Talk:Japanese particles

Particle anchor list maintenance

This page lists particles in a table. Each particle has an id ('id="bakari"' for example) to which one can link with an anchor. Rather than clutter the table of contents, this is in a separate list which must be maintained by hand. That isn't such a big deal since the particles shouldn't change too much.

To make things easy, one can regenerate the list from the table markup using grep, sed and awk. If you run Linux you have these. If you run Macintosh you may have these. If you run Windows you're on your own.

In a shell, run

$ grep -E -e "particle *=" <oldfile> | sed -e "s:.*particle *= *::" | awk '{ print "* [[#"$0"|"$0"]]" }'

where <oldfile> is a file with the {{japanese particle}} templates (e.g. copied from the article wikimarkup.

I believe one can simplify this further by having awk do the trimming instead of sed, but I'm not bothered enough to look into that. --Swift (talk) 11:37, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Kara and no de Translations

Japanese and English differ in thier casuse and effect statement order, however I think it would be better to translate "Niku o tabenai kara, rāmen wa dame da" or "Jugyō ga aru no de, ikenai" (and the like) to standard English style (I can't go because I have a test, Ramen isn't good because I don't want to eat meat), and explain the reversal. Comments? -- Nictius 03:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Just replace the ‘because’ in the existing translations with ‘since’:

• Since I’ve got a test, I can’t go.
• Since he doesn’t eat meat, ramen is a bad idea.

This way it will both sound natural (for everybody except those who think this usage is incorrect, but that’s a minority) and retain the original clause order. Chortos‑2 (talk) 08:45, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Or think of the -kara as "so" (preceded by a comma), like:

I have a test, so I can't go.

He doesn't eat meat, so ramen's no good. 172.56.27.23 (talk) 10:41, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

ka

Is "wakaru ka" acceptable? When using the short forms ka is omitted as a question particle, a rising intonation towards the end is usually used. I suggest it is changed to "wakarimasu ka".

Omission of ka when using the kudaketa register depends on the context. An informal friendly question wakaru? would indeed be indicated by tone, while adding the ka at the end allows the tone of voice to be different while still clearly being a question. -- Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 18:08, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Another issue about ka -- from animes I've picked up that dare ka means "someone/anyone" (e.g. Macross Plus -- dare ka tasukete! = "Someone help me!"). Does this mean ka can turn a questioning word (like dare, nani, doko etc.) into the "some-" or "any-" form? E.g. nani ka = "something/anything". Didn't want to edit in case I was totally wrong... I think mo(u) might also have an effect, turning these questioning words into "every-" forms (e.g. nani mo = "everything"). Dave-ros 17:26, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

From textbook learning, I've never seen nani ka or dare ka translated to some/any forms... but in living in Japan, it is certainly used that way in casual speech. I'm not sure on the translated difference between dare ka tasukete! and dare mo tasukete!; though dare ka sounds more informal to me. This would make sense, because anime-style speech is extremely informal. 'Mo' (not Mou) is the typical particle used to make any-/some- in Japanese. -- Nictius 03:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

"Dare mo tasukete" sounds very strange to me. "Minna wo tasukete" (help everyone), "minna tasukete" (everybody help), "dare ka tasukete" (someone help), "dare ka wo tasukete" (help someone), "dare mo tasukenai" (nobody helps / helps no one), "dare mo ga tasukeru" (anyone would help) instead all sound normal to me. I'm not sure why you say that "anime-style" speech is extremely informal, as animes contain speech of all formality levels and the general level, while informal, is most of the time appropriate for the situations depicted and most of it is not particular to anime. Perhaps it's just me, but I wouldn't use the word "extreme" of any way of speech itself, but would reserve it instead for improper choices of words in specific situations, as you can't reach the extremities without stark contrast between the words and the situation. -- 130.233.24.129 02:37, 19

To answer the original question, learning Japanese from my teacher, I was made to learn that "wakaru ka" is not technically correct. If you say it to a Japanese person, they'll understand (I've made that mistake a few times), but the particle 'ka' is really only used with the verb two (I form) 'masu' form. For example 'Wakarimasu ka?'. When using the verb three dictionary form (U form), it would be 'wakaru no?'. Basically, 'wakaru no?' is equivilent to 'wakarimasu ka?', but wakaru no is more casual. Both wakaru no and wakarimasu ka mean 'do you understand?', but, again, wakaru no is more casual. So according to my instruction (Sorry if I'm totally offbase), you do not use ka after a verb three form. Only after the verb two with masu. Instead, with verb three, you use no. Hoshi.ni.Drifting

No, it's perfectly possible to use "wakaru ka", at least if you want to sound manly. And "wakaru no" is not the plain-form equivalent of "wakarimasu ka". That would be "wakaru" with a rising intonation (or possibly "wakaru ka"). "Wakaru no" sounds more like asking about something contrary to what you thought you knew. For example, if someone you know suddenly speaks Swedish and you didn't know they could, and are a bit surprised, you might say "Sueedengo wakaru no?". If you just want to ask if they know Swedish it would be "Sueedengo wakaru?".

