Mastering the Basics of Japanese Particles

Particles are tiny little grammatical tags that clarify the relationships between words in a sentence. They aren't concrete words like "bear" or "pizza" and cannot stand on their own, but they're important. You'll see them in virtually every Japanese sentence.

Looking at the Japanese word for particle, 助詞(じょし) , we see 助 ("help" or "assist") and 詞 ("part of speech"). This is fitting. In Japanese, particles attach to other words in order to add context to a sentence by indicating what function a word (or even phrase) is playing within that sentence. Literally speaking, particles are parts of speech that help us connect words together.

If we translated the sentence "that bear is eating my pizza!" into Japanese, we'd end up using two particles:

In this post we'll talk about:

Japanese sentences vs English sentences

Differences due to sentence structure

In the post on the world's hardest languages, we talked about how languages can be analyzed in several ways. Linguists classify languages according to nearly 200 features, and one of those features has to do with how information within a sentence is organized.

This has broad implications for how sentences get organized in Japanese and English, but, for now, let's just look at a simple sentence:

Notice that the verb goes at the very end of a Japanese sentence, not in the middle.

Differences due to culture

Additionally, whereas most English countries are low-context cultures, Japan is a high-context culture (see the same link). This affects sentence structure in that English speakers tend to make information explicit, even when it is redundant, but Japanese speakers omit redundant information where possible.

So if we take a question like "Did you eat the pizza?", we might get responses like this:

In English, the responses explicitly re-affirm who did what. In Japanese, however, since the initial question correctly states who did the eating (you) and what was eaten (the pizza), the "JA 1" response doesn't repeat that information. In the "JA 2" response, the speaker makes use of the が particle, as it's now necessary to clarify that the pizza was eaten by the bear, not by me.

The key point

With this difference in mind, we end up with a somewhat profound insight into how Japanese sentences differ from English ones:

If it's necessary for a sentence to consist of more than just a verb, you (a) add in any necessary context words and (b) attach a particle that clarifies how those words relate to the sentence's main verb.

And now you might ask:

Why do Japanese sentences need particles, anyway?

When you saw that sentence about the pizza-eating bear, something like this might have gone through your head:

And that's an excellent question to be asking. The answer is a little abstract, so I'll make a metaphor.

Bear with me for a moment and imagine that you want to go to the Ueno Zoological Gardens in Tokyo. You can get to the zoo via bike or train, and your route will be impacted by the mode of transportation you choose: a train must follow tracks, but a bicycle probably won't ever follow train tracks. In other words, your destination is fixed, but your route is variable

In the same way, while every language is capable of communicating any message, how the sentence conveying that message will look depends on each particular language's structure and features. Just like a bicycle and train will take different routes to get to the same place, English and Japanese take different approaches to communicating the same message.

One of the key differences between English and Japanese is as follows:

Basically, lacking a strict word order like that of English, Japanese needs to take a different approach to making it clear which parts of a sentence are doing what.

And that's where the particles come in.

How to use Japanese particles

Now that you know a bit about Japanese sentences and what particles are for, let's see how you actually use particles. Below is a simple Japanese sentence with the particles highlighted in red.

This sentence includes three particles:

It'll take a bit of practice to remember which particles do what, but once you've got that down, actually using the particles is pretty easy. You just take the particle you want and attach it directly to the end of a word or phrase.

If you can wrap your head around that, excellent! Pretty much all Japanese grammar has to do with either how verbs change forms or how particles attach to nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. Even a lot of things that aren't particles (such as ため, "in order to", from our above example sentence) function in the same way that particles do: just tack them onto the end of the word or phrase they modify.

And now we can finally start talking about some basic Japanese particles.

The "case" particles: が, の, を, に, へ, と, で, から and より

In linguistics, grammatical case refers to the role a particular noun or noun phrase is playing in a sentence. Some languages show grammatical case via word order (like English) or by inflecting a noun (like Russian). In Japanese, case particles ( ) are used to show the relationship a noun or noun phrase has with the verb of a sentence.

These particles are so integral to how Japanese sentences work that Japanese actually has grammar points that turn adjectives into nouns (~さ and ~み, and also ~く) and grammar points that turn verbs into nouns (の, こと, and もの).

And now we can talk about nine basic Japanese particles:

Use the particle が to mark the subject of a sentence

Use the particle が (ga) to mark the subject of a sentence: the thing doing an action or the thing being described. We'll get a bit more nuanced than this, but in this very general sense, this particle is pretty straightforward:

Unfortunately, it's a bit difficult to translate が because we convey the subject of a sentence via word order in English. As you consume more Japanese content, you'll eventually develop a feel for it.

Use the particle の to show possession or belonging/association

The particle の functions exactly like 's (apostrophe S) in English:

It can also be used in the "X の Y" structure to mean "The Y of X", showing that Y somehow pertains to X.

