Makoto; note that Shizuko is female). Either «Makoto expects that Shizuko will take good care of him», or «Makoto expects that Shizuko will take good care of herself.»	jibun can be in a different sentence or dependent clause, but its target is ambiguous

If the sentence has more than one grammatical or semantic subject, then the target of jibun is the subject of the primary or most prominent action; thus in the following sentence jibun refers unambiguously to Shizuko (even though Makoto is the grammatical subject) because the primary action is Shizuko’s reading.^{[verification needed]}

In practice the main action is not always discernible, in which case such sentences are ambiguous. The use of jibun in complex sentences follows non-trivial rules.

There are also equivalents to jibun such as mizukara. Other uses of the reflexive pronoun in English are covered by adverbs like hitorideni which is used in the sense of «by oneself». For example,

Change in a verb’s valency is not accomplished by use of reflexive pronouns (in this Japanese is like English but unlike many other European languages). Instead, separate (but usually related) intransitive verbs and transitive verbs are used. There is no longer any productive morphology to derive transitive verbs from intransitive ones, or vice versa.^{[clarification needed]}

Demonstratives[edit]

Demonstratives occur in the ko-, so-, and a- series. The ko- (proximal) series refers to things closer to the speaker than the hearer, the so- (medial) series for things closer to the hearer, and the a- (distal) series for things distant to both the speaker and the hearer. With do-, demonstratives turn into the corresponding interrogative form. Demonstratives can also be used to refer to people, for example

Demonstratives limit, and therefore precede, nouns; thus kono hon (この本) for «this/my book», and sono hon (その本) for «that/your book».

When demonstratives are used to refer to things not visible to the speaker or the hearer, or to (abstract) concepts, they fulfill a related but different anaphoric role. The anaphoric distals are used for shared information between the speaker and the listener.

Soko instead of asoko would imply that B does not share this knowledge about Sapporo, which is inconsistent with the meaning of the sentence. The anaphoric medials are used to refer to experience or knowledge that is not shared between the speaker and listener.

Again, ano is inappropriate here because Sato does not (did not) know Tanaka personally. The proximal demonstratives do not have clear anaphoric uses. They can be used in situations where the distal series sound too disconnected:

Conjugable words[edit]

Stem forms[edit]

Conjugative suffixes and auxiliary verbs are attached to the stem forms of the affixee. In modern Japanese, there are six stem forms, ordered following from the -a, -i, -u, -e, -o endings that these forms have in 5-row (五段) verbs (according to the あ、い、う、え、お collation order of Japanese), where terminal and attributive forms are the same for verbs (hence only 5 surface forms), but differ for nominals, notably na-nominals.

Irrealis form (未然形, mizenkei) -a (and -ō)

is used for plain negative (of verbs), causative and passive constructions. The most common use of this form is with the -nai auxiliary that turns verbs into their negative (predicate) form. (See Verbs below.) The -ō version is used for volitional expression and formed by a euphonic change (音便, onbin).

Continuative form (連用形, ren’yōkei) -i

is used in a linking role (a kind of serial verb construction). This is the most productive stem form, taking on a variety of endings and auxiliaries, and can even occur independently in a sense similar to the -te ending. This form is also used to negate adjectives.

Terminal form (終止形, shūshikei) -u

is used at the ends of clauses in predicate positions. This form is also variously known as plain form (基本形, kihonkei) or dictionary form (辞書形, jishokei) – it is the form that verbs are listed under in a dictionary.

Attributive form (連体形, rentaikei) -u

is prefixed to nominals and is used to define or classify the noun, similar to a relative clause in English. In modern Japanese it is practically identical to the terminal form, except that verbs are generally not inflected for politeness; in old Japanese these forms differed. Further, na-nominals behave differently in terminal and attributive positions; see Adjectival verbs and nouns, below.

Hypothetical form (仮定形, kateikei) -e

is used for conditional and subjunctive forms, using the -ba ending.

Imperative form (命令形, meireikei) -e

is used to turn verbs into commands. Adjectives do not have an imperative stem form.

The application of conjugative suffixes to stem forms follow certain euphonic principles (音便, onbin).

Verbs[edit]

Verbs (動詞, dōshi) in Japanese are rigidly constrained to the end of a clause. This means that the predicate position is always located at the end of a sentence.

The subject and objects of the verb are indicated by means of particles, and the grammatical functions of the verb (primarily tense and voice) are indicated by means of conjugation. When the subject and the dissertative topic coincide, the subject is often omitted; if the verb is intransitive, the entire sentence may consist of a single verb. Verbs have two tenses indicated by conjugation, past and non-past. The semantic difference between present and future is not indicated by means of conjugation. Usually there is no ambiguity as context makes it clear whether the speaker is referring to the present or future. Voice and aspect are also indicated by means of conjugation, and possibly agglutinating auxiliary verbs. For example, the continuative aspect is formed by means of the continuative conjugation known as the gerundive or -te form, and the auxiliary verb iru («to be»); to illustrate, miru (見る, «to see») → mite iru (見ている, «to be seeing»).

Verbs can be semantically classified based on certain conjugations.

Stative verbs

indicate existential properties, such as «to be» (いる, iru), «to be able to do» (出来る, dekiru), «to need» (要る, iru), etc. These verbs generally do not have a continuative conjugation with -iru because they are semantically continuative already.

Continual verbs

conjugate with the auxiliary -iru to indicate the progressive aspect. Examples: «to eat» (食べる, taberu), «to drink» (飲む, nomu), «to think» (考える, kangaeru). To illustrate the conjugation, taberu (食べる, «to eat») → tabete iru (食べている, «to be eating»).

Punctual verbs

conjugate with -iru to indicate a repeated action, or a continuing state after some action. Example: shiru (知る, «to know») → shitte iru (知っている, «to be knowing»); utsu (打つ, «to hit») → utte iru (打っている, «to be hitting (repeatedly)»).

Non-volitional verb

indicate uncontrollable action or emotion. These verbs generally have no volitional, imperative or potential conjugation. Examples: konomu (好む, «to like / to prefer» [emotive]), mieru (見える, «to be visible» [non-emotive]).

Movement verbs

indicate motion. Examples: aruku (歩く, «to walk»), kaeru (帰る, «to return»). In the continuative form (see below) they take the particle ni to indicate a purpose.

There are other possible classes, and a large amount of overlap between the classes.

Lexically, nearly every verb in Japanese is a member of exactly one of the following three regular conjugation groups (see also Japanese godan and ichidan verbs).

Group 2a (上一段, kami ichidan, lit. upper 1-row)

verbs with a stem ending in -i. The terminal stem form always rhymes with -iru. Examples: miru (見る, «to see»), kiru (着る, «to wear»).

Group 2b (下一段, shimo ichidan, lit. lower 1-row)

verbs with a stem ending in -e. The terminal stem form always rhymes with -eru. Examples: taberu (食べる, «to eat»), kureru (くれる, «to give» (to someone of lower or more intimate status)). (Some Group 1 verbs resemble Group 2b verbs, but their stems end in r-, not -e.)