"Wakaru no" is a plain-form equivalent of "Wakaru no desu ka" (usually shortened a bit to "Wakaru ndesuka") —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.252.10.45 (talk) 10:26, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

ni/de and ni/e sections

Wrote sections on "ni/de" and "ni/e" and made cosmetic changes to some particle examples. I also included links to non-Japanese-specific grammatical pages, which may not accurately describe the grammatical processes of Japanese. If anyone has input on the case links, please let me know. JFHJr 20:06, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your edits. --DannyWilde 00:45, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Removed

I'm not sure who the following note is aimed at: it seems a little distracting. First we discuss an "o" prefix which may be confused with the particle "o", then we add on the kanji, then we add on another reading of the kanji as well? Better to keep things simple.

The same honorific 御 is often pronounced go, in which case it may be written as ご.

--DannyWilde 00:45, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

---

Removed incorrect dake example:

Dake also means "exactly", and is often used after question words.

Kore wa nan dake na, "What exactly is this?"

The actual J phrase is kore wa nan da kke na, with the kke a colloquial ka. Also heard in the phrase ano hito wa dare datta n kke? Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 00:20, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure that "kke" and "ka" are related somehow? According to the dictionaries I use, "kke" ("ke") comes from "keri" and is used to indicate either that the speaker is recollecting something ("ano hito to yoku umi ni ittakke, natsukashii naa") or is asking about something he has forgotten or isn't sure he remembers correctly ("ano hito ha dare dattakke"). "Dattankke" sounds to me like the "n" doesn't belong there. -- 130.233.24.129 03:26, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

kke from keri is the orthodox view presented in the『日本語文法大辞典』as well. And datta n kke is decidedly bizarre. (Not to mention unpronounceable?!) Maybe there's some confusion with kee < kai ~ ka? --RJCraig 04:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Links

Added/replaced links to the Japanese grammar article in two places: one in the wa/ga, where information on wa/ga is already available (as opposed to a link to nothing) and is rather exhaustive; the other is at the end for reference to the particle section of the grammar article. ...Or does anyone think it's worth putting wa/ga in this article also? JFHJr 00:30, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

The information in the Japanese grammar page is very far from exhaustive. --DannyWilde 03:10, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

What do you suggest? Working on it on the Japanese grammar entry, or moving info from there to this one and then building on it that way? JFHJr 06:54, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Subordinate clause no

I don't understand the change made to the subordinate clause no line. The comment left in the edit was that there is no wa in subordinate clauses, which means the same thing as I had previously written: that the no replaced the wa in such cases. The subordinate clause is watashi-no tsukutta instead of *watashi-wa tsukutta, even though watashi is the topic of the subordinate clause. The marking of the subordinate clause no bearing on how the noun it modifies is marked, so keeki can be marked with either wa or ga, each meaning different things. Also, the construction watashi-ga tsukutta keeki-wa oishikatta is possible, so the ga in subordinate clauses is not necessarily replaced. In fact, the use of no and ga in subordinate clauses are complementary/contrastive, just like wa and ga in other conditions. So while the example currently up is gramatically correct, it no longer demonstrates the compulsory use of no that I wanted to show in adding this to the section.

Perhaps the wording should be something along the lines of "No must be used instead of wa in subordinate clauses to mark topic;" along with the original example. How does this sound?

JFHJr 07:04, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Please clarify your meaning on the main page as you like. --DannyWilde 07:10, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Added

I added a whole lot of particles and tried to be careful only to include true particles. Various postpositions are ambiguously verb- or noun-like, and I tried to keep out of that until the section at the end about English prepositions. I didn't get a chance to fill-in info for quite a few of them. Any that should go? Any glaring omissions? JFHJr 17:01, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Great work! But please visit http://www.nihongoresources.com/searchpindex.html, click Search with no parameters, and review the list of particles. Even that is not complete, as it's missing common things like e to (as is ), and in some cases is less complete than the Wiki, but there are some entries or usages there which are not represented here. You also may want to look through the book All About Particles by Naoko Chino, and absorb some of the material within. For instance, there are more uses of ni than you've got listed in the Wiki.

At this point I've added postpositions which derive from nouns and verbs because their function is postpositional, and because native English speakers might intuitively seek information about these postpositions assuming they are like particles. Do they belong here? JFHJr (㊟) 08:54, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Maybe better to have a separate Wiki linked from here?

Inconsistencies

A relatively minor point, but I note that some entries indicate combined joshi, and some don't -- demo vs bakarika, for instance. Unless anyone has strong objections, I move to make this consistent, ideally by pointing out joshi combinations and etymologies (kashira as an abbreviation of ka shiranu, lit. "I don't know if it's X (but it might be)"). Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 00:12, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a great idea to me. JFHJr (㊟) 15:53, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I know we're encouraged to be bold, but I want to run this by everyone before jumping in here. I've puzzled over the format of this article for a while, and though it works as a list, it seems a bit バラバラ to me. Here's an example of what I'm thinking, the current format followed by my mock-up. I'm going for tighter, conciser, less chatty, and more to-the-point. Let me know what you all think of it.

---

bakari

Bakari can come after nouns, i-adjectives, and verbs, meaning "just, only, full of".

Tabeta-bakari desu, "I just ate"; tabeta meaning "ate".

Tōkyō-wa hito-bakari desu, "Tokyo is just full of people"; hito meaning "people".

It also comes after the te form of Japanese verbs to indicate a repeated activity.

Kare wa tabete bakari iru., "He's always eating."

It is usually written with the hiragana ばかり. Colloquially, bakkari and bakka are often used instead of bakari to mean the same thing.

