Japanese I/Do It Yourself/Your first sentence
This Lesson is aimed at teaching how to create beginner's sentences in Japanese. Beginner's sentences are different from native speaker's sentences but should be learnt all the same because they are a necessary step if one wants to understand more advanced sentences.
Before we begin, it is recommended that you learn how to read kana and Japanese pronunciation.
Components
editThere are four things needed to say a beginner's sentence in Japanese. They are:
The subject of a sentence is what the sentence is about. In Japanese, the subject is often omitted when the listener is already aware of what it is. In the following example, the subject is "this girl".
This girl is my daughter. Is 8 years old. Is called Hayley.
There was no need to repeat "this girl", or "she" as the listener already knew what was being discussed. It may sound strange in conversation, but Japanese do not think so. Though Japanese typically omit subjects, we will be using subjects in all of our sentences in this lesson so as to familiarise ourselves with the form.
For our beginner's sentence, we will be using the subjects これ (kore, this), それ (sore, that) and あれ (are, that). The difference between それ and あれ is that それ refers to objects that are at the listeners location and あれ refers to objects that are far from both the speaker and the listener. So あれ could also be translated as "that (thing) over there". These words have kanji forms but are only used in hiragana.
は (wa) is the subject marker, also known as the subject particle. As all particles are placed after the word they modify, は is placed after the subject. It's sole purpose is to highlight the subject. It will be in all of our sentences.
The character は is normally pronounced "ha" but this changes when it marks the subject. This can provide difficulty for the beginner when reading but the distinction becomes easy after familiarisation with Japanese.
Use of a Japanese accent
editBy learning how to pronounce Japanese, you should know how to change words into 外来語 (gairaigo, loan words) and, with practice, speak with a Japanese accent. It is better to do this when speaking Japanese as English sounds can be very out of place and it can be hard to switch between the completely different accents.
Our basic sentences will mean "this is a ...", "that is a ...", "that over there is a ...", etc. And, at first, the ellipsis (...) will be replaced by made-up loan words.
です - To be
editThe last thing we need is the verb です (desu, to be). It is another thing that will be in all of our sentences. There are two other ways of saying "to be" in Japanese and each (as well as this one) comes in different forms, but です is the only one you will need for these lessons.
Note that it is usually pronounced closer to "des" or "dess" when on it's own but should always be spelt as "desu". Also note that Japanese verbs do not change when coupled with certain pronouns. That is, です corresponds to "is", "are", "am", etc., regardless of what pronoun it is describing.
Putting All That to Use
editSyntax
editNow you know the vocabulary but how do you put it all together? The answer: exactly as you learnt it. Japanese is a SOV (Subject Object Verb) language meaning the sentence begins with a subject (followed by the subject particle, は) and ends with a verb (like です) and includes most other content (mainly just the object) in between. Sentences exist where words come before the subject and after the verb but they are currently beyond our scope.
Example
editAn example of forming a sentence with these components is これはコンピューターです。
- Subject: これ (kore, this)
- Subject Particle: As always, は (wa)
- Object (loan word): Computer, or as it is written and pronounced in Japanese コンピューター(konpyuutaa)
- Verb: です (desu, to be)
Now try pronounce it. Kore wa konpyuutaa desu.
Do It Yourself
editHopefully you can pronounce Japanese and, if you can, you should be able to make hundreds of sentences. Look at things around your room. Kore wa spiikaa desu (this is a speaker), are wa kappu desu (that over there is a cup). Try it yourself. Naturally, you'll need someone else to listen to you if you want to use sore.
Notes
editYou may notice there is no word for "a" or "the" in the examples given. Thankfully, Japanese simply doesn't have them.
If you really want to show off you'll need vocabulary. It's recommended that you just practise the structure at first, but, if you feel you've got the hang of it, you can remove the loanwords to make your sentences more advanced and seem much more exotic.
Here is a selection of easy vocabulary that can help you do just that:
If you simply replace the loan word with one of these, you can turn your template into a description of almost any this, that or that over there you can find! Go to Wiktionary to search for anything "this" could be. It could a pen (あれはペンです are wa pen desu), a bee (あれは蜂です are wa hachi desu) or purple (それは紫です sore wa murasaki desu) or anything and it's translation will probably be there.