Japanese class – 28 February 2017

Keiko, the Japanese teacher at the Modern Language School, tells us about this week’s class:

We have explored a new verb inflection form, which needs the object marker WO(を).

えいがをみます　　　eiga wo mimasu: to watch a movie

こうちゃをのみます　koucha  wo nomimasu: to drink a tea

しんぶんをよみます　shinbun wo yomimasu: to read a newspaper

A big difference between Japanese and English language is that English does not need object marker(particle) in such sentences, unlike Japanese. The Japanese syntactic logic might be difficult for native speakers of English..

Compared with English, Japanese non-past forms always finish with masu. It means that, if you intend to express/make use of negative form, you only have to change the inflection of the verb. For example: mi-masen, nomi-masen, yomi-masen.