Group 1 (五段, godan, lit. 5-row)

verbs with a stem ending in a consonant. When this is r- and the verb ends in -eru, it is not apparent from the terminal form whether the verb is Group 1 or Group 2b, e.g. kaeru (帰る, «to return»). If the stem ends in w-, that consonant sound only appears in before the final -a of the irrealis form.

The «row» in the above classification means a row in the gojūon table. «Upper 1-row» means the row that is one row above the center row (the u-row) i.e. i-row. «Lower 1-row» means the row that is one row below the center row (the u-row) i.e. e-row. «5-row» means the conjugation runs through all 5 rows of the gojūon table. A conjugation is fully described by identifying both the row and the column in the gojūon table. For example, miru (見る, «to see») belongs to ma-column i-row conjugation (マ行上一段活用), taberu (食べる, «to eat») belongs to ba-column e-row conjugation (バ行下一段活用), and kaeru (帰る, «to return») belongs to ra-column 5-row conjugation (ラ行五段活用).

One should avoid confusing verbs in ra-column 5-row conjugation (ラ行五段活用) with verbs in i-row conjugation (上一段活用) or e-row conjugation (下一段活用). For example, kiru (切る, «to cut») belongs to ra-column 5-row conjugation (ラ行五段活用), whereas its homophone kiru (着る, «to wear») belongs to ka-column i-row conjugation (カ行上一段活用). Likewise, neru (練る, «to knead») belongs to ra-column 5-row conjugation (ラ行五段活用), whereas its homophone neru (寝る, «to sleep») belongs to na-column e-row conjugation (ナ行下一段活用).

Historically, Classical Japanese had upper and lower 1-row groups (上・下一段, kami/shimo ichidan), upper and lower 2-row groups (上・下二段, kami/shimo nidan) and a 4-row group (四段, yodan). The nidan verbs became most of the ichidan verbs in modern Japanese (only a handful of kami ichidan verbs and a single shimo ichidan verb existed in classical Japanese). The yodan group was reclassified as the godan group during the post-WWII writing reform in 1946, to write Japanese as it is pronounced. Since verbs have migrated across groups in the history of the language, the conjugation of classical verbs cannot be ascertained from knowledge of modern Japanese alone.

Of the irregular classes, there are two:

sa-group

which has only one member, suru (する, «to do»). In Japanese grammars these words are classified as sa-hen (サ変), an abbreviation of sa-gyō henkaku katsuyō (サ行変格活用), sa-row irregular conjugation).

ka-group

which also has one member, kuru (来る, «to come»). The Japanese name for this class is ka-gyō henkaku katsuyō (カ行変格活用) or simply ka-hen (カ変).

Classical Japanese had two further irregular classes, the na-group, which contained shinu (死ぬ, «to die») and inu (往ぬ, «to go»/»to die»), the ra-group, which included such verbs as ari (あり), the equivalent of modern aru, as well as quite a number of extremely irregular verbs that cannot be classified.

The following table illustrates the stem forms of the above conjugation groups, with the root indicated with dots. For example, to find the hypothetical form of the group 1 verb kaku (書く), look in the second row to find its root, kak-, then in the hypothetical row to get the ending -e, giving the stem form kake. When there are multiple possibilities, they are listed in the order of increasing rarity.

Group	1	2a	2b	sa	ka
Example	tsuka(w). (使・)	kak. (書・)	mi. (見・)	tabe. (食べ・)
Irrealis form1 (未然形, mizenkei)	tsukaw.a (使わ)2tsuka.o (使お)	kak.a (書か)kak.o (書こ)	mi. (見)	tabe. (食べ)	sa (さ)shi (し)se (せ)	ko (来)
Continuative form (連用形, ren’yōkei)	tsuka.i (使い)	kak.i (書き)	mi. (見)	tabe. (食べ)	shi (し)	ki (来)
Terminal form (終止形, shūshikei)	tsuka.u (使う)	kak.u (書く)	mi.ru (見る)	tabe.ru (食べる)	suru (する)	kuru (来る)
Attributive form	Same as terminal form
Hypothetical form (仮定形, kateikei)	tsuka.e (使え)	kak.e (書け)	mi.re (見れ)	tabe.re (食べれ)	sure (すれ)	kure (来れ)
Imperative form (命令形, meireikei)	tsuka.e (使え)	kak.e (書け)	mi.ro (見ろ)mi.yo (見よ)	tabe.ro (食べろ)tabe.yo (食べよ)	shiro (しろ)seyo (せよ)sei (せい)	koi (来い)

1. The -a and -o irrealis forms for Group 1 verbs were historically one, but since the post-WWII spelling reforms they have been written differently. In modern Japanese the -o form is used only for the volitional mood and the -a form is used in all other cases; see also the conjugation table below.
2. The unexpected ending is due to the verb’s root being tsukaw- but w- only being pronounced before -a in modern Japanese.

The above are only the stem forms of the verbs; to these one must add various verb endings in order to get the fully conjugated verb. The following table lists the most common conjugations. Note that in some cases the form is different depending on the conjugation group of the verb. See Japanese verb conjugations for a full list.

	formation rule	group 1	group 2a	group 2b	sa-group	ka-group
kaku (書く)	miru (見る)	taberu (食べる)	suru (する)	kuru (来る)
politeimperfective	cont. + masu (ます)	kaki.masu (書き・ます)	mi.masu (見・ます)	tabe.masu (食べ・ます)	shi.masu (し・ます)	ki.masu (来・ます)
plainperfective	cont. + ta (た)	kai.ta (書い・た)2	mi.ta (見・た)	tabe.ta (食べ・た)	shi.ta (し・た)	ki.ta (来・た)
plainnegativeimperfective	irrealis + nai (ない)	kaka.nai (書か・ない)	mi.nai (見・ない)	tabe.nai (食べ・ない)	shi.nai (し・ない)	ko.nai (来・ない)
plainnegativeperfective	irrealis + nakatta (なかった)	kaka.nakatta (書か・なかった)	mi.nakatta (見・なかった)	tabe.nakatta (食べ・なかった)	shi.nakatta (し・なかった)	ko.nakatta (来・なかった)
-te form (gerundive)	cont. + -te (て)	kai.te (書いて)2	mi.te (見て)	tabe.te (食べて)	shi.te (して)	ki.te (来て)
provisionalconditional	hyp. + ba (ば)	kake.ba (書け・ば)	mire.ba (見れ・ば)	tabere.ba (食べれ・ば)	sure.ba (すれ・ば)	kure.ba (来れ・ば)
pastconditional	cont. + tara (たら)	kai.tara (書いたら)2	mi.tara (見たら)	tabe.tara (食べたら)	shi.tara (したら)	ki.tara (来たら)
volitional	irrealis + u (う)	kako.u (書こ・う)
irrealis + yō (よう)		mi.yō (見・よう)	tabe.yō (食べ・よう)	shi.yō (し・よう)	ko.yō (来・よう)
passive	irrealis + reru (れる)	kaka.reru (書か・れる)		sa.reru (さ・れる)
irrealis + rareru (られる)		mi.rareru (見・られる)	tabe.rareru (食べ・られる)		ko.rareru (来・られる)
causative	irrealis + seru (せる)	kaka.seru (書か・せる)		sa.seru (さ・せる)
irrealis + saseru (させる)		mi.saseru (見・させる)	tabe.saseru (食べ・させる)		ko.saseru (来・させる)
potential	hyp. + ru (る)	kake.ru (書け・る)		dekiru (出来る)1
irrealis + rareru (られる)		mi.rareru (見・られる)	tabe.rareru (食べ・られる)		ko.rareru (来・られる)

1. This is an entirely different verb; suru (する) has no potential form.
2. These forms change depending on the final syllable of the verb’s dictionary form (whether u, ku, gu, su, etc.). For details, see [[#Euphonic changes (音便 onbin)|Euphonic changes]], below, and the article Japanese verb conjugation.

