E-Learning Course | No. 19

Japanese form

3. postpositions

Next, we learn about postposition.

There are postpositions in Japanese.

Saru wa banana wo taberu

(The monkey eats a banana.)

Let’s take a look at the sentence.

“Ga” in “Saru ga” and “o” in “banana” are postpositions.

postpositions are very important.

postpositions determine the role of a word after it.

Saru wa banana wo taberu

“Ga” in “Saru ga” has the role of representing the subject.

Saru eat banana, which is the subject of Saru.

It means “Saru ga taberu”.

Then, let’s compare,

Saru  ga  banana  wo  tabemasu, and

Banana  ga  saru  wo  tabemsu.

Banana eat Saru, and the subject is banana because “ga” stands for the subject.

It means that banana will eat.

It is interesting.

Then, how about,

Saru ga banana wo tabemasu,

Banana wo saru ga tabemasu.

The order of saru and bananas is different.

However, since there are postpositions, the meaning does not change even if the order of the words changes.

The role of postposition is great.

Let’s look at postpositions a little more.

Ani  ga    natsu  ni  kuruma  de     umi  ni      ikimasu

Subject      time         method      direction

(兄が　夏に　車で　海へ行きます。)

My brother goes to the sea by car in the summer.

ga, ni, de, he, are postpositions.

Ani ga’s “ga” is the subject.

natu ni, the “ni” represents time.

kuruma de, the “de” represents a method or means.

umi he, the meeting “he” indicates the direction.

In this way, postpositions can be used to express various meanings.