助詞 – Simple Explanation of Japanese Particles
Japanese particles are words which connect other words together in a phrase, or connect phrases to other phrases. When particles connect words together they add a little bit of information to the word they immediately follow.
Kind of like how prepositions in English which tell you when or where something is.
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Very basic Explanation of Japanese Particles
Think of Japanese particles prepositions in English that come after the word instead of before. Also, imaging that particles are greedy and want to fulfill as many grammatical functions as possible. Such as conjunctions like and, or, of etc.
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To make it even more simple, think of particles as words that simply add more information about the words they follow.
To make it even more simple, think of particles as words that simply add more information about the words they follow.
A Little Longer Explanation
English Sentences
Sentences are made of nouns and a verb. The verb in a sentence tells you what is happening and the nouns are the things or people involved in what is happening. So, to illustrate this look at the English words below:
cat
dog
bird
give
The first three are nouns and the last word is a verb. If I asked you to make a sentence with these words depending on the order of the words the meaning would change.
The cat gives the dog a bird
The bird gives the cat a dog
By only changing the order we can change the meaning of the sentence.
Japanese Sentences
For Japanese on the other hand, changing the order or the words does not change the meaning much.
猫
犬
鳥
上げる
猫 犬 鳥 上げる
鳥 猫 犬 上げる
The two sentences mean the same thing and are incomplete. We are missing the following information:
Who is doing the giving
Who is receiving
What is being given
Japanese Particles Solve the Problem
In English the word order tells us these details but in Japanese we don’t know how these animals are involved. That is where particles come in.
が :Who is doing the giving
に :Who is receiving
を：What is being given
Now, just plug these particles in and we get:
猫が犬に鳥を上げる
The cat gives the dog a bird
Yes, it is a strange sentence but at least it makes sense now.
Particles in Japanese can do even more
So, pretty much Japanese particles just tell you how the nouns in a sentence are involved with the verb.
Japanese particles are also used to connect other nouns together. Much like in English how the words like and, or , of etc. connect words.
猫と犬
cat and dog
cat and dog
猫か犬
cat or dog
犬の鳥
bird of dog / dog‘s bird
犬の鳥
bird of dog / dog‘s bird
Finally, Japanese particles can also come after verbs. When they come after verbs though there is not any need to think too much about it. Just think of them like conjunctions in English. Conjunctions are words that connect multiple sentences together such as, because, and, but etc.
お腹がすいているから、何かを食べる
Because I am hungry, I am going to eat something
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