The polite ending -masu conjugates as a group 1 verb, except that the negative imperfective and perfective forms are -masen and -masen deshita respectively, and certain conjugations are in practice rarely if ever used. The passive and potential endings -reru and -rareru, and the causative endings -seru and -saseru all conjugate as group 2b verbs. Multiple verbal endings can therefore agglutinate. For example, a common formation is the causative-passive ending: -sase-rareru.

As should be expected, the vast majority of theoretically possible combinations of conjugative endings are not semantically meaningful.

Transitive and intransitive verbs[edit]

Japanese has a large variety of related pairs of transitive verbs (that take a direct object) and intransitive verbs (that do not usually take a direct object), such as the transitive hajimeru (始める, someone or something begins an activity), and the intransitive hajimaru (始まる, an activity begins).^[13][14]

transitive verb	intransitive verb
One thing acts out the transitive verb on another Usually uses o (を) to link to the direct object	The intransitive verb passively happens without direct intervention. Usually uses ga (が) or wa (は) to link subject and verb.
先生 Sensei が ga 授業 jugyō を o 始める。 hajimeru. The teacher starts the class.	授業 Jugyō が ga 始まる。 hajimaru. The class starts.
車 Kuruma に ni 何 nani か ka を o 入れる ireru To put something in the car	車 Kuruma に ni 入る hairu To enter the car
dasu (出す, ‘to take/put out’)	deru (出る, ‘to exit’)
kesu (消す, ‘to extinguish’)	kieru (消える, ‘to go out’)
akeru (開ける, ‘to open [something]’)	aku (開く, ‘to open’/’to be open’)
tsukeru (付ける, ‘to attach [something]’)	tsuku (付く, ‘to attach’/’to be attached’)
shimeru (閉める, ‘to close [something]’)	shimaru (閉まる, ‘to close’/’to be closed’)
mitsukeru (見つける, ‘to find’)	mitsukaru (見つかる, ‘to be found’)
nuku (抜く, ‘to extract’)	nukeru (抜ける, ‘to come out’)
okosu (起こす, ‘to wake [someone] up’)	okiru (起きる, ‘to wake up’)
umu (生む, ‘to give birth’)	umareru (生まれる, ‘to be born’)

Note: Some intransitive verbs (usually verbs of motion) take what looks like a direct object, but is not.^[15] For example, hanareru (離れる, to leave):

Adjectival verbs and nouns[edit]

Semantically speaking, words that denote attributes or properties are primarily distributed between two morphological classes (there are also a few other classes):

• adjectival verbs (形容詞, keiyōshi, conventionally called «i-adjectives»)– these have roots and conjugating stem forms, and are semantically and morphologically similar to stative verbs.
• adjectival nouns (形容動詞, keiyōdōshi, lit. «adjectival verb», conventionally called «na-adjectives»)– these are nouns that combine with the copula.

Unlike adjectives in languages like English, i-adjectives in Japanese inflect for aspect and mood, like verbs. Japanese adjectives do not have comparative or superlative inflections; comparatives and superlatives have to be marked periphrastically using adverbs like motto (‘more’) and ichiban (‘most’).

Every adjective in Japanese can be used in an attributive position, and nearly every Japanese adjective can be used in a predicative position. There are a few Japanese adjectives that cannot predicate, known as rentaishi (連体詞, attributives), which are derived from other word classes; examples include ōkina (大きな, «big»), chiisana (小さな, «small»), and okashina (おかしな, «strange») which are all stylistic na-type variants of normal i-type adjectives.

All i-adjectives except for ii (いい, good) have regular conjugations, and ii is irregular only in the fact that it is a changed form of the regular adjective yoi (良い) permissible in the terminal and attributive forms. For all other forms it reverts to yoi.

Stem forms for adjectives

	i-adjectives	na-adjectives
yasu. (安・い)	shizuka- (静か-)
Irrealis form (未然形, mizenkei)	.karo (安かろ)	-daro (静かだろ)
Continuative form (連用形, ren’yōkei)	.ku (安く)	-de (静かで)
Terminal form¹ (終止形, shūshikei)	.i (安い)	-da (静かだ)
Attributive form¹ (連体形, rentaikei)	.i (安い)	-na (静かな)/-naru (静かなる)
Hypothetical form (仮定形, kateikei)	.kere (安けれ)	-nara (静かなら)
Imperative form² (命令形, meireikei)	.kare (安かれ)	-nare (静かなれ)

1. The attributive and terminal forms were formerly .ki (安き) and .shi (安し), respectively; in modern Japanese these are used productively for stylistic reasons only, although many set phrases such as nanashi (名無し, anonymous) and yoshi (よし, [general positive interjection], sometimes written yosh), derive from them.
2. The imperative form is extremely rare in modern Japanese, restricted to set patterns like osokare hayakare (遅かれ早かれ, ‘sooner or later’), where they are treated as adverbial phrases. It is impossible for an imperative form to be in a predicate position.

Common conjugations of adjectives are enumerated below. ii is not treated separately, because all conjugation forms are identical to those of yoi.

