PG008

16 Gram mar

Demonstratives

Pronouns beginning with ko refer to ‘this thing’ or ‘this place’; pronouns beginning with so refer to ‘that thing’ or ‘that place’ close to the person you are addressing; pronouns beginning with a refer to ‘that place’ or ‘that thing’ at a distance from both speaker and listener.

this/these    korę

that/those (close to you)    sore

that/those (far from you)    are

here    koko

there (close to you)    soko

there (far from you)    asoko

Nouns

Japanese nouns don’t indicate number; shokudó can mean ‘a restaurant’, ‘the restaurant’, or ‘restaurants’. The listener has to use context to guess how many restaurants are being talked about. The major exception is when speaking about people. See ‘Dł-AnAimo’ «««+;««

Place Words

These common place words are used after nouns to indicate relative location:

........no ue ni

........no ushiro ni

........no sobą ni

........no mae ni

........no naka ni

........no soto ni

........no shita ni

........no mukó ni

eki no naka ni ginkó no mukó ni

above behind beside front inside outside under opposite

inside the station inside the station opposite the bank

Particles

In Japanese, a number of particles attach themselves to words and phrases in order, basically, to indicate the relationship of the preceding word to the word or words that fol Iow.

wa

The particie wa indicates that the preceding noun is the subject of the sentence:

I am an Australian. watakushi wa ósutorariajin desu

I wa Australian am.

no

The particie no, placed between nouns, indicates that the second noun belongs to the first: