Introduction to Japanese Grammar — Transcript

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1. 0:01[Music]
2. 0:07hi welcome to introduction to Japanese
3. 0:09my name is Alicia and I'm joined by hi
4. 0:12everyone I'm Risa in this lesson you'll
5. 0:14learn the basics of Japanese
6. 0:18grammar word order refers to the order
7. 0:21in which words are structured to form a
8. 0:23sentence in a given language consider
9. 0:25the English sentence I ate an apple but
10. 0:28first let's remove the article and here
11. 0:30for Simplicity so we're just left with I
12. 0:32ate apple the basic word order for
13. 0:35English is subject verb object or SVO
14. 0:38for short if we break down the English
15. 0:40sentence I ate apple we can see that the
16. 0:42subject I is presented first followed by
17. 0:45the verb ate and then finally the object
18. 0:47apple is positioned last this is the
19. 0:49basic word order for sentences in
20. 0:51English now let's compare the same
21. 0:54sentence I ate an apple in Japanese
22. 1:00like before let's remove the particles
23. 1:03to keep it simple so we're just left
24. 1:05with the wordss if we break down the
25. 1:08Japanese sentence we get the subject
26. 1:11Watashi meaning I then comes the object
27. 1:14lingo meaning apple and finally we have
28. 1:18the verb meaning eight the word order
29. 1:22for Japanese then is subject object verb
30. 1:26or S so for short in both Lang languages
31. 1:30the subject is presented first in
32. 1:32English though it's followed by the verb
33. 1:34and then the object compared to the
34. 1:36object being first and the verb last in
35. 1:38Japanese the same sentence in Japanese
36. 1:41is essentially I Apple 8 subject first
37. 1:43then object and verb last s so this is
38. 1:46the basic word order for sentences in
39. 1:49Japanese okay let's move on to the next
40. 1:55section English is what is called a
41. 1:57subject prominent language this simply
42. 1:59means that the subject is slightly more
43. 2:01important than other components in the
44. 2:02sentence it's the key piece of
45. 2:04information other components in the
46. 2:05sentence relate to who is doing the
47. 2:08action is slightly more important than
48. 2:09what is being done or Which object it's
49. 2:11being done to in English if we had to
50. 2:14slowly remove pieces of information from
51. 2:16a sentence while trying to keep its
52. 2:17Essence intact logically we would do so
53. 2:19in order of least important to most
54. 2:21important if we were to omit the subject
55. 2:24we would get eight and apple which
56. 2:26sounds strange on the other hand if we
57. 2:28were to omit the object instead the
58. 2:30sentence would become iate even though
59. 2:33in each instance we omitted a piece of
60. 2:34information the reason I8 sounds less
61. 2:37strange is because we've yet to break
62. 2:39any grammatical rules and so there's
63. 2:41still potential for the sentence
64. 2:42fragment to become a complete sentence
65. 2:44and to become grammatically correct
66. 2:46since the latter is logical this
67. 2:48indicates that the subject is more
68. 2:49important than the object in English the
69. 2:51same would have been true if we had
70. 2:52omitted the verb since the subject is
71. 2:55the integral component in the sentence
72. 2:56this makes English a subject prominent
73. 2:58language Japanese on the other hand is a
74. 3:02topic permanent language unlike English
75. 3:05the focus of each Japanese sentence is
76. 3:08the topic not the subject essentially
77. 3:11the eight an
78. 3:14portion is the main focus of the
79. 3:17sentence where I is deemed less
80. 3:20important and can be omitted in fact if
81. 3:23it's obvious what the subject is or if
82. 3:25it's already been established it's quite
83. 3:27normal to omit the subject from the
84. 3:28conversation altogether in Japanese
85. 3:30let's look at this aspect in a bit more
86. 3:35detail more often than not if you wanted
87. 3:38to say I ate an apple in Japanese you
88. 3:40would not
89. 3:44say instead you would more likely say
90. 3:47apple ate in
91. 3:50Japanese since Japanese is a topic
92. 3:52prominent language the information to be
93. 3:54shared is the act of eating the Apple
94. 3:57less important is the subject which is
95. 3:58omitted altogether
96. 4:00Most Japanese sentences are constructed
97. 4:02and spoken like this in real life in
98. 4:04most situations such as a one-on-one
99. 4:06conversation it's clear that the person
100. 4:08who's speaking is the subject in cases
101. 4:10where it's obvious who or what the
102. 4:12subject is it's almost guaranteed that
103. 4:14the subject will be omitted and so
104. 4:16you're left
105. 4:19with on the other hand when it's unclear
106. 4:22who or what the subject is or if you
107. 4:24wanted to place emphasis on the subject
108. 4:26like if you wanted to declare from a
109. 4:27group of people that it was you who ate
110. 4:29the Apple then you would include the
111. 4:34subject but more often than not most
112. 4:37sentences spoken in Daily Japanese
113. 4:38conversation can be spoken without
114. 4:40including the subject at all
115. 4:42particularly if that subject is
116. 4:47you knowing this we can easily express
117. 4:50any simple action in Japanese using just
118. 4:52the object and the verb try to create
119. 4:54the sentence I ate a hot dog from these
120. 4:57sets of words
121. 5:09okay got it the object goes first so
122. 5:12let's put hot dog here and the verb goes
123. 5:15last so let's put eight at the end
124. 5:17finally we connect them using the
125. 5:19appropriate particle and that's
126. 5:23it which means I ate a hot dog in
127. 5:26Japanese
128. 5:30you can create any basic sentence like
129. 5:32this in Japanese if you simply know the
130. 5:34word for the object and the verb in
131. 5:35Japanese well done let's wrap up this
132. 5:38lesson by recapping what we've learned
133. 5:40in this lesson you learn that Japanese
134. 5:42sentences are formed using a subject
135. 5:43object verb or S so word order the most
136. 5:46important aspect of Japanese sentences
137. 5:48is not the subject of the sentence but
138. 5:50the topic most sentences spoken in
139. 5:52Japanese will not actually contain a
140. 5:54subject especially if that subject is
141. 5:56obvious like when it's yourself the
142. 5:57speaker and lastly you can create create
143. 5:59basic sentences in Japanese by putting
144. 6:01the object first and the verb last we've
145. 6:04covered only the very basics of Japanese
146. 6:06grammar if you're interested in learning
147. 6:08more check out our learn basic Japanese
148. 6:10video series in that course we teach you
149. 6:13useful phrases while covering the
150. 6:14fundamentals of Japanese grammar in the
151. 6:17next lesson we'll introduce you to the
152. 6:18basics of Japanese writing see you in
153. 6:20the next lesson bye bye