---

bakari

ばかり

Following:

• Nouns
• i-adjectives
• Verbs

Meaning:

• "just, only, full of"

Tabeta bakari desu, "I just ate"; tabeta meaning "ate".

Tōkyō wa hito bakari desu, "Tokyo is just full of people"; hito meaning "people".

Following:

• te form of Japanese verbs

Meaning:

• A repeated activity

Kare wa tabete bakari iru., "He's always eating."

Colloquially, bakkari ばっかり and bakka ばっか are often used instead of bakari to mean the same thing.

---

A list of bullet points strikes me as more succinct and more easily accessible, less explanatory text to dig through. That's why I ditch the explanation of the hiragana spelling and just give it at the beginning. Also note that I want to avoid hyphens unless we're dealing with a compound noun that simply looks too long written all together in romaji. So not "Tōkyō-wa hito-bakari desu", but rather "Tōkyō wa hito bakari desu".

This takes up more space vertically, so one thought might be to put the "Following" and "Meaning" bits into a table, with "Following" on the left and "Meaning" on the right.

Anyway, your thoughts, please!  :) Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 06:17, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that as the article is now, it's too free in form. It started out chatty, and when I added, I stuck with what was already there. How un-bold of me. Anyway, I personally find it useful to see particles attached to the words they modify, unless they end a phrase or sentence. I can definitely understand that some people would find it easier to read without hyphenation, though. I like your idea about the chart. Here's an idea using no below... JFHJr (㊟) 12:29, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

no

の (乃) [not a serious proposition for no; just if there were non-obligatory kanji used]	[etymology, combination derivation, or fun fact here]
Following: Function	Rōmaji	Meaning
Nouns: posession	sensei no kuruma	the teacher's car
Nouns: possessive pronouns	Watashi no ga ii.	Mine is best.
Nouns: linking	kuruma no Toyota	Toyota the car [company]
Nouns: topic marker in subordinate clauses (see also: wa below)	Kare no tsukutta kēki ga oishikatta.	The cake that he made was tasty.
i-adjectives: nominalization	Yasui no wa, kore.	This is the cheap[er] one.
Verbs: nominalization	Taberu no ga daisuki.	I love eating.
Non-nominal phrases: question marker	Mō, tabeta no?	Have you eaten?
	Kuruma na* no? *Na, a form of the copula, serves here to de-nominalize the noun. See na above.	Is it a car?

What do ya think? JFHJr (㊟) 12:29, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I like this, it's visually tighter than what I had and flows better. I very much like your use of bold to show what the particle attaches to. If other folks like this format too, I'm happy to start putting in the time to re-do the page. I have one puzzlement, though -- what do you mean by "Following: Function"? In my example, "Following" was meant to show what the particle follows, but I'm stuck here as to what it signifies.

On a different tack to look at the meaning of this entry rather than the structure :), would we need the distinction between "Possession" and "Possessive Pronouns"? I feel like the first includes the second, but I'm open to being convinced. Also, in the note about "na", my interpretation is that rather than "na" de-nominalizing the noun (an idea I'm struggling with, a bit like de-icing ice), the "no" nominalizes the copula. So rather than kuruma no, i.e. "the car's" or the possessive, you get kuruma na no with the emphasis on the copula, on the "is it" aspect. Does this interpretation fly?

Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 15:52, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

"Following: Function" was just a heading name. That's the format I had organized the column into. The kind of word the particle follows, colon, what the particle does to the word. Something else could be the heading name, too. "Use," "environment," whatnot. It was just a fast stab. And now that you mention it, you're right about the silliness of the "na" note. It's pretty convoluted, and "no" does nominalize the copula. But I wonder if there needs to be a note at all. I struck it out above and corrected the bold.

I'm not sure why the possessive pronoun line is there. I don't feel one way or another about it. I'll leave it out if I'm the one editing "no" when it's put into a chart. I don't think anyone would object to the chart; it's way less vertical, just a little different to edit. There's always editing help just in case, right?

Have you started on it yet? If not, also don't mind getting to work on at least putting the current info into charts (minus inconsistencies!), and shaping it up... Lemme know if you'd like to do it, though. JFHJr (㊟) 12:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Didn't see any messages for a while, so I put about half of the particle list into charts, using what was previously there most of the time. I hope I haven't stepped on any toes. Any suggestions or changes? Have at it. Bed time for me. JFHJr (㊟) 15:57, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey there -- Thanks for starting. Part of why you didn't see any messages from me is that I'm in a different time zone -- UTC -8, a.k.a. the US West Coast, to be specific.  :) I'll continue your work when I can grab the time today. Incidentally, I'm wondering if there should be a line between each term to better visually separate the entries? Or would that be too messy? Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 16:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Thinking it through a bit, perhaps "Use" should be changed? To say "Use: Nouns" is not very clear, and makes it sound at first as though the particle in question is used as a noun instead of after a noun. Would switching this back to "Following" or "Follows" be acceptable, to indicate what it comes after? Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 17:20, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Merge from Japanese grammar

Regarding my proposed merge from Japanese grammar, Mkill described that this Japanese particles entry and the particles section of the Japanese grammar entry have different purposes. Specifically, this entry mentions each particle separately, providing easy lookup of a specific particle. By contrast, the particles section on the Japanese grammar page groups them by usage and leaves out the less common ones to show the larger picture.

