Japanese/Lessons/Assembling simple sentences

To form a Japanese sentence, you just need to remember few simple rules:

• Personal pronouns are mostly omitted, or replaced with names:

  すき　だ - I like it/you

  ほんだくん　が　すき　だ - I like you (when talking to Honda-kun)

• A normal (full) sentence always ends with a verb (even if it is an attributive verb, usually called verbal adjectives or the Japanese true adjective; we will discuss this more thoroughly later) and, optionally, special sentence-ending particles (mostly used to convey emotions and emphasis) after it. One verb alone may be treated like a full sentence. No other parts of speech can form a sentence alone. To end a sentence which does not have any action, and simply describes qualities of objects ("a person is sitting" is not a description of a quality, but rather a continuous action), copula verb で　ある (or any of its forms, including だ) must be used.

  すごい - It's great

  いく　ぞ - I am going

  これ　は　ほん　だ - This is a book

  • Note that there are some exceptions when another particles are overtaking the だ copula (this note only applies to this only copula verb form; other で　ある forms do not have such exceptions) functions (for example, だ　か cannot end sentence, か is considered to possess verbal functions in this case).

    それ　は　ほん　か - Is that a book?

  • Another exception is that the subject of the sentence may sometimes be placed right after the end of a sentence (after the verb with all sentence-ending particles), but no particles may be added afterwards. This construction although rarely used, is acceptable in spoken language for emphasizing the person you are talking to or talking about:

    すごい　ねえ, ほんだくん - It's great, Honda-kun!

• If you want to give focus to an object or expression, put a が after it. If you want to give focus to what an object or expression does (to an action), put a は after it:

  ぼく　は　いく　ぞ - I'm *going*

  ぼく　が　いく　ぞ - It's *me*, who is going

  わたし　は　あなた　が　きらい　だ - I hate you.

• Time of the events is usually put at the beginning of the sentence:

  きょう　とうきょう　に　いく - Today I am going to Tokyo.