「へ」Show a direction
「へ」Show a direction
Towards, to
The particle へ can be used similarly to に to indicate direction. The difference between the two is that に marks something as the final destination, while へ simply indicates one's movement towards a target.
夏休みに家族と海へ行く。
I’m going to the beach with my family during summer vacation.
毎週土曜日、友達と東京へ行く。
Every Saturday, I go to Tokyo with my friend.
So へ does not specify the goal of a movement, only that it is in a certain direction. It can be translated as towards or to. Compare the following two sentences.
京都に行く。
Go to Tokyo.
京都へ行く。
Go toward Tokyo.
Special Note
Similar to は being pronounced as wa, and not ha, when used as a particle, へ is pronounced as e, and not he.
Combining へ with は to mark the topic
In Japanese, each element of a sentence can represent a case, which tells us the function an element has in the sentence. As we learned in this lesson, the ～へ case can tell us the target toward which someone or something moves.
父が山へ行く。
Father is going to the mountains.
In this sentence, our case 山へ tells us that the father goes to the mountains. Each case can be turned into the topic of the sentence using は. Depending on the particle the element uses, the change to は looks a bit different.
Below you can see an overview of the changes that occur when going from case to topic.
が | を | に | で | へ | と | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Case | が | を | に | で | へ | と |
Topic | は | は | には | では | へは | とは |
Notice that when making へ into a topic, it combines with は to form へは. Let's now take our example from above and convert our ～へ case into the topic.
山へは、父が行く。
As for (going) to the mountains (as opposed to other places), my father will go.
So, what is different from the first version of this sentence? The most likely interpretation is that は is simply used to add a sense of contrast, indicating that the father will go to the mountains as opposed to other places. Without は, the sentence simply expresses that the father will go to the mountains, without the nuance of excluding other places.
Formation
東京へ
General Structure
東京へ行く。