Wax Technical » Japanese http://waxtechnical.com I hate writing software and so should you! Fri, 05 Aug 2011 10:14:59 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Japanese Language Features http://waxtechnical.com/2009/06/23/japanese-language-features/ http://waxtechnical.com/2009/06/23/japanese-language-features/#comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 23:22:53 +0000 vpuzzella http://waxtechnical.com/?p=11 I’m studying Japanese and I  want to document some it’s interesting “features”.

Feature 1: Case Markers

The basic word order in a Japanese sentence is subject-object-verb (SOV) as opposed to english where the basic word order is subject-verb-object (SVO). The english sentence “Vince (S) uses (V) a computer (O)” translates to “Binsu-wa (S) konpyuuta-o (O) tukau (V)”. The rule in Japanese is that the verb comes at the end of a sentence. And yes, they call me “Beans”.

Who cares, right? Wrong!

Notice the “wa” and “o” particles in the Japanese sentence? Those are called “case markers” and they accompany the subject (Binsu) and object (konpyuuta). These markers allow us to change the word order of the Japanese sentence while retaining it’s meaning: “Konpyuuta-o Binsu-wa tukau”. Doing the same to the English sentence would radically change it’s meaning to “A computer uses Vince”. Argh! Where’s Keanu Reeves when you need him!

Neat!

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