Can anyone give me some advice on Japanese sentence structure. I know it goes subject, object,… - Feed Post by Yaldaboath
Can anyone give me some advice on Japanese sentence structure. I know it goes subject, object, verb, but what else is there for me to know and take note of?
posted by Yaldaboath
Comments 10
YOUTUBE "Lets learn basic japanese".
There are 52 well structured lessons there for you.
Though this page should go through grammar too :D
I've been thinking about trying to create a website or application specifically for learning how to deal with sentence structure in Japanese. Problem is, sentence structure is one of the things I struggle with most about Japanese! After learning Japanese so long, I even think my sentence order in English has become kind of abnormal... :D
It would be really neat if someone has already created my idea, however I haven't seen anything vaguely close to what I'm thinking of doing.
My idea is basically to have a list of all the different parts of speech (nouns, verbs, particles, ...) and parts of sentence (direct object, topic, grammatical subject, dependant clause, relative clause, ...). Then let the user add anything they like from these lists into a blank sentence canvas. And then let the user drag the words, particles and part of sentence blocks around in whatever order they like. Then have the website/application tell the user whether the sentence structure they've created is correct, incorrect, uncommon, ridiculous, etc...
Then also, maybe include a drop down list of several example words that can be used for each part of speech. Then give a literal translation of what the sentence construction means in English.
More like a dream than something I'm likely to attempt to make any time soon though. ^^;
That's a wonderful idea!! And actually would come in handy. If anyone finds anything like that please let me know. ありがとうございました!!- I thought there is no officially way to do sentence structure correctly in japanese. I read somewhere that people just agreed on subject object verb or something like that.
- @GreenyNeko, There are still a lot of other things which have to be done in a correct order and follow set-in-stone rules, where otherwise the sentence will be either nonsensical or completely grammatically incorrect. There is much more to writing a sentence than just SOV.
There are obvious things like particles having to come after the word/phrase they act on. But there are obviously much more complicated matters...
Things like this: If you want to use a verb phrase as the topic of a sentence, you first have to do something like nominalise it. You can't just shove は after the plain form of the verb and hope that it will just make perfect sense.
Anyway, I haven't progressed at all on this project since when I last posted. I've not started any actual development. I'm still really keen on having a go at making this application/website. I really think that if I manage to create it exactly the same as how I can visualise it should be in my mind, then this could be an extremely useful tool. Sadly I don't think I'll be starting on it any time soon--probably will be several months before I can even start properly on it--but I definitely plan to make this some day. ^^ - The thing is there are no official rules to the word order from what I read. That means you can also write the verb first always. Or use the English grammar (Watashi wa namae desu yagami raito.) The sentence would be correct but... yeah... you just don't usually. :D
As I said from what I read people agreed on certain rules that are not written down officially or anything to make it easier to communicate by using the same sentence structure.
Oh well the internet could also be telling lies I don't know.
If you want I can help you with my javascript, HTML and CSS knowledge. ^^ :D - There is no way that sentence you wrote makes sense. "desu" has to come at the end of that sentence--in any other position the sentence is grammatically incorrect.
Verbs still have to come at the end of the sentence. Subject and object can be said the oposite way around though, because they are marked with particles.
"desu" links together the subject and complement (object) of the sentence. "desu" is basically the particle "de" and the verb "arimasu" (to be) combined into one word, but its use is simply as the copula between the subject and its complement. Because "de" is a particle it has to be attached directly after the phrase it acts on. Because "arimasu" is the verb, it would come at the end of the sentence. So "desu" is like a verb and also has to be attached to the complement, to link it with the subject of the sentence.
In English, with SVO, we would use "is" in that sentence: "[My name] is [Yagami Light]".
In Japanese, with SOV, the copula is after the complement: "[My name] [Yagami Light] is".
subject = "watashi no namae"
complement = "yagami raito"
To mark the subject you use "wa".
To mark the complement and link it to the subject you use "desu".
It can only really be said as:
"watashi no namae wa yagami raito desu"
The only other option I can think of is if you only said "yagami raito desu" (leaving out the subject, if it is obvious enough that you are stating your own name). But if you then think the other person may misunderstand whose name you are talking about, then I think you can add "watashi no namae [wa]":
"yagami raito desu. --watashi no namae."
This isn't really a proper sentence though. "yagami raito desu" was the full sentence, just that you were not explicitly saying the subject. Adding "watashi no namae" afterwards is simply adding additional information after the sentence had already ended.
I could be very wrong about everything I said. I'm not that great at grammar as I don't practice it myself--I just read a lot of boring educational stuff and forget most of it. I've written way too much so I'll stop typing now... ^^; - Okay, I checked the topic again seems I misunderstood something about subclauses. So... yeah each subclause needs to end with a verb and everything before the verb refers to such.
Either way there still should be a category for all the particles and their correct combinations. Suffix and prefix practice and examples; adverbs etc. etc. xD - Yeah, with talking about "SOV" we're basically talking about the structure of a single clause. It's awkward that the word "sentence" is often used when we more specifically mean "clause", and since sentence and clause are the same thing in your example 'simple sentence'.
I obviously want to also cover complex and compound sentences, things like subclauses and relative clauses, using quoted sentences within sentences, and helping people understand which conjunctions are possible in different situations.
I really wish someone had made this tool already, because I'm very lazy about properly devoting time to projects like this. ^^
