Lesson 2Sentence structure - word order
The word order in Japanese sentences is quite different from English. Let's look at the basic Japanese sentence structure ! (If you are looking for Japanese sentence models, please move on to sentence models)
Verb comes at the end of the sentence
Like English, the subject comes at the beginning of the sentence. But the verb comes at the end of the sentence. All other information (what, when, where...) comes in between the subject and the verb.
subject
わたしは
other information
when, where, with, to, by .... etc
verb
はなします
Word order between the subject and the verb
In between the subject and the verb, the word order is not very important as long as the words have the correct particles. In this part, you can change the word order without changing the meaning of the sentence.
subjectother informationverb
わたしは
ともだちと
スカイプで
はなします
I talk with my friends on Skype.
both OK
わたしは
スカイプで
ともだちと
はなします
I talk with my friends on Skype.
Words describing a noun
Words describing a noun are always placed right before the noun.
describing word
noun
Adjective describing a noun
たかい
くるま
expensive car
Noun describing another noun
トヨタの
くるま
Toyota's car
Phrase describing a noun
きょねん かった
くるま
The car that I bought last year
The reason / cause
The reason / cause is placed at the beginning of the sentence.
reason / causeresult
あめですから
テニスを
しません
I do not play tennis because it is rains.
reason / causeresult
たくさん
はたらきましたから
つかれました
I am tired because I worked a lot.
How did you do with Japanese sentence structure ?
Let's keep going and move on to the next step : particles !