In order to improve the quality of both entries, I propose that we move the "big-picture" content about particles from the particles section of the Japanese grammar entry to this Japanese particles entry and that we copy each single Japanese particle to Wiktionary. See, for example, the entry I just created at wikt:ばかり. How does that sound? The Rod (☎ Smith) 06:09, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Hm, while I get your point, moving all these particle examples one by one to separate Wiktionary pages would 1) be tedious and 2) render this no longer a list where users can quickly see all the particles at once, for easier comparison / contrast and discovery. I'm not so sure we should remove what we've got here. That said, it might be a good idea to have these in Wiktionary as well, and I like your sample entry. Perhaps any users of this page as a reference could chime in? I contribute, but I don't really use the page to look anything up, so I might be overestimating the utility of having all the particles visible in one place. Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 16:17, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, Eiríkr Útlendi. I'll wait for more input into this matter, but in the meantime, note that if include the [[Category:Japenese particles]] in the Wiktionary entries, they will all appear on the wikt:Category:Japanese particles page. The Rod (☎ Smith) 21:14, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Excellent that they can be so easily listed. One concern is that such a list would have only the header (i.e. the particle itself), and not also include the text. But again, I'm not sure how important this is. Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 21:39, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I propose to move the "big picture" of particles currently presented on Japanese grammar into this page. Particles that do not fit into the categories currently show on Japanese grammar could remain at the bottom of this page. Please let me know if there are any further objections or recommendations. The Rod (☎ Smith) 00:49, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you should just start. --Mkill 17:34, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I will. I just wanted to allow time for further objections after I answered Eiríkr Útlendi's objection. The Rod (☎ Smith) 19:00, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I have begun this process. To track progress, I am linking each particle migrated to Wiktionary. When all particles are migrated, it be time to move the particle-related content from Japanese grammar to here. Any help would be appreciated, otherwise, I will proceed, but slowly. The Rod (☎ Smith) 03:29, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

My vote for this goes for no. It's more accessible in the table form. Half of the reason to have a list of particles is so that if you want to know what particle to use for a particular purpose, you can just look through. If you put them all in the same category, you'll have a list for if you want to know what particle X does, but as for knowing what particle to use for purpose Y... you're boned. If some underlying thought here is that having a list of particles is somehow unencyclopedic, it seems like pretty good appendix fodder to me -- and appendices are still part of an encyclopedia. --Dookama 18:38, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Just throwing in my two cents, I personally enjoy things how they are. I'm a college student studying japanese and often use this page and the japanese grammar page, yet think both are pretty much fine as they are. Midusunknown 04:36, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Kanji for nanka/nante

This "なんて" (from "などとて"), I believe, cannot be written as "何て"/"何と" ("what a ..." or something), and this "なんか" is usually written without any kanji. However I couldn't decide just to remove these kanji versions. I hope it is going to be solved. Mulukhiyya 10:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Article is a bit of a mess

At a glance, a great number of the "particles" listed in this article aren't particles at all. 何か? め? もの (perhaps supposed to be 物)? ずつ? 沿い? 達? Short phrases and adpositional words are not necessarily particles. I am going to be removing many of these shortly. I suggest reviewing the equivalent Japanese-language article over at ja:助詞 as well as EDICT for a better idea of what does and does not constitute a particle. tgies 22:31, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you. But as for もの, it's not 物/thing. だって、そうだもの/そうだもん。Meaning 'But that's what it is.'　I wanted to explain the difference between が and を, but I don't trust my English writing. Will you help me? ご飯が食べたい is 'what I want to eat is rice', you know. --Oda Mari 16:17, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Edited

In the explanation of 'kedo', the word 'okashii' was used as strange... In order to keep the english translation correct, I changed 'okashii' to 'hen'. Reason being that okashii is used in japanese not as strange, but more as crazy. Hen is the appropriate word for strange. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure about this one. Hoshi.ni.Drifting 16:13, 9 July 2007 (UTC)Hoshi.ni.Drifting

Um... 変 and おかしい are virtually synonymous in many cases, including this.

Here's some example sentences:

「(変だ／おかしい)な。おととい仕事に行ったのになあ……。」 "That's (funny/odd/strange/weird). I went to work the day before yesterday..."

「彼女に何かあったんだと思う」 "I think something happened to her." 「私もそう思う。行動が(変だ／おかしい)と思ったもの」 "I agree. Her behavior struck me as (funny/odd/peculiar)."

「政治家の家系に生まれさえすれば、どんなばかでも政治家になれるんだ」 "Any fool can be a politician if he was born into a political family." 「そんなの(おかしい／変)よ」 "That's nonsense!"

「あいつは頭がおかしい。」 "He is (bonkers/crazy/nuts)."

「それは(変だ／おかしい)。」 "It makes no sense."/"That's (funny/odd/weird/strange)."

I hope that you're aware that a lot of words don't have just one direct and exact meanings when translated to another language. For example, words like 「上げる」 which can be translated to English in a myriad of different ways depending on context. Just because 「おかしい」 can be used in a context meaning "crazy" (usually preceeded by a word like "head" or "personality", et cetera. In which way, FYI, 「変」 also can be used), does not imply the exclusion of other usages. 82.182.171.126 (talk) 02:33, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Extra Detail for de and ni

I'd like to make a few suggestions for additional information to add to the article, specifically around the particles ni and de. This is my first go at wiki, so I haven't made any changes directly to the article - I wanted to run it past everyone first, just to be on the safe side. Here are my suggestions:

de

• Expansion of the instrument category to add a little more detail. The book I'm using to study Japanese (see below for reference) suggests this particle is used for methods/means (i.e. Koko dewa Nihon-go de hanashimashou), tools (i.e. Naifu to fouku de tabemasu), transportation method (i.e. current instrument category example) and materials/ingredients (i.e. Kore wa ringo to satou de tsukurimasu).
• Addition of a new category to illustrate usage of this particle to indicate the number of people doing an action (i.e. Kinou wa hitori de uchi e kaerimashita).
  
