Page 88 - Basic Japanese

translate ‘the.’ And they usually leave it up to the situation

to make it clear whether there are several things in question
or just one, unless they want to focus your attention on the
number itself, in which case the number word indicates just

how many you are talking about. The Japanese, like
everyone else, do not always bother to express things they

think you already know. This doesn’t mean they lack ways
to say things we do; it just means they leave implied some

of the things we are used to saying explicitly. Americans
tend to use watashi and anata too much. Remember to omit

pronouns when the reference is clear.

2.6. Particles

In English, we usually show the relations between words in
the way we string them together. The sentences ‘Jon loves
May’ and ‘May loves Jon’ both contain the same three

words, but the order in which we put the words determines
the meaning. In Japanese, relations between words are often

shown by little words called particles. This lesson will
introduce you to several of these particles: wa, ga, ka, no,

and ni.

2.7. wa

The particle wa sets off the TOPIC you are going to talk

about. If you say Watashi wa gakusei desu ‘I am a student,’ the
particle shows you are talking about watashi ‘I’—what you

have to say about the topic then follows. A pidgin-English

way of translating this particle wa is ‘as for’: Shinbun wa koko
ni arimasu ‘As for the newspaper, it’s here.’ But it is better

not to look for a direct translation for some of these