	i-adjectivesyasui (安い, «cheap»)	na-adjectivesshizuka (静か, «quiet»)
informal nonpast	root + -i(Used alone, without the copula)	yasui (安い, «is cheap»)	root + copula da	shizuka da (静かだ, «is quiet»)
informal past	cont. + atta (あった)(u + a collapse)	yasuk.atta (安かった, «was cheap»)	cont. + atta (あった)(e + a collapse)	shizuka d.atta (静かだった, «was quiet»)
informal negative nonpast	cont. + (wa) nai ((は)ない)¹	yasuku(wa)nai (安く(は)ない, «isn’t cheap»)	cont. + (wa) nai ((は)ない)	shizuka de (wa) nai (静かで(は)ない, «isn’t quiet»)
informal negative past	cont. + (wa) nakatta ((は)なかった)¹	yasuku(wa)nakatta (安く(は)なかった, «wasn’t cheap»)	cont. + (wa) nakatta ((は)なかった)	shizuka de (wa) nakatta (静かで(は)なかった, «wasn’t quiet»)
polite nonpast	root + -i + copula desu (です)	yasui desu (安いです, «is cheap»)	root + copula desu (です)	shizuka desu (静かです, «is quiet»)
polite negative nonpast	arimasen (ありません)¹	yasuku arimasen (安くありません)	inf. cont + (wa) arimasen ((は)ありません)	shizuka de wa arimasen (静かではありません)
inf. neg. non-past + copula desu (です)¹	yasukunai desu (安くないです)	inf. cont + (wa) nai desu ((は)ないです)	shizuka de wa nai desu (静かではないです)
polite negative past	inf. cont + arimasen　deshita (ありませんでした)	yasuku arimasen deshita (安くありませんでした)	inf. cont + (wa) arimasen deshita ((は)ありませんでした)	shizuka de wa arimasen deshita (静かではありませんでした)
inf. neg. past + copula desu (です)¹	yasukunakatta desu (安くなかったです)	inf. neg. past + nakatta desu (なかったです)¹	shizuka de wa nakatta desu (静かではなかったです)
-te form	cont. + te (て)	yasuku.te (安くて)	cont.	shizuka de (静かで)
provisional conditional	hyp. + ba (ば)	yasukere.ba (安ければ)	hyp. (+ ba (ば))	shizuka nara(ba) (静かなら(ば))
past conditional	inf. past + ra (ら)	yasukatta.ra (安かったら)	inf. past + ra (ら)	shizuka datta.ra (静かだったら)
volitional²	irrealis + u (う) /root + darō (だろう)	yasukarō (安かろう) / yasuidarō (安いだろう)	irrealis + u (う)= root + darō (だろう)	shizuka darō (静かだろう)
adverbial	cont.	yasuku. (安く)	root + ni (に)	shizuka ni (静かに)
degree (-ness)	root + sa (さ)	yasu-sa (安さ)	root + sa (さ)	shizuka-sa (静かさ)

1. Note that these are just forms of the i-type adjective nai (ない)
2. Since most adjectives describe non-volitional conditions, the volitional form is interpreted as «it is possible», if sensible. In some rare cases it is semi-volitional: yokarō (良かろう, ‘OK’, lit: «let it be good») in response to a report or request.

Adjectives too are governed by euphonic rules in certain cases, as noted in the section on it below. For the polite negatives of na-type adjectives, see also the section below on the copula da (だ).

Copula (だ da)[edit]

The copula da behaves very much like a verb or an adjective in terms of conjugation.

Stem forms of the copula

Irrealis form (未然形, mizenkei)	de wa (では)
Continuative form (連用形, ren’yōkei)	de (で)
Terminal form (終止形, shūshikei)	da (だ, informal)desu (です, polite)de gozaimasu (でございます, respectful)
Attributive form (連体形, rentaikei)	de aru (である)
Hypothetical form (仮定形, kateikei)	nara (なら)
Imperative form (命令形, meireikei)	impossible

Note that there are no potential, causative, or passive forms of the copula, just as with adjectives.

The following are some examples.

ジョンは学生だ。

JON wa gakusei da

«John is a student.»

明日も晴れなら、ピクニックしよう。

Ashita mo hare nara, PIKUNIKKU shiyō

«If tomorrow is clear too, let’s have a picnic.»

In continuative conjugations, de wa (では) is often contracted in speech to ja (じゃ); for some kinds of informal speech ja is preferable to de wa, or is the only possibility.

Conjugations of the copula

nonpast	informal	da (だ)
polite	desu (です)
respectful	de gozaimasu (でございます)
past	informal	cont. + atta (あった)datta (だった)
polite	deshita (でした)
respectful	de gozaimashita (でございました)
negative nonpast	informal	cont. + wa nai (はない)	ja nai (じゃない)
polite	cont. + wa arimasen (はありません)	(じゃありません, ja arimasen)
respectful	cont. + wa gozaimasen (はございません)	(じゃございません, ja gozaimasen)
negative past	informal	cont. + wa nakatta (はなかった)	ja nakatta (じゃなかった)
polite	cont. + wa arimasen deshita (はありませんでした)	ja arimasen deshita (じゃありませんでした)
respectful	cont. + wa gozaimasen deshita (はございませんでした)	ja gozaimasen deshita (じゃございませんでした)
conditional	informal	hyp. + ba (ば)
polite	cont. + areba (あれば)
respectful
provisional	informal	nara (なら)
polite	same as conditional
respectful
volitional	informal	darō (だろう)
polite	deshō (でしょう)
respectful	de gozaimashō (でございましょう)
adverbial and -te forms	informal	cont.
polite	cont. + arimashite (ありまして)
respectful	cont. + gozaimashite (ございまして)

Euphonic changes (音便, onbin)[edit]

Historical sound change[edit]

Modern pronunciation is a result of a long history of phonemic drift that can be traced back to written records of the 13th century, and possibly earlier. However, it was only in 1946 that the Japanese ministry of education modified existing kana usage to conform to the standard dialect (共通語, kyōtsūgo). All earlier texts used the archaic orthography, now referred to as historical kana usage. The adjoining table is a nearly exhaustive list of these spelling changes.

Note that the palatalized morae ゆ and よ (yu and yo) combine with the initial consonant (if present) yielding a palatalized syllable. The most basic example of this is modern kyō (今日（きょう）, today), which historically developed as kefu (けふ) → kyō (きょう), via the efu (えふ) → yō (よう) rule.

A few sound changes are not reflected in the spelling. Firstly, ou merged with oo, both being pronounced as a long ō. Secondly, the particles は and を are still written using historical kana usage, though these are pronounced as wa and o respectively, rather than ha and wo.

Among Japanese speakers, it is not generally understood that the historical kana spellings were, at one point, reflective of pronunciation.^{[citation needed]} For example, the modern on’yomi reading yō (よう) (for leaf (葉, yō)) arose from the historical efu (えふ). The latter was pronounced something like [ʲepu] by the Japanese at the time it was borrowed (compare Middle Chinese [jiɛp̚]). However, a modern reader of a classical text would still read this as [joː], the modern pronunciation.

Verb conjugations[edit]

Conjugations of some verbs and adjectives differ from the prescribed formation rules because of euphonic changes. Nearly all of these euphonic changes are themselves regular. For verbs the exceptions are all in the ending of the continuative form of group when the following auxiliary starts with a t-sound (i.e. ta (た), te (て), tari (たり), etc.).

Continuative ending	Changes to	Example
i (い), chi (ち) or ri (り)	っ (double consonant)	*kaite (＊買いて) → katte (買って)*uchite (＊打ちて) → utte (打って)*shirite (＊知りて) → shitte (知って)
bi (び), mi (み) or ni (に)	syllabic n (ん), with the following t (タ) sound voiced	*asobite (＊遊びて) → asonde (遊んで)*sumite (＊住みて) → sunde (住んで)*shinite (＊死にて) → shinde (死んで)
ki (き)	i (い)	*kakite (＊書きて) → kaite (書いて)
gi (ぎ)	i (い), with the following t (タ) sound voiced	*oyogite (＊泳ぎて) → oyoide (泳いで)

* denotes impossible/ungrammatical form.

There is one other irregular change: iku (行く, to go), for which there is an exceptional continuative form: iki (行き) + te (て) → itte (行って), iki (行き) + ta (た) → itta (行った), etc.