  

ni

• Expansion of the location category to add a little more detail. Specifically, the use of ni to indicate the place of existence specifically when using iru/aru (i.e. Koko ni hon ga arimasu) and to indicate the place where the result of an action remains (Kono kami ni anata no namae o kakimashou).
• Addition of a new category to illustrate usage of this particle to indicate the time that actions are performed (i.e. Juu-ichi-ji ni machiawase o shimashita).
  
  

What do you think? By the way, the book that this information came from is The JET Programme Japanese Language Course Beginning Level Book 3 (2005) Fujitsu Learning Media Limited, Tokyo.

Clownba0t (talk) 00:58, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

More detail would be good, I think. 'De wa' is not mentioned.andycjp (talk) 05:52, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

What, if anything, should be done about the non-particles in this list?

While it's nice to have them there for comparison, nante for one isn't a particle, and several others are questionable. One option is to change the main article name - "Japanese Particles and Suffixes", or something more suiting. Preferably something simple and crisp that can eloquently encapsulate all of the content (nothing comes to mind right now). Any ideas? 地炎風水闇陽 ^(Talk) 14:39, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

程 (hodo)

The article says this:

When an i-adjective is marked with hodo, there should be no verb, since an adjective cannot be the agent or patient of a verb in Japanese.

I personally have no idea about this sort of thing, but this thread on a forum seems to indicate otherwise. What's going on here? - furrykef (Talk at me) 12:03, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I cannot explain it grammartically, but they are right. So I removed the i-adjective part. Oda Mari (talk) 14:44, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I suggest replacing verb+hodo example. Currently it is "Aitsu o koroshitai hodo kirai da", but actually tai form of a verb is an adjective. Therefore I believe it should be something along the lines of "Aitsu wa hakike ga suru hodo kirai da". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.252.10.45 (talk) 13:02, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

List tables

I think the current list of tables could be improved a bit. Seeing how it's a fairly big project, I figured I'd get feedback beforehand. I propose something along these lines:

EDIT: I've removed the example as the article has been updated with my suggestion. --Swift (talk) 11:37, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

The h3 elements inside the table isn't terribly nice, but a hack to automate the TOC generation. Alternatively we could put in anchors which would require we update links to these manually (not such a huge problem since these particles don't seem to be added or removed too often and the alphabet shouldn't be changing any time soon.

Another solution would be to just stop linking to these. The TOC is already way too long and each particle section is so short that we could just as well just have people browse through the page. A slicker table would make that pretty painless.

Speaking of the table, for those who didn't notice, I've merged the entries into a single table. It might be worth while creating a template for each table row to make it easier to modify wholesale. I've done so of that on the b:Japanese Wikibook. --Swift (talk) 19:17, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Mostly done with the main particle list. I created {{Japanese particle}} for the markup. --Swift (talk) 20:54, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the uncategorized list is a mess. As for bakari, there are some more meanings. See [1] and [2]. As for bakarika, preceding syntactic element is not only noun. See [3] and [4]. Oda Mari (talk) 05:11, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean by "uncategorized"?

As for bakari and bakarika, be bold. --Swift (talk) 22:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I mean there are 8 types of Japanese particles like 格助詞 (ga, no, wo, ni, etc. ), 副助詞 (bakari, hodo, made. dake, etc), 係助詞 (ha, koso, mono, shika, etc.) and more. But the list has them all in a simple alphabetical order. See ja:助詞. I'd like to edit, but, being a native speaker, I have no idea what to say those types in English. It would be grateful if you could edit the article. Best regards. Oda Mari (talk) 04:46, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I see. There is a more organised (but less exhaustive) list at Japanese grammar. I didn't really think it was such a big deal to have them alphabetical here as it is a comfortable way to look them up. An alphabetical list of links (anchors) to each particle would solve that, of course.

Do you mean to say that you're a japanese native speaker? I'm not competent enough to categorise these properly, but I'll add something about the eight types. Someone may then come along and categorise these.

I actually started working on this page partly with the thought that it would be a useful page to be imported into the Japanese wikibook. It might make even more sense to categorise them once they get there. --Swift (talk) 00:57, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Now that I think about it. I'm not sure categorising these might be such a good idea. A foreign audience might benefit better from an alphabetical list. For example, から can be both a case particle (格助詞) and a conjuctive particle (接続助). While a Japanese audience might benefit from examples of each group (well, we could also add some examples to the particle types section), an alphabetical list that makes no assumptions on the readers knowledge of Japanese would probably be best for this article. --Swift (talk) 11:37, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the new section, Swift. Yes, I'm a Japanese native speaker. As for the list, I agree with you. You must know what is better for English readers. I think the understanding and viewpoint of a language are different between native speakers and non-native speakers and what is best explanation/categorizing for native speakers is not always best for non-native speakers. Oda Mari (talk) 18:07, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

What happened?

