Japanese Particles: The Complete Guide

Particles are the joints of a Japanese sentence. English tells you who did what to whom with word order and small prepositions — "I gave the book to my friend at the station" — while Japanese glues a small word onto the end of each noun. Those small words are particles (助詞, joshi), and there are only a few dozen of them. Learn the ten on this page and you can read the skeleton of almost any Japanese sentence. They are also where English speakers lose the most marks, because English gives you no instinct for them at all.

What a particle actually does

A particle attaches to the end of a word or phrase and labels what that chunk is doing in the sentence. It never stands alone and never changes shape.

• 私は日本語を勉強します (watashi wa nihongo wo benkyou shimasu, "I study Japanese")

Three chunks, three labels: 私 + は marks the topic, 日本語 + を marks the thing being studied, and 勉強します is the verb. Because the labels carry the meaning, word order is flexible — 日本語を私は勉強します (nihongo wo watashi wa benkyou shimasu, "Japanese, I study") is just as correct as the version above, and merely puts the spotlight on Japanese. Particles are what buy Japanese its free word order.

The six particles you meet on day one

Three of these are typed differently from how they sound, which trips up every beginner at the keyboard:

• は is typed ha, but read "wa" when it is a particle. Type watashi ha and you get 私は.
• へ is typed he, but read "e" when it is a particle. Type nihon he and you get 日本へ.
• を is typed wo (or just o in most IMEs), and pronounced "o".

Each of the six has a full article of its own: は and が in wa vs ga, に and で in ni vs de, を in the particle wo, and へ in e vs ni.

の (no): possession, apposition, and turning verbs into nouns

の is the busiest particle in Japanese because it does three unrelated jobs.

Possession and description, the "of" or "'s" job:

• 私の本 (watashi no hon, "my book")
• 日本の料理 (nihon no ryouri, "Japanese food")
• 昨日買った本 (kinou katta hon, "the book I bought yesterday")

That third example is the one English speakers underuse. Anything that describes a noun sits in front of it with の. Japanese has no "that" or "which"; it stacks the describing sentence straight onto the noun.

Apposition, where two nouns joined by の name the same thing:

• 友達の田中さん (tomodachi no Tanaka-san, "my friend Tanaka")

Nominalisation, where の turns a verb phrase into a thing:

• 本を読むのが好きです (hon wo yomu no ga suki desu, "I like reading books")

Here の has converted 本を読む ("read books") into a noun meaning "the act of reading books", which can then be the subject. Japanese has a second nominaliser, こと, and the two overlap heavily — の is the natural choice for things you can perceive or do (見る, 聞く, 好き, 上手), こと for abstract concepts. See koto and no nominalisation for where they split.

Casual-question の. At the end of a sentence, の asks for an explanation or softens a question: どうしたの？ (doushita no?, "what's wrong?"), 行くの？ (iku no?, "are you going?").

One bonus rule worth knowing early: inside a relative clause, が can become の with no change in meaning.

• 私が好きな本 (watashi ga suki na hon, "the book I like")
• 私の好きな本 (watashi no suki na hon, "the book I like")

と (to): "and", "with", and the quotation marker

と is three particles wearing one coat, and the verb at the end of the sentence tells you which one you are looking at.

"And" — exhaustive listing.

• 英語と日本語を勉強します (eigo to nihongo wo benkyou shimasu, "I study English and Japanese")

と means exactly those two and nothing else. For "A, B, and things like that", use や: 机の上にペンやノートがあります (tsukue no ue ni pen ya nooto ga arimasu, "there are pens, notebooks, and such on the desk").

"With" — a partner in the action.

• 友達と映画を見ました (tomodachi to eiga wo mimashita, "I watched a movie with a friend")

This is the と that English speakers most often swap for で, because English "with" covers both "together with a person" and "by means of a tool".

Quotation — the content of saying or thinking. A clause followed by と plus a verb like 言う (iu, "say"), 思う (omou, "think"), 聞く (kiku, "ask"), or 考える (kangaeru, "consider"):

• 明日来ると言いました (ashita kuru to iimashita, "he said he would come tomorrow")
• 高いと思います (takai to omoimasu, "I think it's expensive")

The quoted part stays exactly as it would be if spoken — plain form, no politeness — and と is the glue between it and the reporting verb. A question inside a quotation takes か instead: 何時に来るか聞きました (nan ji ni kuru ka kikimashita, "I asked what time he was coming").

Condition — "whenever" or "if". A verb in plain form plus と gives an automatic, inevitable result:

• 春になると、桜が咲きます (haru ni naru to, sakura ga sakimasu, "when spring comes, the cherry blossoms bloom")

This と is only for things that happen on their own — it never takes a request or an invitation after it. The full family (ば, たら, なら, と) is in conditional forms.

も (mo): "also", "not either", and "as much as"

も says "this one too" — it adds a member to a set that is already on the table.

