と vs や – The Difference between to and ya in Japanese
と and や are both Japanese particles for listing or connecting other nouns together. Both of these particles can be translated from Japanese to English as the word and but there are two main differences between と and や. The first is that the nouns connected with と are all the possibles in a situation and や suggests there were other possible choices. Second, と can mean with showing something is done together with two people while や can’t express that same idea.
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や Tells you some and と Tells all
Let’s say you want to say Apples and Oranges in Japanese. You can use either や or と to connect these words. If you connect them with や it would means something like, Apples and Oranges and so on.
昨日リンゴやオレンジを食べた
yesterday I ate apples and oranges and so on
But if we swapped out the や for と it would means, Apples and Oranges.
昨日リンゴとオレンジを食べた
yesterday I ate apples and oranges
The difference is small but important. や suggests that there are more foods that were eaten and と suggests there were not. It is possible that there were other foods if you say と but the nuance suggests that you are listing everything.
と vs や for doing things together
Second, と can compare things or show something was done with someone else while や just connects things. Let’s take a look at two sentences.
太郎と次郎は毎日散歩している
Taro and Jiro are taking walks every day
太郎や次郎は毎日散歩している
Taro and Jiro and others are taking walks every day
The sentences above could either mean that Taro and Jiro are walking together or separately. For the first sentence only though, you can switch the と and は around and then it means only that they are walking together.
太郎は次郎と毎日散歩している
Taro walks every day with Jiro
The same thing can not be done for the second sentence with や though.
✖太郎は次郎や毎日散歩している