This article seemed a lot more organized/helpful a few days ago... It was easier to find what I was looking for with that long list in the table of contents.--67.225.8.195 (talk) 05:30, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I hadn't gotten around to creating a list of anchors to each particle. I wasn't sure if it was really necessary seeing how the particles were all in alphabetical order anyway (and the table of contents list so long you'd have to scroll around anyway).

What do you think about the new format. I also standardised the last few particles that didn't share the same format as the others so now they all share the same fields. --Swift (talk) 11:38, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Additional "compound" particles

http://homepage3.nifty.com/jgrammar/grammar/jgr_pnom.htm mentions the compound particles での de no "at, in, with" and への e no "to, towards," and なの na no (copula) and states that they are used when modifying a noun such as 学校での人 gakkō de no hito (my own example) meaning "people at school." There are also からの kara no "from" and までの made no "until" that are not shown on that page, but as far as I know there is no にの ni no, and への is used instead. There may be other particles that can be followed by の in this way. There are other particle+particle compounds like には ni wa and にも ni mo (some are already listed in the article). The particle は wa can follow に ni, で de, へ e, と to, から kara, より yori, まで made, and の no. The particle も mo can follow all the particles that は can, but it can also follow を o. There's also the archaic をば o ba or woba (nowadays は replaces を rather than following it).

In addition, there are very common particle compounds using の no and に ni like の中に no naka ni "inside, within," の上に no ue ni "on top of, above," and の下に no shita ni "below, underneath." These also occur with で de with similar meaning, like の中で. I have also seen へ e used with these. I believe that に, で, and へ in these phrases have the same meaning as plain に, で, and へ, so の中に can also mean "into," but の中で means only "inside," and の中へ can only mean "into." 76.205.85.0 (talk) 08:16, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Ga vs wo

Can you add examples of when が and を cannot be interchanged? I'm just learning Japanese and would like some examples. --  Denelson83  00:10, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

In most cases, が marks the subject, を marks the object. I struggle to think of any case where they could be interchanged without drastically altering the meaning. Examples (linked through to Wiktionary):

1. リンゴを食べます。
2. リンゴが食べます。

• In 1 above, someone or something unmentioned is eating an apple -- the apple is the object of the verb "to eat": the apple is being eaten.
• In 2 above, an apple is eating someone or something unmentioned -- the apple is the subject of the verb "to eat": the apple is eating.

Does that help at all? -- Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 17:37, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Gotcha. It marks which way the action is going. --  Denelson83  05:41, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. In English, this is expressed by word order -- "something eats an apple" vs. "an apple eats something" -- but in Japanese, the verb always comes at the end, so this is expressed by using the appropriate particles instead, as above. If you've ever studied Latin, the placement of the verb is more fluid than in Japanese (i.e. it doesn't have to come at the end), but the grammatical relationships between the nouns in the sentence are similarly marked by different endings. Latin uses case endings instead of particles, but the net effect is the same (and frankly Japanese is a bit easier that way as there isn't any grammatical gender, making things simpler). -- Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 06:04, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

• I believe there are cases with the potential forms of verbs where が and を can be interchanged. An example I have seen is 私は英語が/を話せます (I can speak English). In this, and possibly other special cases, the simple concept "が subject, を object" becomes somewhat fuzzy. 86.148.154.226 (talk) 02:29, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
  • PS, I have just this moment noticed that this is also mentioned in the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_particles#ga_and_o. It mentions two other cases, but not the potential verb case. 86.148.154.226 (talk) 02:34, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

    Using を with potentials in this way appears to be a relatively new development. I was taught that this is incorrect usage, and reading around online, it sounds like を is still considered incorrect in academic and formal contexts.

    The orthodox academic view of the potential form of a verb is that it is an intransitive verb form, and if I've understood things correctly, it is meant to describe a quality of the subject -- so 日本語が話せます would be closer in some ways to Spanish "se puede hablar japonés" -- "Japanese can be spoken". Imagine if English had no verb "can" to express ability, and you had to say things like "that is readable for me" instead of "I can read that".

    The growing use of を with the potential form seems like it could be restricted to certain kinds of verbs, suggesting that this might represent a gradual shift in semantic meaning for those verbs. Other verbs have undergone a similar evolution historically, where potential forms came to be used as regular transitive forms in modern Japanese. Examples include つける (tsukeru) from つく (tsuku) or 届ける (todokeru) from 届く (todoku), where both forms are still in use, or 教える (oshieru) from 教う (oshiu), where the root form has fallen into obsolescence. Other verbs developed differently, where the potential became the modern intransitive, and the causative became the modern transitive, such as 解ける (tokeru, intrans) and 解かす (tokasu, trans), both ultimately from root form 解く (toku, historically could be either trans or intrans, now just transitive).

    This change to using を with the potential also seems like an influence from English, where the potential verb construction ("can") describes the actor, the person doing the verb, rather than the thing that one is able to do. This influence appears more clearly in the -たい (-tai) construction for "want to [verb]". This was previously used as an adjective describing the object of the verb regular -- それを食べる (sore o taberu) > それが食べたい (sore ga tabetai), with the -tai construction having no easy literal translation into English, coming across semantically a bit like "that is something that [I, you, he, she, it, etc.] want(s) to eat." What we have now in modern Japanese is an in-between state, where the -tai construction is either an adjective describing a quality of the object of the regular verb (where that noun becomes the subject of the adjective and is marked with が as a subject), or an adjective apparently describing the state of mind of the speaker (where the subject is the speaker and the object of the regular verb is marked with を as an object). The change for the -tai forms into a transitive construction makes zero sense from a purely Japanese grammatical perspective, where -tai is an adjective (c.f. *それを赤い [*sore o akai]), but it does make sense after considering the influence from English, which everyone in Japan has to study for at least three years of middle school, and which everyone who goes to high school also studies for another three years.