"Also" / "too". も replaces は or が; it never stacks on top of them.

• 私も学生です (watashi mo gakusei desu, "I'm a student too")
• りんごもバナナも買いました (ringo mo banana mo kaimashita, "I bought both apples and bananas")

"Not either" / "neither". With a negative verb, も flips to "either":

• 私も行きません (watashi mo ikimasen, "I'm not going either")

"None at all". A question word plus も plus a negative means "no-", "nothing", "nobody":

• 何もありません (nani mo arimasen, "there's nothing")
• 誰もいません (dare mo imasen, "there's nobody here")

This pattern is a hard requirement: 何も and 誰も with a positive verb sound wrong. The negative is not optional.

"As much as" — surprise at a quantity. も after a number says the amount is bigger than expected: 三時間も待ちました (san jikan mo machimashita, "I waited three whole hours").

も combines with other particles rather than replacing them: にも, へも, とも, でも.

• 私にも教えてください (watashi ni mo oshiete kudasai, "please tell me too")
• 子どもでもできます (kodomo demo dekimasu, "even a child can do it")

That last one, でも, is one of the most common ways to make a sentence emphatic.

について (ni tsuite): "about"

について marks the topic you are discussing, thinking about, or asking about. It attaches to a noun, never to a verb.

• 日本について話します (nihon ni tsuite hanashimasu, "I'll talk about Japan")
• この問題について考えています (kono mondai ni tsuite kangaete imasu, "I'm thinking about this problem")
• 何について話しましょうか (nani ni tsuite hanashimashou ka, "what shall we talk about?")

When it modifies a noun, it needs の: 旅行についての本 (ryokou ni tsuite no hon, "a book about travel").

The verbs it goes with are the talking-and-thinking ones: 話す (hanasu, "speak"), 聞く (kiku, "ask"), 考える (kangaeru, "think"), 調べる (shiraberu, "investigate"). For writing more formal than a conversation, に関して (ni kanshite) is the same thing with a suit on — common in news and academic prose, rare in speech.

にとって (ni totte) and として (to shite)

These two look similar and mean completely different things. にとって gives a standpoint; として gives a role.

• 私にとって、この本は宝物です (watashi ni totte, kono hon wa takaramono desu, "to me, this book is a treasure")
• 学生にとって、勉強が一番大切です (gakusei ni totte, benkyou ga ichiban taisetsu desu, "for a student, studying matters most")
• 教師として働いています (kyoushi to shite hataraite imasu, "I work as a teacher")

にとって leans on evaluative words — 大切 (taisetsu, "important"), 必要 (hitsuyou, "necessary"), 難しい (muzukashii, "difficult"), 嬉しい (ureshii, "happy"). If the sentence judges how something is from someone's point of view, that is にとって. If someone is acting in a capacity, that is として. Both take nouns only, and both can take の before a noun: 私にとっての幸せ (watashi ni totte no shiawase, "happiness as I see it").

Summary: every particle on this page

One sentence to see five of them at once: 私は図書館で日本語を友達と勉強しています。 (watashi wa toshokan de nihongo wo tomodachi to benkyou shite imasu, "I'm studying Japanese with a friend at the library") — は for the topic, で for where the action happens, を for what is being studied, と for who I am with.

Common mistakes for English speakers

Translating prepositions word by word. English "at" maps onto に or で depending on the verb. "I go to school" is 学校に行きます (gakkou ni ikimasu) — に, because 行く is movement toward a destination. "I study at school" is 学校で勉強します (gakkou de benkyou shimasu) — で, because 勉強する is an action performed somewhere.

Dropping particles because English does not need them. "I study Japanese" feels complete in English. 日本語勉強します (nihongo benkyou shimasu) sounds like a telegram. It has to be 日本語を勉強します.

Typing は as wa. The kana is typed ha. Type watashi wa into an IME and you get 私わ, which is not a word. Read it "wa", type it ha.

Stacking も on は or が. 私もは学生です (watashi mo wa gakusei desu) is wrong. も replaces the topic marker: 私も学生です.

Using と for a partial list. と means "these and only these"; for "and so on", use や.

Confusing について with にとって. 日本について話す (nihon ni tsuite hanasu) is "talk about Japan". 日本にとって (nihon ni totte) would be "from Japan's point of view" — a completely different sentence, and について never attaches to a verb: 勉強するについて (benkyou suru ni tsuite) is wrong, 勉強について (benkyou ni tsuite, "about studying") is right.

Rules get you reading; repetition gets you typing. Stop thinking of particles as vocabulary and start thinking of them as verb attachments — に goes with 行く, で goes with 勉強する, と goes with 言う. The kana tables will make sure は, へ, and を stop looking like typing traps.

Particles are the one part of Japanese that pays off fastest under your fingers. Every sentence in practice mode is already split word by word, particle included, so you type 図書館で (toshokan de) and feel the で rather than looking it up. Start with short sentences, and treat wa vs ga as your second read.