Japanese Prepositions in a Nutshell

As of late’s matter is a uniquely difficult one: prepositions in Japanese.

We’re going to have to get aware of flipping ideas round from how we in most cases perceive them in English.

I gained’t lie: It’s a massive problem in the beginning, however after a handful of follow, with out even noticing it, this new manner of enticing with language will change into 2d nature.

Japanese prepositions

Japanese prepositions serve as in a similar fashion to English prepositions, however are in reality postpositions and are positioned after the noun they’re informing.

Variations from English

I’m going to get started by way of complicated you proper off the bat. Simply a heads up!

So, prepositions are if truth be told only one part of a grammatical idea referred to as adposition.

The opposite part are referred to as postpositions. See? Pre and publish. One comes prior to, the opposite comes after.

English virtually solely makes use of prepositions. Japanese, then again, makes use of publishpositions.

That mentioned, regardless of the adaptation in location, they function just about the similar manner, so I’ll be referring to the entire idea as prepositions from right here on out.

What are prepositions?

Prepositions are form of like “helper” phrases. They assist us upload knowledge, particularly by way of appearing the connection of nouns to the remainder of a sentence.

In English, we put the preposition prior to a noun to upload knowledge. Those are phrases like “to, at, in, on, thru, with,” and so forth.

Let’s paintings with an instance: “I’m consuming underneath the desk.” Right here, the noun we’re including to is “the desk” and the preposition is “underneath.”

In Japanese this could take a look at little other (ok, a lot other). Let’s examine.

First, we’ll want a few phrases:

I’m = 私は

consuming = 食べてる

underneath = の下に

the desk = テーブル

How this if truth be told appears in Japanese is that this:

私はテーブルの下に食べてる。
Watashi wa teburu-no-shita ni tabeteru.

Some extra main points on Japanese prepositions

Thus far we’ve realized that, in contrast to English, prepositions in Japanese come after the noun.

Moreover, what we most often name prepositions in English are if truth be told unfold out a bit throughout grammatical portions in Japanese.

There are adverbs, debris, and extra that finally end up taking at the position of preposition/postposition in Japanese.

Speaking about prepositions in Japanese

The Japanese phrase for preposition is 前置詞 (zenchishi). This phrase is made up of the characters meaning “prior to,” “placement,” and “a part of speech,” respectively.

The Japanese phrase for postposition is 後置詞 (kochishi). This phrase is nearly the similar as the former one, except for the primary persona is now the only which means that “after.”

With regards to postpositional phrases, we must additionally quilt the phrase for debris, 助詞 (joshi), since many debris are in reality postpositions.

This phrase could also be identical to the previous ones, except for it is just two characters lengthy. The final persona is identical, and the primary persona method “assist, lend a hand.”

In the end, if we would like to speak about adposition (keep in mind, that’s the phrase for each prepositions and postpositions), we want to know 接置詞 (secchi-shi).

Ah, sure, any other acquainted one. On this case, once more handiest the primary persona has modified. Now we’re taking a look on the persona for “contact, adjoin, piece in combination.”

Record of Japanese Prepositions

How Japanese prepositions are used: examples