There are dialectical differences, which are also regular and generally occur in similar situations. For example, in Kansai dialect the -i + t- conjugations are instead changed to -ut-, as in omōta (思うた) instead of omotta (思った), as perfective of omou (思う, think). In this example, this can combine with the preceding vowel via historical sound changes, as in shimōta (しもうた) (au → ō) instead of standard shimatta (しまった).

Polite forms of adjectives[edit]

The continuative form of proper adjectives, when followed by polite forms such as gozaru (ござる/御座る, be) or zonjiru (存じる, know, think), undergoes a transformation; this may be followed by historical sound changes, yielding a one-step or two-step sound change. Note that these verbs are almost invariably conjugated to polite -masu (〜ます) form, as gozaimasu (ございます) and zonjimasu (存じます) (note the irregular conjugation of gozaru, discussed below), and that these verbs are preceded by the continuative form – -ku (〜く) – of adjectives, rather than the terminal form – -i (〜い) – which is used before the more everyday desu (です, be).

The rule is -ku (〜く) → -u (〜う) (dropping the -k-), possibly also combining with the previous syllable according to the spelling reform chart, which may also undergo palatalization in the case of yu, yo (ゆ、よ).

Historically there were two classes of proper Old Japanese adjectives, -ku (〜く) and -shiku (〜しく) («-ku adjective» means «not preceded by shi«). This distinction collapsed during the evolution of Late Middle Japanese adjectives, and both are now considered -i (〜い) adjectives. The sound change for -shii adjectives follows the same rule as for other -ii adjectives, notably that the preceding vowel also changes and the preceding mora undergoes palatalization, yielding -shiku (〜しく) → -shū (〜しゅう), though historically this was considered a separate but parallel rule.

Continuative ending	Changes to	Example
-aku (〜あく)	-ō (〜おう)	*ohayaku gozaimasu (＊おはやくございます) →ohayō gozaimasu (おはようございます)
-iku (〜いく)	-yū (〜ゆう)	*ōkiku gozaimasu (＊大きくございます) →ōkyū gozaimasu (大きゅうございます)
-uku (〜うく)	-ū (〜うう)	*samuku gozaimasu (＊寒くございます) →samū gozaimasu (寒うございます)
*-eku (＊〜えく)	*-yō (＊〜よう)	(not present)
-oku (〜おく)	-ō (〜おう)	*omoshiroku gozaimasu (＊面白くございます) →omoshirō gozaimasu (面白うございます)
-shiku (〜しく)	-shū (〜しゅう)	*suzushiku gozaimasu (＊涼しくございます) →suzushū gozaimasu (涼しゅうございます)

Respectful verbs[edit]

Respectful verbs such as kudasaru (くださる, ‘to get’), nasaru (なさる, ‘to do’), gozaru (ござる, ‘to be’), irassharu (いらっしゃる, ‘to be/come/go’), ossharu (おっしゃる, ‘to say’), etc. behave like group 1 verbs, except in the continuative and imperative forms.

	Change	Example
continuative	-り changed to -い	*gozarimasu (＊ござります) → gozaimasu (ございます)*irassharimase (＊いらっしゃりませ) → irasshaimase (いらっしゃいませ)
imperative	-れ changed to -い	*kudasare (＊くだされ) → kudasai (ください)*nasare (＊なされ) → nasai (なさい)

Colloquial contractions[edit]

In speech, common combinations of conjugation and auxiliary verbs are contracted in a fairly regular manner.

Colloquial contractions

Full form	Colloquial	Example
-te shimau (〜てしまう)	-chau/-chimau (〜ちゃう/-ちまう)group 1	負けて makete しまう shimau → 負けちゃう makechau / / 負けちまう makechimau ‘lose’
-de shimau (〜でしまう)	-jau/-jimau (〜じゃう/〜じまう)group 1	死んで shinde しまう shimau → 死んじゃう shinjau / / 死んじまう shinjimau ‘die’
-te wa (〜ては)	-cha (〜ちゃ)	食べて tabete は wa いけない ikenai → 食べちゃ tabecha いけない ikenai ‘must not eat’
-de wa (〜では)	-ja (〜じゃ)	飲んで nonde は wa いけない ikenai → 飲んじゃ nonja いけない ikenai ‘must not drink’
-te iru (〜ている)	-teru (〜てる)group 2b	寝て nete いる iru → 寝てる neteru ‘is sleeping’
-te oku (〜ておく)	-toku (〜とく)group 1	して shite おく oku → しとく shitoku ‘will do it so’
-te iku (〜て行く)	-teku (〜てく)group 1	出て dete 行け ike → 出てけ deteke ‘get out!’
-te ageru (〜てあげる)	-tageru (〜たげる)group 2a	買って katte あげる ageru → 買ったげる kattageru ‘buy something (for someone)’
-ru no (〜るの)	-nno (〜んの)	何 nani して shite いる iru の no → 何 nani してんの shitenno ‘what are you doing?’
-rinasai (〜りなさい)	-nnasai (〜んなさい)	やりなさい yarinasai → やんなさい yannasai ‘do it!’
-runa (〜るな)	-nna (〜んな)	やるな yaruna → やんな yanna ‘don’t do it!’
-re wa or -reba (〜れは or 〜れば)	-rya (〜りゃ)	どう dou すれば sureba いい ii の no だろう darou → どう dou すりゃ(あ） surya いいん iin だろう darou ‘what should I do?’

There are occasional others, such as -aranai → -annai as in wakaranai (分からない, don’t understand) → wakannai (分かんない) and tsumaranai (つまらない, boring) → tsumannai (つまんない) – these are considered quite casual and are more common among the younger generation.^{[citation needed]}

Contractions differ by dialect, but behave similarly to the standard ones given above. For example, in the Kansai dialect, -te shimau (〜てしまう) → -temau (〜てまう).

Other independent words[edit]

Adverbs[edit]

Adverbs in Japanese are not as tightly integrated into the morphology as in many other languages; adverbs are not an independent class of words, but the role of an adverb is played by other words. For example, every adjective in the continuative form can be used as an adverb; thus, yowai (弱い, ‘weak’ [adj]) → yowaku (弱く, ‘weakly’ [adv]). The primary distinguishing characteristic of adverbs is that they cannot occur in a predicate position, just as it is in English. The following classification of adverbs is not intended to be authoritative or exhaustive.

Verbal adverbs

verbs in the continuative form with the particle ni. E.g. miru (見る, ‘to see’) → mi ni (見に, ‘for the purpose of seeing’), used for instance as: mi ni iku (見に行く, ‘go to see (something)’).

Adjectival adverbs

adjectives in the continuative form, as mentioned above. Example: yowai (弱い, ‘weak’ [adj]) → yowaku (弱く, ‘weakly’ [adv])

Nominal adverbs

grammatical nouns that function as adverbs. Example: ichiban (一番, ‘most highly’).

Sound symbolism

words that mimic sounds or concepts. Examples: kirakira (きらきら, ‘sparklingly’), pokkuri (ぽっくり, ‘suddenly’), surusuru (するする, ‘smoothly’ (sliding)), etc.