    TL;DR version: Feel free to use を with potential verb constructions and -tai constructions when talking with friends and in casual situations, but be sure to use が in academic, business, or other more formal situations. -- Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 01:23, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar, says, of the use of が/を with potential forms, "In general, the choice between が and を seems to depend on the degree of volition expressed in the action the experiencer takes. That is, if his volition is high, を is preferable." It then gives a couple of examples where it says が is "unnatural", including 私はやめようと思えばいつでも今の仕事を/*がやめられる. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.108.51 (talk) 19:36, 24 May 2012 (UTC) (BTW, if you have any advice on my question below about な, that would be welcome...)

• I spent some time the past couple days talking about this issue with a native-J coworker of mine who also teaches Japanese at the local community college. Her take on this is that the を can indeed be a marker of more explicit volition, as you note above from your book source. However, she also said that choice of particle here is not as cut and dried as I was led to think by my past teachers, nor possibly as cut and dried as A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar seems to say. Examples showing different particle usage:

• with を: "いつでも仕事をやめられる", 34 hits
• with が: "いつでも仕事がやめられる", 15 hits
• with は: "いつでも仕事はやめられる", 8 hits

Successively less common, but each shows hits in what appear to be fluently written Japanese.

My guess would be that we have 1) prescriptivist advice on how "proper" Japanese should be used, which is important to know for academic, professional, and other more formal contexts; and 2) examples of how everyday Japanese actually is used, which is important to know for informal contexts and just generally getting on in the language. I've learned here that the prescriptivist guidance I was given might be out of date, so without more input from native speakers, I'm feeling increasingly out of my depth for advising anyone else on whether certain of these verbal constructions are verboten in any given social context.

• Note that the above is just about the potential form of verbs. Whether to use を or が for -たい (-tai) constructions indicating "want to..." seems to follow broadly similar lines, but with が appearing more prevalently. Examples:

• with を: "を食べたいです", ~10.4M hits
• with が: "が食べたいです", ~21.6M hits
• with は: "は食べたいです", ~6.95M hits

が might be winning out here because the -tai ending is still viewed as an adjective, and adjectives take subjects (が) but not objects (を). But it is clear that there is no hard-and-fast rule here, and the "volition" mentioned in the grammar dictionary is probably one factor affecting which particle native speakers choose.

Summary: Language is messy, like life. Broadly speaking, choose を if your focus is on the verb; が if it's on the noun; and は if it's on the noun, but with negative overtones -- such as when there is a "but" coming later in the sentence -- or if the noun marked with は indicates a change in topic.

(And I'll have to respond about な later, I'm out of time. :) ) -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 21:18, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

な

To me it looks odd to have the な-adjective sense lumped together with the other uses all in one section. As I understand it, and as the article seems to confirm, this is etymologically a completely different word, so should have its own section. I suggest these are split into な₁, な₂ etc., but my problem is that I do not know whether all the other senses are etymologically the same, so whether there should be two sections or more. Any ideas? 86.148.154.226 (talk) 02:18, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Heya, had some time to look at this. The article gives the following for kinds of な, for which I've added etymologies:

1. Verb, negative imperative: Root stem of the negative adjective ない.
2. Verb, positive imperative: Contraction of the imperative suffix なさい.
3. Na-adjective particle: Contraction of なる, used as the copula in old Japanese and now equivalent to the modern Japanese verb "to become". You can still use なる with な adjectives, and this gives a formal and/or archaic feel. 静かなる青山 (shizuka naru seizan) -- sounds poetical.
4. Sentence ending particle: Probably cognate with ね and of essentially the same meaning, albeit slightly more informal.

Does that help at all? -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 17:01, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Meaning of アラビア語って難しくない？

I must say that I really don't like this example because it's got three different possible meanings and I believe it needs to be changed. These could be:

• When asking a question to someone, without stresses: i.e. アラビア語って難しくない？, "Arabic─isn't it difficult?" (This is what I originally thought when I read it at first reading and I agree with Oda Mari that if this example must be used it's the most reasonable translation.)
• When asking a question to someone, but with a stress on the end: i.e. アラビア語って (breath) 難しくない!?, "Are you saying that Arabic isn't difficult!?" (Arguably makes more sense as the sentence: アラビア語って難しくない! "Arabic isn't difficult at all!")
• Finally, it could be someone talking to themselves: i.e. アラビア語って難しくない（んだ）, "Oh, so Arabic wasn't difficult after all" (I think this was what the original sentence was getting at, hence my earlier edit, but definitely it's the most obscure)

Regardless I question whether an example should be so ambiguous and it's the fact that the sentence ends in a negative which is making it awkward, it's got nothing to do with the particle "って". How about "あなたって優しい人ね" "(Wow,) you're a kind person" as the example? (Admittedly I'm struggling to work out a way of getting across that the fact that the person is kind is a revelation to the speaker, but at least it's not ambiguous, also I think it's a better example of replacing って with は). Feel free to correct me - I'm no grammar expert, hence my post on this talk page first! Thank you for reading, JTST4RS (talk) 17:42, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

