If You Are Struggling with Japanese Sentences, Watch This! Japanese Sentence Structures

#JapaneseSentenceStructure #LearnJapanese

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[harupakajapanese]

Hi guys! I hope this video will help you out! Enjoy watching and listening to what you love in Japanese! 😀

[AJ-xxik]

"So, we talk about the details first, before telling you what we're describing" was an epiphany in Japanese sentence structure. Thank you!

[levant]

I think it's more helpful for English learners of Japanese, to call は the topic marker (it marks what it is you want to talk about), が as the subject marker (as it marks the noun that is doing the action), and を as the object marker (as it is the thing having the verb done to it).

[bokchoiman]

I like the term "acquiring" a language rather than "learning" it. Feels like a something of substance and more worth pursuing.

[Lugge]

Having learned Latin at school, where the verb also always comes at the end of the sentence makes the japanese sentence structure quite natural for me.

[japanmesmerises]

I have my N2 in Japanese. But wanted this info for my basic conversation course of beginners Thanks a lot, sensei!

[ecarter]

9:30 From what I've noticed, 'particles' also appear to be the counter to 'punctuation'. Technically, your example for 'subject, verb, object' order can be used to demonstrate why English has punctuation (and is such a difficult language to learn correctly for many, even native speakers), because it can disregard that order and still be correct. "I get up at 7", "At 7, I get up" and "I, at 7, get up" are in fact all valid; the first usage is simply the most 'common' usage in modern English.

[playalot]

As a native English speaker, I find that I never think about grammar at all! Weird! Haha, but in Japanese, I’m like… PLEASE GOD HELP ME MAKE IT MAKE SENSE!!! Haha❤

[Jakeishness]

honestly i've been studying japanese for a few months and the idea of the descriptors coming before the main subject of the sentence really helped things click!

[チョーレ]

I'd never saw a Video which explained japanese sentence structure this well! Thank you very much!

[kennysiu-HK]

you can set in different order in "English" too, 7;00 (7'o clock) is the time I wake up (woke up) that is with special meaning which for example emphasis the time, usually most people would say I wake up at 7. But you can arrange the order or sequence of English sentences.

[kenedy]

I am studying Japanese for a while and still had some problems with the structure. Through this video you guided me where i should improve. Thank you for the video, great work!!! otsukaresamadesu

[nnarcus]

This is exactly what I've been struggling with lately. I know lots of Japanese but it's hard for me to tie it all together. And the presentation style and design is very well made! Amazing video!
本当に　ありがとうございます！

[yunfengwu]

I love your English pronunciation, It's so clear~I'm going to look for other videos of sentence analysis. Hope I will get some~

[seinundzeiten]

wow you are a good teacher, I enjoyed the sentence structure break-downs and it helped me understand the Japanese language even more

[andrettax]

This video is actually really good, well made and helpful. I mean Haruka videos are always well-made but I think videos like these are more essential content to watch on YouTube to learn Japanese.

[rika]

Thank you a lot!! your video almost saved my life😭it is so "Benri", I've never seen such a good explaination!❤❤❤

[otakuwriter]

Thank you!! This is wonderful!! Also, useful information for Japanese learners-- if it's clear you're speaking about yourself, you can drop 私 watashi. It makes you sound more modest, if that makes sense.

[notx.]

This video is awesome! You make it very clear to understand. Anyway you said that the sentence structure of Japanese is opposite comparing to English, but you as a native Japanese speak English fluently! I just want to say, your hard work really paid off. You faced some tough challenges, but you accomplished it admirably.🎉

[OsakaJoe]

Your video is surprisingly on the right track to explain what other teachers and textbooks DON'T explain to non-native learners of English; that Japanese and English have different language structures, and that Japanese sounds weird when being made to mirror English language structure.
😁😆🎉🥳😄👏🎊

Teachers tend to NEVER explain that describing elements always come before the subject or predicate.

There are a couple of conflicting ideas though; you correctly tell us that descriptors come before the elements they describe, AND that the verb always comes at the end of a sentence. You then tell us that verb order doesn't matter in Japanese.

Verb order DOES matter in Japanese, just not in the same way it does in English. (Verbs come at the end, and descriptors come before the elements they modify etc.)

You give an excellent example of a descriptor 日本語を勉強している, and show us that it correctly comes before 私. However, there is a verb in this sentence, and it comes before 私 and not the end of the sentence. A verb in its dictionary form becomes a descriptor when it comes before a noun (usually a subject or object). Here, we see word order pretty much mattering.

Regarding particles, you do the mistake other teachers and textbooks do and that is to describe the particles in terms of what they appear to be doing in English structures.

は never marks the subject, only the topic. This is hard for English speakers because singing out something as a "topic, " is, as you say, something that happens in Japanese and not English. Japanese has what is called topic + comment structure, that when mirrored in English, sounds weird.

E.g.
私は日本語を勉強している。
As for me, (I) am studying Japanese.

は marks the topic, "me", and omits the subject (I), which is usually marked by が.

It would *appear* to mark the subject because "I am studying Japanese" is how we're told we're supposed to translate this sentence. We translate it this way to make it palpable to English speakers but that is not what is happening in the Japanese structure. Japanese structure is topic + comment structure, and the translation "I am studying Japanese" is hiding obscuring this fact.

が always marks the grammatical subject. You repeat the mistake other teachers and textbooks make and tell us "it can also mark objects." が never marks objects, only subjects. It would *appear* go mark objects in English translations of Japanese sentences, but that's not what is happening in Japanese.

「私は猫が好き」 does NOT MEAN "I like cats, " it means "As for me, cats are pleasing/likeable." The cats aren't the object being liked by "me, " the cats are the subject, being pleasing or likeable to me. The word 好き isn't a verb, it's an adjective; this is why you add な to it when describing elements. (好きな料理, pleasing food/favorite food). There is no direct translation for 好き, and that's what makes it confusing to English speakers.

So again, I really like that your are touching on the fact that English and Japanese have different structures, but don't reinforce the notion that there can be a 1 to 1 translation from Japanese to English because, even though it works in some cases, it's not always true.

Good video, but I would encourage you look deeper into the differences between English and Japanese structure.

May I recommend the book "Making Sense of Japanese" by Jay Rubin, and Cure Dolly's channel on learning Japanese. (Right here on YouTube)

You explain things rather well, and I encourage you to make more videos clarifying Japanese for foreign learners. Keep up the good work!

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