Page 335 - Basic Japanese

静か(だ) shizuka (da) (is) quiet

便利(だ) benri (da) (is) convenient

不便(だ) fuben (da) (is) inconvenient

Structure Notes

7.1. Quotations

When you want to quote what somebody says, asks, thinks,
believes, writes, etc., you either do it directly by quoting his

exact words, or indirectly by giving the gist of what he says.
So you can say either, “Kenji said, ‘I’m going to see a
movie,’” or “Kenji said that he was going to see a movie.”

The former is a direct quotation, and the latter is an indirect
quotation. The equivalent Japanese sentences are as

follows:

健二は「映画を見に行く。」と言いました。

Kenji wa “Eiga o mi ni iku.” to iimashita.
Kenji said, “I’m going to see a movie.”

健二は映画を見に行くと言いました。

Kenji wa eiga o mi ni iku to iimashita.
Kenji said that he was going to see a movie.

Notice how the tense of English verbs sometimes

changes when we shift a direct quotation to an indirect
quotation while it doesn’t in Japanese, as shown above. The

Japanese quotation marks are ｢ and ｣ , but the particle to
shows that the preceding word, phrase, or clause is a

quotation, either direct or indirect.