You can even combine these two structures together:

Use the particle を to mark the direct object of a sentence

"Direct object" is a fancy linguistic term that basically refers to the thing you're doing. It's hard to define without using more fancy linguistic terms, so I'll instead give you a few examples and make the direct object bold:

A direct object is the movie you're watching, the pizza you're eating, and the history book you're reading.

In Japanese, you indicate that a particular thing is the direct object of a sentence by attaching the particle を (wo, pronounced "oh") to it:

It's difficult to translate を into English because we use word order to indicate that something is a verb's direct object in English, so try not to overthink things. As you consume content in Japanese and see more example sentences, you'll quickly build an intuitive feel for how to use を.

Use the particle に to show the direction of an action

Use に to say where you're going. For example:

You can also use に to communicate direction in a more abstract sense, such as who an action is aimed at:

The fancy way to explain this second usage of に is to say that it marks indirect objects.

Use へ to show a more general direction

The particle へ is also used to show where you are going, and it is generally interchangeable with に when used to indicate direction. Strictly speaking, に is used to indicate a destination, whereas へ indicates a direction.

Direction aside, there are a few set phrases that use へ:

Use the particle と to say "with" and make quotes

The most basic use of the particle と is simply to communicate togetherness. As shown in the following examples, it usually translates to "and" or "with":

Next, と can be used to make both direct and indirect quotes:

You will also see と used when making certain types of comparisons. You can learn these as you encounter them.

Use the particle で to show where an action takes place or the means by which an action is done

The particle で is used to show the location where something happens.

It's also used to define the scope of a statement:

You can also use で to show the means by which something is done, both in concrete and abstract contexts:

(Bonus) The particles から and より

The final two case particles are より and から.

から indicates the origin of something, and can be used in a variety of contexts:

より is used for making comparisons, and can be transated to "than".

As shown in our blog post on writing Japanese letters, より can also mean "from" in some specific contexts.

The "binding" particle は

And now we're ready to talk about the binding particle ( ) は, pronounced wa.

は is normally the first the particle taught by textbooks, such as Genki. It's usually taught with this specific structure:

This makes it seem like は means "to be", and this misunderstanding causes all sorts of problems. I've introduced は last, and in a completely separate category of particles, to try to avoid this issue.

Case particles vs binding particles

As we said above, case particles indicate that a particular word in a sentence is playing a particular grammatical role. They simply mark the the function of a word.

Rather than simply marking the function of a word, however, binding particles add meaning to a word. When I look up 係助詞 in my Japanese dictionary, it's defined as:

This is really important to understand. The particle は is something you add to a word when you want to give it additional nuance.

In particular, は is used to (a) add an element of contrast to a sentence, or (b) elevate an element of a sentence to the status of "topic".

Use は to show contrast

The first usage of は is pretty straightforward. It's used to add contrast to a sentence, as follows:

Here, the contrast is that you do drink tea, but you don't drink something else.

You can also use は to hint at contrast. For example, let's look at that sentence about cats and dogs from earlier:

If this person had expressed this same sort of idea but instead chose to use the contrastive は:

Then the nuance of the sentence would become "(I) like cats (but there's something else I don't like)".

Use は to indicate the topic of a sentence

Don't think too hard about this: if something is the topic of a sentence, it's the thing that's being discussed. Here's how a Japanese reference explains it:

We don't have a grammar point that corresponds to は in English, so it can be difficult to wrap your head around. It's kind of like using a colon to introduce a list:

It's as if you've held up a sign that says "milk tea", and everybody starts shouting things that apply to milk tea, and nobody is confused because the sign makes it very clear that the topic of discussion is milk tea.

Compare the following two sentences:

In the first sentence, we're making a statement about giraffe's necks. In the second sentence, we establish "giraffe" as the topic, and "necks are long" thus becomes a comment that refers to giraffes.

This is confusing! Japanese particles just don't make sense.

First, know that this isn't a "you" problem. This is confusing, full stop. We just don't have anything like Japanese's particles in English, so you've got no frame of reference to tie this stuff to, and that's not your fault. There's logic to how the particles work, but it'll take time to put your finger on because the particles follow a different kind of logic than English sentence structure does.

What I can promise you is that as you consume content in Japanese—as you see a bunch of sentences that include は and other particles, and as you make sense of those sentences, and as you gradually build a mental model of how Japanese organizes information in a sentence—all of this stuff will come together. You might not be able to clearly explain what each particle does, but you'll grasp how they work.

I recommend bookmarking Wikipedia's list of Japanese particles and just periodically skimming through it. Notice what a particular particle does, say "huh, cool, I didn't know that," and then go on with your day. Enjoy the content you enjoy in Japanese, and when you come across that particle, take a moment to notice it—"huh, cool, I see you there." It'll sink in, slowly.