Often, especially for sound symbolism, the particle to (と, ‘as if’) is used. See the article on Japanese sound symbolism.

Conjunctions and interjections[edit]

Although called «conjunctions», conjunctions in Japanese are – as their English translations show – actually a kind of adverb:

Examples of conjunctions: soshite (そして, ‘and then’), mata (また, ‘and then/again’), etc.

Interjections in Japanese differ little in use and translation from interjections in English:

Examples of interjections: hai (はい, yes/OK/uh), hē (へえ, wow!), iie (いいえ, no/no way), oi (おい, hey!), etc.

Ancillary words[edit]

Particles[edit]

Particles in Japanese are postpositional, as they immediately follow the modified component. Both the pronunciation and spelling differs for the particles wa (は), e (へ) and o (を), and are romanized according to pronunciation rather than spelling. Only a few prominent particles are listed here.

Topic, theme, and subject: は wa and が ga[edit]

The complex distinction between the so-called topic, wa (は), and subject, ga (が), particles has been the theme of many doctoral dissertations and scholarly disputes.^{[citation needed]} The clause zō-wa hana-ga nagai (象は鼻が長い) is well known for appearing to contain two subjects. It does not simply mean «the elephant’s nose is long», as that can be translated as zō-no hana-wa nagai (象の鼻は長い). Rather, a more literal translation would be «(speaking of) the elephant, its nose is long»; furthermore, as Japanese does not distinguish between singular and plural the way English does, it could also mean «as for elephants, their noses are long».

Two major scholarly surveys of Japanese linguistics in English, (Shibatani 1990) and (Kuno 1973), clarify the distinction. To simplify matters, the referents of wa and ga in this section are called the topic and subject respectively, with the understanding that if either is absent, the grammatical topic and subject may coincide.

As an abstract and rough approximation, the difference between wa and ga is a matter of focus: wa gives focus to the action of the sentence, i.e., to the verb or adjective, whereas ga gives focus to the subject of the action. However, when first being introduced to the topic and subject markers wa and ga, most are told that the difference between the two is simpler. The topic marker, wa, is used to declare or to make a statement. The subject marker, ga, is used for new information, or asking for new information.

Thematic wa[edit]

The use of wa to introduce a new theme of discourse is directly linked to the notion of grammatical theme. Opinions differ on the structure of discourse theme, though it seems fairly uncontroversial to imagine a first-in-first-out hierarchy of themes that is threaded through the discourse. However, the usage of this understanding of themes can be limiting when speaking of their scope and depth, and the introduction of later themes may cause earlier themes to expire.^{[further explanation needed]} In these sorts of sentences, the steadfast translation into English uses constructs like «speaking of X» or «on the topic of X», though such translations tend to be bulky as they fail to use the thematic mechanisms of English. For lack of a comprehensive strategy, many teachers of Japanese emphasize the «speaking of X» pattern without sufficient warning.

A common linguistic joke shows the insufficiency of rote translation with the sentence boku wa unagi da (僕はウナギだ), which per the pattern would translate as «I am an eel.» (or «(As of) me is eel»). Yet, in a restaurant this sentence can reasonably be used to say «My order is eel» (or «I would like to order an eel»), with no intended humour. This is because the sentence should be literally read, «As for me, it is an eel,» with «it» referring to the speaker’s order. The topic of the sentence is clearly not its subject.

Contrastive wa[edit]

Related to the role of wa in introducing themes is its use in contrasting the current topic and its aspects from other possible topics and their aspects. The suggestive pattern is «X, but…» or «as for X, …».

Because of its contrastive nature, the topic cannot be undefined.

In this use, ga is required.

In practice, the distinction between thematic and contrastive wa is not that useful. There can be at most one thematic wa in a sentence, and it has to be the first wa if one exists, and the remaining was are contrastive. The following sentence illustrates the difference;^[16]

The first interpretation is the thematic wa, treating «the people I know» (boku ga shitte iru hito) as the theme of the predicate «none came» (dare mo konakatta). That is, if the speaker knows A, B, …, Z, then none of the people who came were A, B, …, Z. The second interpretation is the contrastive wa. If the likely attendees were A, B, …, Z, and of them the speaker knows P, Q and R, then the sentence says that P, Q and R did not come. The sentence says nothing about A’, B’, …, Z’, all of whom the speaker knows, but none of whom were likely to come. In practice, the first interpretation is the likely one.

Exhaustive ga[edit]

Unlike wa, the subject particle ga nominates its referent as the sole satisfier of the predicate. This distinction is famously illustrated by the following pair of sentences:

The distinction between each example sentence may be made easier to understand if thought of in terms of the question each statement could answer. The first example sentence could answer the question:

Whereas the second example sentence could answer the question:

Similarly, in a restaurant, if asked by the waitstaff who has ordered the eels, the customer who ordered it could say:

Objective ga[edit]

For certain verbs, ga is typically used instead of o to mark what would be the direct object in English:

There are various common expressions that use verbs in English, often transitive verbs, where the action happens to a specific object: «to be able to do something», «to want something», «to like something», «to dislike something». These same ideas are expressed in Japanese using adjectives and intransitive verbs that describe a subject, instead of actions that happen to an object: «to be possible» (出来る, dekiru), «to be desired/desirable» (ほしい, hoshii), «to be liked» (好きだ, suki da), «to be disliked» (嫌いだ, kirai da). The equivalent of the English subject is instead the topic in Japanese and thus marked by wa, reflecting the topic-prominent nature of Japanese grammar.

Since these constructions in English describe an object, whereas the Japanese equivalents describe a subject marked with ga (が), some sources call this usage of ga (が) the «objective ga«. Strictly speaking, this label may be misleading, as there is no object in the Japanese constructions.

As an example, the Japanese verb wakaru (分かる) is often glossed as transitive English verb «to understand». However, wakaru is an intransitive verb that describes a subject, so a more literal gloss would be «to be understandable».

Objects, locatives, instrumentals: を o, で de, に ni, へ e[edit]

The direct object of transitive verbs is indicated by the object particle o (を).

This particle can also mean «through» or «along» or «out of» when used with motion verbs:

The general instrumental particle is de (で), which can be translated as «using» or «by»:

This particle also has other uses: «at» (temporary location):

«In»:

«With» or «in (the span of)»:

The general locative particle is ni (に).

In this function it is interchangeable with e (へ). However, ni has additional uses: «at (prolonged)»:

«On»:

«In (some year)», «at (some point in time)»:

Quantity and extents: と to, も mo, か ka, や ya, から kara, まで made[edit]

To conjoin nouns, と to is used.

The additive particle mo (も) can be used to conjoin larger nominals and clauses.

For an incomplete list of conjuncts, ya (や) is used.

When only one of the conjuncts is necessary, the disjunctive particle ka (か) is used.

Quantities are listed between ‘from’ (から, kara) and ‘to’ (まで, made).

This pair can also be used to indicate time or space.

朝9時(午前9時)から11時まで授業があるんだ。

asa ku-ji kara jūichi-ji made jugyō ga aru n da

You see, I have classes between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.

