Japanese Particles

If there is one thing that confuses students of the Japanese language as far as grammar is concerned, it would most probably be the elusive particle. A particle is an element of speech, and in most cases, corresponds to no equivalent in the English language. As an element of speech, it usually serves as a form of "direction", more or less "pointing out" to the listener what role a certain part of speech plays in the overall thought of the sentence.

It's for this reason that Japanese has often times been referred to as a left-branching language. This means that any modification to a word is done towards the left, in a manner like so:

where (C1) and (C2) represent clauses, and (X) represents either a noun or verb being modified. Similarly, words that branch from the left of particles give us an idea of the function of the said word in the context of the sentence as a whole.

This compilation of the various functions of particles has been made to aid the student in understanding the various uses of these particles. As a rule of thumb, remember that particles are elements of speech and grammar, and have no direct meaning in English. Any English equivalents used to aid in understanding are not meant to serve as direct translations for the different particles.



は (WA)
が (GA)
を (O)
に (NI) [UNDER CONSTRUCTION]
か (KA) [UNDER CONSTRUCTION]
と (TO) [UNDER CONSTRUCTION]

Topic
The particle は serves as a marker for the topic of a sentence. In casual conversations, a topic may eventually be omitted through the discourse as is understood by context, but the first statement with a word or phrase preceding the は particle is universally recognized as the topic of all subsequent discussions, unless explicitly stated that the topic has been changed. The yellow words in example 2 are an example of an omitted topic with the particle は.


Contrast
A topic preceding は can indicate a contrast to a previously introduced topic or idea. In the following example, "not eating anything" is contrasted with the previous idea of "eating breakfast everyday". The particle は may also serve as a contrastive element in negative sentences.

Subject of the Sentence
Before you get your hairs in a twist, what is meant here is that the particle が serves the function of presenting a NEW subject that is, otherwise, not known to the person you are speaking to. If a person asks "Who went with you on your trip", your answer could be "my brother", for example. When this is presented, the particle for "brother" would be が instead of は. This rule can be seen in the following example:

The particle が, therefore, presents NEW information, just as much as how you would say "It was my BROTHER" or "It's TOM", with added stress on these new bits of information.

In addition to this, if a question word (i.e. Who, what, when, where, why) is the subject of a sentence, the particle to follow it is ALWAYS が, and not は. Similarly, the subjects of any statement that answers a question asked with "WH-words" will use the が particle.



Subject of a Subordinate Clause
A subordinate clause is a small part of a sentence that expounds on the main subject of a bigger sentence. On a basic level, we'll focus on two types of subordinate clauses: temporal clauses and expounding clauses

Take a look at the following sentence:

This is an example of a sentence with a temporal clause, namely when my son graduated from college. When we say temporal, we're referring to a certain instance in time. The subject, the persona "I", is given the temporal clause to indicate that if there's any point in time I'm pertaining to, it's the time when "my son graduated", and not any other time.

In this sense, the subject "I" receives further clarification from the subordinate clause. The sentence can stand on its own as simply "I decided it was time for me to retire", but is further clarified with the addition of the subordinate clause. "I", in this case, is the main topic, and receives the particle は in Japanese. The other subject, "my son", would receive the が particle. Take note of the articles and the topics they refer to in the following translation:


The second type, expounding clauses, look like the following in English:

Everything pertaining to what type of book is being talked about is part of the subordinate clause known as the expounding clause. It does just that: it expounds more on an object which, in this case, is the book.

Take a look at what this sentence looks like in Japanese, and compare it to the same sentence with the subordinate clause taken out:

Long sentences like this that modify single nouns are quite common in Japanese. Whenever a sentence modifies a noun to expound on it, the subject of that sentence will use the particle が (or の in some contexts).

In the following examples, note the subjects that are underlined, and notice what particles were used for each subject:



Direct Object
が is the particle of choice for direct objects of Auxiliary adjectives such as たい (volitional), 欲しい (want/desire), and いい (good), and Stative verbs (see list at the end). In case you don't know what a direct object is, a direct object is a word which is the recipient of an action of a verb (i.e. transitive verbs). You can usually figure out the direct object of a verb by asking the question as to "whom" or "what" was done by the verb. In the sentence "I read a book", for example, you can ask "I read what?" ~ the answer being the word "book", thus making it the direct object.

There are other auxiliary adjectives and stative verbs which require が as a particle:

Direct Object
Most verbs call for the particle を when it acts upon a noun as a direct object. Besides the stative verbs and auxiliary adjectives mentioned, action verbs use the particle を.


Place with a verb of motion
The particle を indicates a place through which a certain motion verb (i.e. 行く ~ to go) takes place. Similarly, it may indicate the place where a motion verb begins or starts.