Page 126 - Basic Japanese

It was Kōhei who saw Makoto.

幸平は誠を見ました。

Kōhei wa Makoto o mimashita.

Kōhei saw Makoto.

幸平は誠が見ました。

Kōhei wa Makoto ga mimashita.

It was Makoto who saw Kōhei.

Notice the shift of emphasis when one of the phrases is
made the topic and released from the focus of attention. The

most common focus of attention in both English and Japanese is
on something other than the subject. We say ‘Makoto saw
Kōhei.’ with a slightly heavier stress on ‘Kōhei.’ That is the most

COLORLESS way we can say it. In a similar way, the Japanese
will say Makoto wa Kōhei o mimashita. But in English we always
have to have a subject. A Japanese sentence is complete

without a subject—Go-han o tabemashita ‘I’ve eaten dinner’
(heaviest stress on ‘dinner’). In this case, it is quite common to

shift the emphasis over to just the verb itself, by taking the
object and turning it into a topic: ‘I’ve eaten dinner’ (heaviest
stress on ‘eaten’), as in Go-han wa tabemashita.

The particle o is also used to show the place where a verb of
motion takes place:

道を歩きます。

Michi o arukimasu.

(He) walks (in) the street 空を飛びます。