Because kara indicates starting point or origin, it has a related use as «because», analogously to English «since» (in the sense of both «from» and «because»):

The particle kara and a related particle yori are used to indicate lowest extents: prices, business hours, etc.

Yori is also used in the sense of «than».

Coordinating: と to, に ni, よ yo[edit]

The particle to (と) is used to set off quotations.

It is also used to indicate a manner of similarity, «as if», «like» or «the way».

In a related conditional use, it functions like «after/when», or «upon».

Finally it is used with verbs like to meet (with) (会う, au) or to speak (with) (話す, hanasu).

This last use is also a function of the particle ni (に), but to indicates reciprocation which ni does not.

ジョンはメアリーと恋愛している。(usually say ジョンはメアリーと付き合っている。)

JON wa MEARI[II] to ren’ai shite iru (JON wa MEARI[II] to tsukiatte iru)

John and Mary are in love.

ジョンはメアリーに恋愛している。(usually say ジョンはメアリーに恋している。)

JON wa MEARI[II] ni ren’ai shite iru (JON wa MEARI[II] ni koi shite iru)

John loves Mary (but Mary might not love John back).

Finally, the particle yo (よ) is used in a hortative or vocative sense.

Final: か ka, ね ne, よ yo and related[edit]

The sentence-final particle ka (か) turns a declarative sentence into a question.

そちらはアメリカ人でしょうか?

sochira wa amerika-jin deshō ka?

Are you perchance an American?

Other sentence-final particles add emotional or emphatic impact to the sentence. The particle ne (ね) softens a declarative sentence, similar to English «you know?», «eh?», «I tell you!», «isn’t it?», «aren’t you?», etc.

彼に電話しなかったのね。

kare ni denwa shinakatta no ne

You didn’t call him up, did you?

近々ロンドンに引っ越されるそうですね。

chikajika rondon ni hikkosareru sō desu ne.

I hear you’re moving to London soon. Is that true?

A final yo (よ) is used in order to soften insistence, warning or command, which would sound very strong without any final particles.

嘘なんかついてないよ！

uso nanka tsuite nai yo!

I’m not lying!

There are many such emphatic particles; some examples: ze (ぜ) and zo (ぞ) usually used by males; na (な) a less formal form of ne; wa (わ) used like yo by females (and males in the Kansai region), etc. They are essentially limited to speech or transcribed dialogue.

Compound particles[edit]

Compound particles are formed with at least one particle together with other words, including other particles. The commonly seen forms are:

• particle + verb (term. or cont. or -te form)
• particle + noun + particle
• noun + particle

Other structures are rarer, though possible. A few examples:

Auxiliary verbs[edit]

All auxiliary verbs attach to a verbal or adjectival stem form and conjugate as verbs. In modern Japanese there are two distinct classes of auxiliary verbs:

Pure auxiliaries (助動詞, jodōshi)

are usually just called verb endings or conjugated forms. These auxiliaries do not function as independent verbs.

Helper auxiliaries (補助動詞, hojodōshi)

are normal verbs that lose their independent meaning when used as auxiliaries.

In classical Japanese, which was more heavily agglutinating than modern Japanese, the category of auxiliary verb included every verbal ending after the stem form, and most of these endings were themselves inflected. In modern Japanese, however, some of them have stopped being productive. The prime example is the classical auxiliary -tari (たり), whose modern forms -ta (た) and -te (て) are no longer viewed as inflections of the same suffix, and can take no further affixes.

Some pure auxiliary verbs

auxiliary	group	attaches to	meaning modification	example
masu (ます)	irregular1	continuative	makes the sentence polite	kaku (書く, ‘to write’) → kakimasu (書きます)
rareru (られる)2	2b	irrealis of grp. 2	makes V passive/honorific/potential	miru (見る, ‘to see’) → mirareru (見られる, ‘to be able to see’) taberu (食べる, ‘to eat’) → taberareru (食べられる, ‘to be able to eat’)
reru (れる)	irrealis of grp. 1	makes V passive/honorific	nomu (飲む, ‘to drink/swallow’) → nomareru (飲まれる, ‘to be drunk’) (Passive form of drink, not a synonym for intoxicated.)
saseru (させる)3	2b	irrealis of grp. 2	makes V causative	kangaeru (考える, ‘to think’) → kangaesaseru (考えさせる, ‘to cause to think’)
seru (せる)	irrealis of grp. 1	omoishiru (思い知る, ‘to realize’) → omoishiraseru (思い知らせる, ‘to cause to realize/to teach a lesson’)

1. masu (ます) has stem forms: irrealis ませ and ましょ, continuative まし, terminal ます, attributive ます, hypothetical ますれ, imperative ませ.
2. rareru (られる) in potential usage is sometimes shortened to reru (れる) (group 2); thus tabereru (食べれる, ‘to be able to eat’) instead of taberareru (食べられる). However, it is considered non-standard.
3. saseru (させる) is sometimes shortened to sasu (さす) (group 1), but this usage is somewhat literary.

Much of the agglutinative flavour of Japanese stems from helper auxiliaries, however. The following table contains a small selection of many such auxiliary verbs.

