Page 118 - Basic Japanese

I ate steak yesterday.

3.2. Nouns with and without particles

Most nouns usually occur followed by a particle of some sort or

by the copula—kono hon wa…, go-han o…, byōki desu. Some nouns
occur either with or without a particle, with only a slight
difference in meaning. The time words listed in note 3.1 can be

followed by the particle wa or used alone without the particle:

毎日は仕事をしません。

Mainichi wa shigoto o

shimasen.

I don’t work EVERY day.

毎日仕事をします。

Mainichi shigoto o shimasu.

Every day I work.

When you use the particle wa, you are making the time word
the topic of your sentence. Often you are CONTRASTING what

happens at THAT time (… wa) with what happens at other times.
When a noun is used without a particle, it usually modifies
either the whole sentence or the verb phrase at the end; this

we can call the ADVERBIAL USE of a noun.

3.3. Particles から kara, まで made, and へ e

After place words, the particle kara means ‘from,’ the particle e
means ‘to,’ and the particle made means ‘to, as far as, up to.’ If