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The Japanese language uses post-position particles (助詞; じょし) to denote the
direction of an action and who is performing the action. They consistently come
after the word that they modify.
There are three particles used very frequently in the language: は, を and が.
This module covers these along with a few other common ones but an
exhaustive list would run very long.
The topic particle "は" is used when introducing a topic and gives focus to the
action of the sentence (i.e., the verb or the adjective). The subject marker "が"
is used when emphasising the subject giving focus to the subject of the action.
One can also think of it as replacing "~は" with the phrase "as for ~", "on the
topic of ~" or "regarding ~" to distinguish it from "が". While these phrases
aren't common in English we can use these expressions here to better show the
main difference between "は" and "が".
One has to be careful using both "は" and "が" in one sentence. If a verb is
actually acting on the (direct) subject, usually a different particle (like を) has to
be used.
"は" is generally more flexible, because the "it" can be assumed, and is
therefore recommended to novices who have not grasped the difference
between the two.
"は" also has the specialized function of being used for comparisons as well.
Often the grammatical subject may also be the topic. In this case, "は" normally
replaces "が". However, if the subject is never known, you can not use "は" and
must use "が". This is similar to using pronouns: You can't state, "It is over
there", without first stating what "it" may be.
The particle "を" (pronounced "お") is the direct object marker and marks the
recipient of an action.
As with much of the language, parts of a sentence that can be assumed from
context are often omitted and the direct object particle is commonly dropped in
conversational (colloquial) Japanese.
"に" marks the verb's indirect object (i.e. the destination of a targeted verb
action) translating as "to", "in", "at" or "by". It also indicates the location
touched or affected by an event or action:
The particle "へ" described below is used exclusively for marking the
destination.
私は男ですか Am I a man?
これは どういうもの です か。 How do you describe this?
ねこ は います か。 Is there a cat?
どこ か いきました か。 Did you go somewhere?
For more on the question marker, see: Sentence ending particles.
The particle can also function as a noun link, indicating that the preceding noun
(or adjectival noun) modifies the following noun.
It can also be used for nominalisation, converting verbs and (proper) adjectives
into nouns.
Note that in this last example two particles are used together: の and が: the
first makes the action a noun, and the second tells that this action is what the
sentence is all about.
This applies to exhaustive lists, i.e. when all objects are explicitly mentioned.
The particle is used to indicate parallelism with the subject, often meaning
"with":
This particle is used to connect various words implying that the listing is not
exhaustive. The particle "など" may be added after the list to emphasise that
the list is incomplete.
も is quite simply a marker that says "also". It replaces the particles は, が and を
but can also follow other particles. This can also be used to form a large list of
words all acting as though one of the basic particles (は, を, or が) were affecting
the whole list.
Worth noting is that used with an interrogative pro-form (e.g. who, where, how)
the も particle negates the pro-form:
だれも nobody
どこも nowhere
The particle で can be used in several situations indicating means. These can be
for example an instrument, a location or a language.
These particles indicate the starting point or border of an action. This may be a
location as well as a time and corresponds roughly with "from" and "until".