Some helper auxiliary verbs

auxiliary	group	attaches to	meaning modification	example
aru (ある, ‘to be’ [inanimate])	1	-te form only for trans.	indicates state modification	hiraku (開く, ‘to open’) → hiraite-aru (開いてある, ‘opened and is still open’)
iru (いる, ‘to be’ [animate])	2a	-te form for trans.	progressive aspect	neru (寝る, ‘to sleep’) → nete-iru (寝ている, ‘is sleeping’)
2a	-te form for intrans.	indicates state modification	shimaru (閉まる, ‘to close (intransitive)’) → shimatte-iru (閉まっている, ‘is closed’)
oku (おく, ‘to put/place’)	1	-te form	«do something in advance»	taberu (食べる, ‘to eat’) → tabete-oku (食べておく, ‘eat in advance’)
«keep»	akeru (開ける, ‘to open’) → akete-oku (開けておく, ‘keep it open’)
iku (行く, ‘to go’)	1	-te form	«goes on V-ing»	aruku (歩く, ‘to walk’) → aruite-iku (歩いて行く, ‘keep walking’)
kuru (くる, ‘to come’)	ka	-te form	inception, «start to V»	furu (降る, ‘fall’) → futte-kuru (降ってくる, ‘start to fall’)
perfection, «have V-ed» (only past-tense)	ikiru (生きる, ‘live’) → ikite-kita (生きてきた, ‘have lived’)
conclusion, «come to V»	kotonaru (異なる, ‘differ’) → kotonatte-kuru (異なってくる, ‘come to differ’)
hajimeru (始める, ‘to begin’)	2b	continuative non-punctual	«V begins», «begin to V»	kaku (書く, ‘to write’) → kaki-hajimeru (書き始める, ‘start to write’)
continuative punctual & subj. must be plural	tsuku (着く, ‘to arrive’) → tsuki-hajimeru (着き始める, ‘have all started to arrive’)
dasu (出す, ‘to emit’)	1	continuative	«start to V»	kagayaku (輝く, ‘to shine’) → kagayaki-dasu (輝き出す, ‘to start shining’)
miru (みる, ‘to see’)	1	-te form	«try to V»	suru (する, ‘do’) → shite-miru (してみる, ‘try to do’)
naosu (なおす, ‘to correct/heal’)	1	continuative	«do V again, correcting mistakes»	kaku (書く, ‘to write’) → kaki-naosu (書きなおす, ‘rewrite’)
agaru (あがる, ‘to rise’)	1	continuative	«do V thoroughly» / «V happens upwards»	tatsu (立つ, ‘to stand’) → tachi-agaru (立ち上がる, ‘stand up’) dekiru (出来る, ‘to come out’) → deki-agaru (出来上がる, ‘be completed’)
eru/uru (得る, ‘to be able’)	(see note at bottom)	continuative	indicates potential	aru (ある, ‘to be’) → ariuru (あり得る, ‘is possible’)
kakaru/kakeru (かかる・かける, ‘to hang/catch/obtain’)	1	continuative only for intrans., non-volit.	«about to V», «almost V», «to start to V»	oboreru (溺れる, ‘drown’) → obore-kakeru (溺れかける, ‘about to drown’)
kiru (きる, ‘to cut’)	1	continuative	«do V completely»	taberu (食べる, ‘to eat’) → tabe-kiru (食べきる, ‘to eat it all’)
kesu (消す, ‘to erase’)	1	continuative	«cancel by V» «deny with V»	momu (揉む, ‘to rub’) → momi-kesu (揉み消す, ‘to rub out, to extinguish’)
komu (込む, ‘to enter deeply/plunge’)	1	continuative	«V deep in», «V into»	hanasu (話す, ‘to speak’) → hanashi-komu (話し込む, ‘to be deep in conversation’)
sageru (下げる, ‘to lower’)	2b	continuative	«V down»	hiku (引く, ‘to pull’) → hiki-sageru (引き下げる, ‘to pull down’)
sugiru (過ぎる, ‘to exceed’)	2a	continuative	«overdo V»	iu (言う, ‘to say’) → ii-sugiru (言いすぎる, ‘to say too much, to overstate’)
tsukeru (付ける, ‘to attach’)	2b	continuative	«become accustomed to V»	iku (行く, ‘to go’) → iki-tsukeru (行き付ける, ‘be used to (going)’)
tsuzukeru (続ける, ‘to continue’)	2b	continuative	«keep on V»	furu (降る, ‘to fall’) (e.g. rain) → furi-tsuzukeru (降り続ける, ‘to keep falling’)
tōsu (通す, ‘to show/thread/lead’)	1	continuative	«finish V-ing»	yomu (読む, ‘to read’) → yomi-tōsu (読み通す, ‘to finish reading’)
nukeru (抜ける, ‘to shed/spill/desert’)	2b	continuative only for intrans.	«V through»	hashiru (走る, ‘to run’) → hashiri-nukeru (走り抜ける, ‘to run through’)
nokosu (残す, ‘to leave behind’)	1	continuative	«by doing V, leave something behind»	omou (思う, ‘to think’) → omoi-nokosu (思い残す, ‘to regret’, lit: to have something left to think about)
nokoru (残る, ‘to be left behind’)	1	continuative only for intrans.	«be left behind, doing V»	ikiru (生きる, ‘live’) → iki-nokoru (生き残る, ‘to survive’, lit: to be left alive)
wakeru (分ける, ‘to divide/split/classify’)	2b	continuative	«the proper way to V»	tsukau (使う, ‘use’) → tsukai-wakeru (使い分ける, ‘to indicate the proper way to use’)
wasureru (忘れる, ‘to forget’)	2b	continuative	«to forget to V»	kiku (聞く, ‘to ask’) → kiki-wasureru (聞き忘れる, ‘to forget to ask’)
au (合う) ‘to come together’	1	continuative	«to do V to each other», «to do V together»	daku (抱く, ‘to hug’) → daki-au (抱き合う, ‘to hug each other’)

• Note: eru/uru (得る) is the only modern verb of shimo nidan type (and it is different from the shimo nidan type of classical Japanese), with conjugations: irrealis え, continuative え, terminal える or うる, attributive うる, hypothetical うれ, imperative えろ or えよ.

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

• Uehara, Satoshi (1998). Syntactic categories in Japanese: a cognitive and typological introduction. Studies in Japanese linguistics. Vol. 9. Kurosio. ISBN 487424162X.

Further reading[edit]

• Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese I: Inflection. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 66, 97–109.
• Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese II: Syntax. Language, 22, 200–248.
• Chafe, William L. (1976). Giveness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In C. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 25–56). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
• Jorden, Eleanor Harz, Noda, Mari. (1987). Japanese: The Spoken Language
• Katsuki-Pestemer, Noriko. (2009): A Grammar of Classical Japanese. München: LINCOM. ISBN 978-3-929075-68-7.
• Kiyose, Gisaburo N. (1995). Japanese Grammar: A New Approach. Kyoto: Kyoto University Press. ISBN 4-87698-016-0.
• Kuno, Susumu. (1973). The structure of the Japanese language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-11049-0.
• Kuno, Susumu. (1976). Subject, theme, and the speaker’s empathy: A re-examination of relativization phenomena. In Charles N. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 417–444). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
• Makino, Seiichi & Tsutsui, Michio. (1986). A dictionary of basic Japanese grammar. Japan Times. ISBN 4-7890-0454-6
• Makino, Seiichi & Tsutsui, Michio. (1995). A dictionary of intermediate Japanese grammar. Japan Times. ISBN 4-7890-0775-8
• Martin, Samuel E. (1975). A reference grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-01813-4.
• McClain, Yoko Matsuoka. (1981). Handbook of modern Japanese grammar: 口語日本文法便覧 [Kōgo Nihon bunpō benran]. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. ISBN 4-590-00570-0; ISBN 0-89346-149-0.
• Mizutani, Osamu; & Mizutani, Nobuko. (1987). How to be polite in Japanese: 日本語の敬語 [Nihongo no keigo]. Tokyo: Japan Times. ISBN 4-7890-0338-8.
• Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). Japanese. In B. Comrie (Ed.), The major languages of east and south-east Asia. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04739-0.
• Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36070-6 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-36918-5 (pbk).
• Shibamoto, Janet S. (1985). Japanese women’s language. New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-640030-X. Graduate Level
• Tsujimura, Natsuko. (1996). An introduction to Japanese linguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19855-5 (hbk); ISBN 0-631-19856-3 (pbk). Upper Level Textbooks
• Tsujimura, Natsuko. (Ed.) (1999). The handbook of Japanese linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20504-7. Readings/Anthologies

External links[edit]

• FAQ from the Usenet newsgroup sci.lang.japan
• An introduction to Japanese — Syntax, Grammar & Language, online version by Michiel Kamermans
• Tae Kim’s Guide to Learning Japanese  – Japanese online grammar guide
• Shoko Hamano, Visualizing Japanese Grammar – animated Japanese grammar lessons from George Washington University
• On particles in Japanese Archived 2020-08-04 at the Wayback Machine