Core Particles

Introduction

Particles are the glue of Japanese grammar. These small but mighty words mark the roles of nouns in a sentence — subject, object, location, direction, and more.

This chapter covers the fundamental particles every Japanese learner needs to master first.

Themes

All Japanese Grammar Basic in This Chapter (23)

1. ～は～だ (copula) は The most fundamental sentence pattern in Japanese. は marks the topic of the sentence, and だ (or its polite form です) functions as the copu...
2. が (subject marker) が A particle that marks the grammatical subject of a sentence. が identifies who or what performs an action or exists in a state, and is esp...
3. を (direct object) を A particle that marks the direct object of a transitive verb, indicating what the action is performed upon. It connects the thing being a...
4. を (space of movement) を A particle that indicates the space, route, or path through, along, across, or over which someone or something moves. It marks the area w...
5. を (departure point) を A particle that marks the location from which movement begins. It indicates the place that someone leaves, exits, or departs from.
6. を (cause of emotion) を A particle that marks the cause or object of a human emotion. It indicates what triggers a feeling such as sadness, joy, fear, longing, o...
7. に (time) に A particle that marks a specific point in time at which something takes place. It is used with concrete time expressions such as days, da...
8. に (indirect object) に A particle that marks the indirect object — the person or entity that receives something, or toward whom an action is directed. It answer...
9. に (agent/source) に A particle that indicates the agent or source in passive constructions, causative sentences, and receiving expressions with もらう and てもらう....
10. に (surface) に A particle that indicates the surface of something upon which some action is directed, such as writing on, sitting on, drawing on, or pla...
11. に (purpose) に A particle that indicates the purpose for which someone moves from one place to another. It connects a purpose with a movement verb, expr...
12. に (existence location) に A particle that indicates the location where someone or something exists. It is used exclusively with existence verbs such as いる (for ani...
13. に (destination) に A particle that indicates the destination or goal toward which someone or something moves. It marks the arrival point of directional move...
14. で (location of action) で A particle that indicates the location where an action or event takes place. Unlike に, which marks the location of existence, で is used w...
15. で (means/instrument) で A particle that indicates the tool, means, method, or material used to perform an action. It answers the question 'by what means?' or 'wi...
16. で (causal) で A particle that indicates a reason, cause, or circumstance that leads to a result. It is derived from the て-form of the copula です and exp...
17. で (limit) で A particle that indicates the boundary at which something ends, or the total amount of time, money, or quantity required for something. I...
18. へ (direction) へ A particle that indicates the direction toward which movement or action is oriented. It emphasizes the heading or direction of travel rat...
19. と (exhaustive listing) と A particle used to connect nouns in an exhaustive list, meaning 'and.' When using と, the listed items are all there are — nothing is left...
20. と (reciprocal) と A particle that marks the person or entity with whom an action is done together or reciprocally. It indicates a partner in mutual actions...
21. も (also/too) も A particle that indicates that the same thing holds true for the marked element, similar to English 'also' or 'too.' It replaces は, が, or...
22. も (emphasis) も A particle used to add emphasis, often implying an unexpectedly large or small quantity, or stressing that even a particular element meet...
23. も～も (both...and) も A construction using repeated も to list two or more elements that share the same property or situation. In affirmative sentences it means...