Say what something is, whose it is, and where it is

Japanese has no verb “to be”. One character closes the sentence instead, another one hangs ownership off any name, and a different verb says a thing is there depending on whether it moves itself.

≈ 4 min of reading · Practise at your own pace

What’s in this chapter

Japanese has no verb “to be”; a single character, だda, closes the sentence instead.
Pointing splits three ways: ko near me, so near you, a away from us both.
There are no words for “my” or “her”: hang のno off any person or name.
Where something is: いるiru for anything that moves itself, あるaru for everything else.
To deny something, change the tail: a sentence ending in nai is denying something.

English leans hard on the verb “to be”. Japanese has no verb like it. A single character closes the sentence and means “that is how it is”: これは犬だ。kore wa inu da.“This is a dog.” The topic, what it is, and だda. No word for “a” or “the”, and no gender: 犬inu is “dog”, “a dog”, “the dog” and “dogs” at once, and the sentence decides which.

Pointing near me, near you, and further away

Where English has this and that, Japanese splits pointing three ways by distance. Read across each row.

	near me	near you	away from us both
the thing itself	これkore“this”	それsore“that”	あれare“that over there”
the place	ここkoko“here”	そこsoko“there”	あそこasoko“over there”

One pattern, six words.

Hang の off anything and it owns the next word

There are no words for “my”, “your” or “her”. Add のno to a person or a name and it owns whatever comes next.

わたしwatashi“I”

わたしのwatashi no“my”

one character does the work of English “’s” and “of” at once

ミナMina

ミナのMina no“Mina’s”

names work the same way — there is no separate set of possessive words

わたしのなまえはwatashi no namae wa“my name” ミナだMina da“is Mina”.

わたしのなまえはミナだ。

watashi no namae wa Mina da.

Literally “as for my name, Mina”. なまえnamae“name” is a new noun, and the topic label はwa goes on the end of the whole phrase, not on the first word.

Saying that something is there

Japanese picks its “there is” verb by what the thing is. The middle column is what decides.

Verb	Used for	Example
いるiru	people and animals — anything that moves itself	猫がいるneko ga iru“there is a cat”
あるaru	objects, plants, places, ideas	水があるmizu ga aru“there is water”

Trees take あるaru despite being alive — the line is really “moves on its own”. The little がga marks the doer; the next section covers it.

Say that something is not so

To deny something, Japanese changes the end of the word rather than adding a word like “not”. A sentence ending in nai is denying something.

だda“is”

じゃないja nai“is not”

the “X is Y” frame, denied: わたしのいえじゃないwatashi no ie ja nai“it is not my house” — いえie“house” is a noun to pocket

みるmiru“see”

みないminai“do not see”

a verb changes its own end — there is no word for “do” anywhere

あるaru“exists”

ないnai“there is none”

the odd one — it loses its front instead. Spotting a final ないnai is the reading skill; building it comes later

Three frames, one at a time

これは猫だ。
this · cat · that is how it is
Show answer +Hide answer −
kore wa neko da — “This is a cat.”
ミナのなまえ
Owner first.
Show answer +Hide answer −
Mina no namae — “Mina’s name.”
そこに水はない。
One of these words is the odd denial.
Show answer +Hide answer −
soko ni mizu wa nai — “There is no water there.” あるaru denied is simply ないnai.

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