アラビア語って難しくない？ is a standard question to ask someone. If you want to say "Are you saying that Arabic isn't difficult!?", it would be アラビア語が難しくないって言うの？. "Arabic isn't difficult at all!" would be アラビア語って少しも難しくないよ。When someone asking/wondering themselves, it would be アラビア語って難しくないのかな？ or アラビア語って難しいんじゃないのかな？ I don't think the example is ambiguous, but if you want to change, I don't mind at all. Hope these pages are helpful. [5], [6], and [7]. Oda Mari (talk) 10:19, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for taking your time to explain it to me, that's clarified it very well! I think I was over-thinking it having originally been perplexed by the example; definitely "アラビア語って難しいんじゃないのかな？" makes far more sense than the third bullet point... I could swear I have seen the second bullet point used before - though more than likely now, I misunderstood. Regardless, I certainly have heard of アラビア語って少しも難しくないよ, which does indeed sound natural - I am fully convinced that there is no ambiguity in the example. It's never going to be my favourite example but I'm not going to change it, I can't see it being productive if editors changed perfectly valid examples simply because they prefer other ones. Thanks for coming up with the additional alternatives and searching for the examples too, they were very helpful in convincing me, JTST4RS (talk) 11:03, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Wow!

I think this article is simply marvelous. It makes me wish I could practice Japanese with somebody. 172.56.27.160 (talk) 10:50, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Types of particles section

I don't read/write/speak Japanese (except for a few words picked up at the sushi bar), but it seems there are some discrepancies (in bold below) at Japanese particles § Types of particles:

Case markers (格助詞 kaku-joshi):

が, の, を, に, へ, と, で, から, より

ga, no o, ni, e, de, kara, yori

The 9 hiragana items romanize (using the table at Hiragana § Writing system) to:

ga, no, wo, ni, he, to, de, kara, yori

but the 7 romanized items would transcribe (using {{Hiragana}}) to:

ga, no o, ni, e, de, kara, yori

Parallel markers (並立助詞 heiritsu-joshi)

か, の, や, に, と, やら, なり, だの

ka, no, ya, ni, yara, nari, dano

The 8 hiragana romanize to:

ka, no, ya, ni, to, yara, nari, dano

(i.e. the to is missing from the romanization)

Sentence ending particles (終助詞 shū-joshi)

か, の, や, な, わ, とも, かしら

ka, no, ya, na, tomo, kashira

The 7 hiragana romanize to:

ka, no, ya, na, wa, tomo, kashira

(i.e. the wa is missing from the romanization)

Binding particles (係助詞 kakari-joshi)

は, も, こそ, でも, しか, さえ, だに

wa?, mo, koso, demo, shika?, sae, dani

The 7 hiragana romanize to:

ha?, mo, koso, demo, shika?, sae, dani

(ed.) I now see in the second table that shi is romanized as shi, so shika is apparently correct. I also see the note that ha is sounded as wa when used as an article. Does this mean we romanize it as wa also?

BTW, I didn't see a template that does the reverse of {{Hiragana}}, i.e., romanizes Hiragana to Latin characters. Is there or should there be one? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 22:51, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

I added the missing romanizations and missing commas. I'm not sure how one would show the discrepancy between how particles like "は" are pronounced vs. how they are romanized. It's pronounced as "ha" unless it's used as a particle (as in this case), when its pronounced as "wa". を and へ are often romanized as "wo" and "he", but they are pronounced as "o" and "e".

Again, I'm not sure what the best way to show this would be, but I fixed what I could and romanized based on pronunciation, not typical romanization. I'm not particularly attached to this, so someone can change it to display the typical romanization if that's what you feel is best. Mcampany (talk) 19:55, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

@Mcampany: Thanks. Can you clarify something? In the table at Hiragana § Table of hiragana, it says that ha and he are pronounced [ɰa] and [e] when used as particles, but that wo is always pronounced [o], right? I would suggest that we use the ha/he/wo romanization and add notes about the pronunciation, ok? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 22:08, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

@AlanM1: That sounds great, go for it! Mcampany (talk) 00:41, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

"それ と これ と" means "that or this"?

Never knew it could also mean "or". Didn't find anything on it on the web too. Rozchwierutany (talk) 14:19, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Split list

Over half of this article is a table containing the list of particles. However, since Wikipedia articles are required to be primarily prose, I feel that we should spin off the table into a separate list, List of Japanese particles, so that this article will remain largely prose. Tikisim (talk) 15:21, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Conditional form ても

The particle も means "even if" if you put it after the て-form of a verb.

Example sentences:
「うるさくても、寝られます」
"Even if it's noisy, I can sleep."
「洗濯はいつやってもいいですか。」
"Can I use the laundry any time?"
So the sentence means "Even if I used the laundry any time, would that still be good?"

Should we add this definition to the particle も? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.8.47.126 (talk) 04:48, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

と is called preposition but it's a postposition

Hi,

In the article it says: Noun: preposition Boku to ikitai? 僕と行きたい？ Do you want to go with me?

The word comes after its head, not before it, so in Japanese it's a postposition. I know that it corresponds to an English preposition, but that is not what the column is referring to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.107.178.197 (talk) 15:26, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

What do the reliable sources say? That's all that matters. Canterbury Tail talk 15:28, 14 January 2021 (UTC)