Sentence structure

With notes!

English is a SVO language, meaning we also start with the subject. We follow up with the verb, then object.

Japanese is a SOV language, which means the sentence starts with the Subject, followed by the object and then the verb comes last.

  Hiragana Chart
  
     English
 Leila eats ramen.Japanese
 Leila ramen eats.

Let’s break it down!

The Subject

The subject is the ‘thing’ performing the action in the sentence.
If you find identifying the subject hard, you’re not alone! You’ll get better at it in time! Until then, here’s a tip!
Both languages start with the subject. I would say, roughly 70% of the time, you start your Japanese sentence how you start your English. There are exceptions to this, especially when questions come into play!

The Object

Talking accurately: The ‘object’ that is being acted upon.

Or even more simply: The ‘thing’ that is being ‘verbed’ (yes, that is not a word).
And even more simple: Although there are rules and orders that are best to follow (that you’ll learn as we go along), I once heard the ‘object’ described as ‘find the subject, find the verb and chuck everything else in the middle’ (maybe it wasn’t described so casually…), and it’s a good place to start!
Let’s look at some object examples in English and Japanese. We’ll keep the subject in teal:

  Hiragana Chart
  
      She ate a sushi roll.
She sushi roll ate.He didn't do his homework.
 He homework didnt do.

      My mum drinks coffee.
My mum coffee drinks.My Japanese teacher made a Japanese course.
My Japanese teacher Japanese course made.

I once heard somebody say the sentence structure for Japanese is a bit like Yoda from Star Wars talking!

The verb

A verb is a doing word, which makes it quite easy to identify. There are a few difficult ones to identify if you don’t know what to look for… for example, Existing/ being is an action. Therefore ‘is’..is a verb.

  Hiragana Chart
  
      The cat  drank milk.
The cat milk drank.The chef cooked gyoza.
 The chef gyoza cooked .

      The kids  ran to school.
The kids to school  ran.The lawyer went to work
The lawyer to work  went.

If you’re ever struggling with sentence structure, the verb is usually the easiest part to identify! You can work back from there!

Game Switcher

Let's Practice! Drag the words to the bottom boxes to arrange the sentences into SOV.

Leila

gakusei

wa

Sentence Structure

Sentence structure

The subject is the ‘thing’ performing the action in the sentence.

Talking accurately: The ‘object’ that is being acted upon.