Guide To Learn Japanese

これ　は　わたし　の　かばん　ですkore wa watashi no kaban desu

So what does the above sentence means?

It means “This is my bag”

Let’s break down this slightly more difficult sentence.

これ　は　わたし　の　かばん　です

これ　”kore” means “this”
は　”wa” is a particle where new information is introduce here, so the speaker wants to give new information to the listener about the bag

わたし　”watashi” means “I” or “my”

の　”no” is a particle to show ownership of certain things

かばん　”kaban” means “bag”

です “desu” is copula or a word used to grammatically link a subject and predicate. The です”desu” is a probably a difficult word to understand. I will try to explain it as clearly and simply as possible. “Desu” is use only after a noun or an adjective. And its also to show politeness in speaking. It acts the same way as “is”. For now let’s look at sentence examples that has noun. Just like the above sentence, かばんです”kaban desu” has a noun which follow by です”desu”. So it simply means, “a bag” or “It’s a bag”.

Let’s look at another example.

ケーキです”ke-ki　desu ” So you can see that it means “a cake” or “its a cake”. です”desu” always comes after a noun.

And “watshi no kaban”わたし　の　かばんmeans, “my bag”. ”わたし　の” refers to “my” or “mine”.

So same goes to わたし　の　がっこう”watashi no gakkou” means “my school”.

The above sentence これ　は　わたし　の　かばん　です　can now be understand more easily. It literally translate to “This my bag is” Japanese people always think of the most important or main point first before going to the lesser important information. In this case “これ　は” is a very big and important information to tell to the listener. As you can see that は is being used here to introduce new information to the listener. The listener would be already looking at the object where the speaker is probably pointing or holding onto. That is why it is first being used in a conversation. Then follow by “わたし　の” which is the second most important point to get across to the listener. Think of and arrow that shoots from the “これ　は” to the “わたし　の” then follow by “かばん　です” And ”かばん　です” is the least most important information because the listener would probably already know that it’s the speaker’s bag.

Look out for the next post where I will discuss a little more in depth on sentence structuring. Japanese may seem difficult, but once you are able to grip how the Japanese people speak, you will start to understand how this language work.

Get the latest updates by subscribing to the mailing list!
-->

Related Posts

• A more in-depth look into Japanese sentence structure
• Your first Japanese sentance
• A Better Understanding on Japanese Particles part 1
• Japanese learners tend to be confuse with wa and ga
• Learn How to Change Japanese Verb Into a Noun Using “koto”

Filed under: Beginner's Guide |