The Japanese Sentence Structure

When I first started learning Japanese, I find it difficult to start creating a simple sentence as I still don’t know at that time, how the structure of a Japanese sentence works. I instead focus on learning and memorizing vocabulary until I could create sentences.

Japanese sentence also has subject, verb, and object but the sentence structure is different from English.

In English, the structure sentence is:

　　　　　　　　　　Subject + Verb + Object

Ex: 　　I love ice cream.

‘I’ is the Subject

‘Love’ is the Verb

‘Ice cream’ is the Object

I will not be going to explain more about the English sentence structure.

But in Japanese, the sentence structure is:

　　　　　　　Subject + Object + Verb

Ex:　　私はアイスが好きです。(I like ice cream).

　　　(わたしはアイスがすきです。)

私は is the Subject

　アイスが is the Object

　好きです is the Verb.

わたし – I

アイス – Ice cream

すき – Like/Love

As you have notice, there is は,　が and です in the sentence. は and がare the Japanese particles and are important structure in creating Japanese sentence while です is a copula and it means the verb ‘to be’ or the ‘is, am, are, etc.’ I will discuss them in the next blog.

Example of Japanese sentence:

わたしはにほんがだいすきです。 (I love Japan)

　(私は日本が大好きです。)

わたし – I (Subject)

にほん – Japan (Object)

だいすき – Love (Verb)

ジャンはにほんごをべんきょうしています。(John is studying Japanese)

　(ジャンは日本語を勉強しています。)

　　　ジャン – John (Subject)

にほんご – Japanese (Object)

べんじょうしています – Study (Verb)

アンナさんはだいがくせいです。(Ms. Anna is a university student.)

　(アンナさんは大学生です。)

　　　アンナさん – Ms. Anna (Subject)

だいがくせい – University student (Object)

In this sentence, です plays the role of the verb as this sentence can stand alone without the presence of a verb.

わたしはとうきょうえきのまえにいます。(I am in front of Tokyo station)

　(私は東京駅の前にいます。)

わたし – I (Subject)
ときょうえきのまえ – in front of Tokyo station (Object)

えき – station (train station)

まえ – front

います – Japanese verb that expresses existence (for living things)

らいしゅうはにほんにいきます。(I will go in Japan next week.)

　(来週は日本に行きます。)

らいしゅう – Next week (Subject)

にほん – Japan (Object)

いきます – will go (Verb)

Japanese sentence doesn’t usually have spacing in between words. For me, this is hard especially when reading it as the sentence is composed of three different writing systems. But there is no impossible or ‘I cannot do it’ attitude if we want to learn it.

Note: I will be using the Hiragana of each Kanji as I haven’t discussed Kanji yet. Kanji is for example only.

I will see you in the next blog.

This is Ringo.