If you don't quite feel comfortable consuming Japanese content yet, look into Migaku's Chrome extension. It adds functionality to any Japanese text on your screen—Tweets, subtitles, blog posts, and so forth—that lets you do things like click on an unfamiliar word to see what it means or ask AI to break down an entire sentence for you, chunk by chunk.

You don't need Migaku to do that, of course... but you can try it totally free for ten days to see if it works for you. You don't need to enter any credit card information or anything like that, either.

Common sources of confusion

Many of the particles have multiple meanings, and some of these meanings can appear quite similar. Now that we've talked about several of the basic particles, let's address a few common points of confusion.

に vs で

に and で can be confusing because they both answer the question of "where". The key to distinguishing them is understanding that "where" is a pretty broad term that can ask for a few different types of information.

For example:

So while 学校で and 学校に are both correct, the type of information that comes with each one is different.

に vs へ

A long time ago, に and へ used to have different usages. At some point, へ began being used in similar situations as に. Today, they are largely interchangeable when communicating a direction of movement.

If we really want to split hairs, the nuance of each particle is slightly different:

And this lets us make an important clarification:

は vs が

I agree with you: は vs が is tough.

As a matter of fact, Japanese people agree with you, too: somebody literally wrote an entire book comparing the two particles. I'm not going to be able to do in a few paragraphs what took a Japanese linguist an entire book, so I'm going to take a different strategy with this section of the article.

Differentiating subjects and topics

Part of the trouble you're having is because, in English, the topic and subject of a sentence are pretty much alawys identical. I can't personally think of a natural sentence where they aren't, at least.

So let's look at this Japanese sentence I shared earlier:

I think it's pretty cool, from a linguistic perspective. That's because:

Which I understand is clear as mud.

But remember way back in the beginning of this article how I said that Japanese sentences revolve around the verb? That was a slight oversimplification. They actually revolve around what's called the predicate, which you can understand to be a verb or a noun/adjective attached to です.

With this in mind, we're in a better position to break this sentence down:

It's hard to cleanly explain that with English logic, but if you pay attention, you'll see this topic-comment structure all over the place in Japanese. Eventually, it'll begin to feel natural.

And now let's get into the rules of thumb.

Use は to reference old information; use が to to introduce new information

If you're mentioning something for the first time, bring it up with が. After you've mentioned it once, you can use は to reference it.

Notice that we actually do the same sort of thing in English! If you mention something for the first time, you use a or an. Once you've mentioned it, you can then use the to reference that thing moving forward.

Consider: A man walked into a forest with a pizza. The man left the forest with no pizza. Oh, the intrigue!

Use は to make judgments; use が to make observations

If you're seeing something and somehow interpreting it—giving an opinion, casting a judgment, making an evaluation—use は. If you're making note of a natural phenomenon, something that exists independent of you and your thoughts, use が.

Use は for sentences; use が for clauses

A clause is a fancy grammatical term that refers to a chunk of a sentence. Some clauses can stand on their own (Sami writes.), while other clauses can't make a full sentence by themselves (If Sami writes...).

In Japanese, you should use は when you introduce something that pertains to the entire sentence, but use が when introducing something that is only relevant within one clause of a sentence.

Notice that ケーキは、とてもおいしかった。 ("the cake was very delicious") works just fine as a complete sentence. The clause 昨日彼女が作った ("that the woman made yesterday") adds extra information that describes the cake, which is just one part of the sentence.

Use は to introduce contrast; use が to point a finger

If you're trying to highlight a contrast between two things, or simply alluding to contrast, use は. If you're making a specific statement that exclusively applies to one specific thing, use が.

† Note: Given this particular nuance, some Japanese linguists argue that the contrastive は doesn't actually exist. According to them, the contrastive nature that は gives to some sentences is a byproduct of making something a topic and lifting it "above" the sentence.

Use は when stating a characteristic of something; use が or は when equating two things

You're going to need to work with me a bit on this one.

Imagine that we split a sentence in half and got something like {Part A:Part B}.

If "part B" is a characteristic of "part A", then you should use は:

If "Part B" is the same thing as "Part A", then you can use either が or は, but your choice will affect how the sentence needs to be organized. You often run into this situation in statements where you could replace one of the halves with a question word, as shown below:

As mentioned, we can replace "Mr. Tanaka" with a question word:

Both of these two sentence pairs mean the same thing, the nuance is just a little different.

Some practice exercises

That was a lot of information. Let's pratcice a bit, to make sure you've got these particles down.

Concluding thoughts

Particles are little grammatical tags that get attached to words (or phrases) in a sentence in order to show what function those words and phrases have in the sentence. They can be difficult for English speakers to get used to because we use word order to do the job done by Japanese particles.

If you're feeling a little overwhelmed, that's OK. We covered a lot of information, and we don't expect you to memorize it. So long as you loosely understand what each particle does, you'll gradually develop a more accurate understanding of how it works as you consume more Japanese content and see more particles used in more sentences.

Good luck!