Japanese particles 助詞

joshi · from Japanese

What are Japanese particles?

Japanese particles are short postpositions such as は wa, が ga, を o and に ni that mark the grammatical role of the word before them.

Particles do the job that word order and prepositions do in English. The は vs が distinction (topic vs subject) is famously subtle. Sentence-ending particles like ね and よ add mood.

Examples

私は wa (topic); 猫が ga (subject); 本を o (object); 東京に ni (to Tokyo); 学校で de (at school)

Kungfucius says: は or が: the eternal Japanese question no textbook has ever fully answered.