Page 188 - Basic Japanese

Sometimes a word is followed by more than one particle. In

such cases, the meaning of the last particle restricts the
meaning of the entire phrase leading up to it. For example,
in the phrase Nihon de wa, the particle wa sets off Nihon de ‘in

Japan’ as the topic. In koko ni mo arimasu ‘there’s some here

too,’ the particle mo gives a special ‘also’ meaning to the
phrase koko ni ‘in this place.’ In Tokyō kara no densha ‘the train

from Tokyo,’ the particle no makes the entire phrase modify

densha (what kind of a densha? the sort about which you can
say Tōkyō kara).

Particles that occur after other particles are usually only

the topic particle wa, the subject particle ga, the object
particle o, and the intensive particle mo; these particles have

somewhat more general meanings than those of to ‘with,’ ni
‘at, to,’ e ‘to,’ de ‘at,’ made ‘till,’ kara ‘from,’ etc. The particles

wa, ga, o, and mo never occur in sequences with each other—

their meanings are mutually exclusive.

Tanaka-san to wa saikin hanashite imasen. Yamada-san
to mo amari hanashite imasen.
I haven’t talked with Mr. Tanaka lately. I haven’t

talked with Mr. Yamada much, either.

Izakaya ni wa yoku ikimasu. Karaoke bokkusu ni mo yoku

ikimasu.
We go to an izakaya bar very often. We also
often go to a karaoke box, too.