The doing word waits at the end

A verb is the doing word: see, go, eat. In Japanese it comes last, and small characters stuck to the back of each piece say who did what, so the pieces can move and the meaning holds.

≈ 3 min of reading · Practise at your own pace

What’s in this chapter

The verb — the doing word — goes at the very end, and nothing is allowed past it.
English shows who did what by position; Japanese sticks a small character on the back of each piece.
wa marks what the sentence is about; o marks the one being acted on. Swap them and the story reverses.
Japanese has pronouns and leaves most of them out; a sentence with no subject is ordinary, not sloppy.

The verb is the doing word — see, go, eat. English puts it in the middle: “I see the dog”. Japanese puts it at the very end, and nothing is allowed past it. English marks the doer and the done-to by position; Japanese marks them with labels stuck to the back of each piece, so the labels stay put and the verb stays last.

English order → Japanese order

Read the English row first, then the Japanese one. The same pieces in a new order, with a label on the back of each.

わたしはwatashi wa“I” みるmiru“see” 犬をinu o“the dog”

わたしはwatashi wa“I” 犬をinu o“the dog” みるmiru“see”

はwa — written ha, said “wa” — sits on the one the sentence is about; をo — written wo, said “o” — on the one acted on

猫はneko wa“the cat” みるmiru“sees” とりをtori o“the bird”

猫はneko wa“the cat” とりをtori o“the bird” みるmiru“sees”

swap the two labels and the story reverses: 猫をとりはみるneko o tori wa miru is the bird watching the cat

Words for I, you and other people

These are the words for I, you, he and she. What matters is how often Japanese leaves them out.

Japanese	In real Japanese
わたしwatashi“I”	usually left out; keeping it in draws a contrast
あなたanata“you”	rarely used, and can sound cold — people say your name instead
かれkare“he” · かのじょkanojo“she”	used, but a name is more common
わたしたちwatashitachi“we”	たちtachi is the “more than one” ending

Who is doing what is left to the situation. A sentence with no subject is ordinary Japanese, and the closing stories are full of them.

Find the doer, then the action

猫はとりをみる。
The last word is the action.
Show answer +Hide answer −
neko wa tori o miru — “The cat sees the bird.”
Which animal is doing the seeing in 犬をとりはみる。?
Look for which word carries はwa.
Show answer +Hide answer −
The bird. はwa is stuck to the bird and をo to the dog, so the bird is watching the dog.

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