AはB With Vocabulary

“Those who are victorious plan effectively and change decisively. They are like a great river that maintains its course but adjusts its flow.” – Sun Tzu

So you know some new vocab, and you understand the idea behind AはB. Now let’s put those two things together and practice. Here’s one we’ve already looked at (really quickly, though. I don’t expect you to remember).

a ぶどう　は　くだもの です
Grapes are fruits

This sentence is pretty straight forward. What about a different tense?

a ぶどう　は　くだもの でした
Grapes were fruits (this sentence doesn’t make any sense, I’m just trying to show the grammar here)

Do you see how the pattern goes? AはB+Tense (です, でした, etc). Just by changing the thing on the end, you change the entire meaning of the sentence.

One thing you may have noticed, is that the above sentences were plural (i.e. there are more than one grape, and more than one fruit). Even though the translation comes out this way, there is no indication that these words are plural in the Japanese version of the sentence. In Japanese, the concept of “plural” doesn’t come up as much, minus a few exceptions which we’ll get to later. This means you can treat singular and plural words in Japanese pretty much the same, minus a few exceptions (which we’ll get to when we get to). Really, in Japanese it’s the context that’s important, since this is how you can tell whether or not something should be plural. If something needs to be more clear, you could state the specific amount (i.e. two grapes, three grapes, or many grapes), otherwise the context takes care of the rest. Sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it’s actually pretty smooth! You’ll experience and see it more and more, but I just wanted to make sure you knew about it so you weren’t confused later.

Obviously, you can change out the words, too. Let’s take a look. Here are some of the words you’ve already learned that we’ll be using right here.

Hiragana English
ねこ cat
いぬ dog
しお salt
さとう sugar
せんせい teacher
ともだち friend
しごと work/job
びょういん hospital
ゆき snow
くすり medicine

Using these words, let’s go through some examples. Make sure you review the words themselves (especially the older ones!) so that you’re practicing your vocabulary as well.

Now, since we don’t know a lot of words yet, I’m going to be putting some words in English down below. I want you to focus on only the vocab you already know, and the grammar you’re studying. I won’t include things you don’t already know, just because it’ll get in the way of practice (right now). Just an FYI for you since you might think it’s weird that English words are stuck into various sentences. They’re only in English because you don’t know them in Japanese yet, and I don’t actually want you to know them yet :)

ねこ　は　animal　です　

A cat is an animal

ねこ　は　さる　じゃありません　

A cat is not a monkey

さとう　は　さとう　です　

Sugar is sugar

さとう　は　じてんしゃ　じゃありません　

Sugar is not a bicycle

くすり　は　”Medicine”　です　

“Kusuri” is “Medicine”

As you can see, with Japanese to English translation, there’s a bit of “addition and subtraction” when translating across. ねこはAnimalです is “A cat is an animal.” The “A” is added in there, though in the Japanese sentence there’s nothing to indicate “A” (that’s just something English speakers use, and doesn’t really exist as its own thing in Japanese).

Let’s take a look at a few more examples to keep practicing, then we’ll move on to something else that will teach you something new and help you continue to practice. Just look at these sentences and try to translate them.

Cats are not dogs　

a ねこ　は　いぬ　じゃありません

Salt is salt　

aしお　は　しお　です

(The) Teacher was a friend　

aせんせい　は　ともだち　でした

Do you see how the particle becomes modified (in English, anyways) when the tense changes? With でした we see the は become “was.” When we’re working with something that’s plural (in English), you see “are,” and when something is the future or present, you see “is.” Really, it’s all the same in Japanese, but because we do things differently in English, this is the easiest way to translate.

One More Way To Look At This

Just in case you’re confused, I thought I’d show you one more way to look at these AはB sentences. Try this: whenever you see “Aは” translate it to “As for A.” So, for example, you’d look at the following (parts of these) sentences like this:

ねこ　は　(as for cats)…

いぬ　は　(as for dogs)…

しんぶん　は　(as for the newspaper)…

Then, you just translate the rest of the sentence. Doesn’t sound good when read literally, but it’ll get you the meaning of the sentence until you’re more comfortable with these patterns.

A　は 　B　です。

As for A, it is B.

ねこ　は　いぬ　じゃありません。

As for cats, (they) are not dogs.

せんせい　は　ともだち　でした。

As for (my) teacher, (he/she) was my friend.

Some people will take to this particular explanation more quickly and others won’t like it at all. So, with the two explanations, I hope you’ve latched onto one of them. I’d recommend trying the first and then shifting over to the second if you need to. When sentences get longer, this version will be more clunky (though technically correct).

Oh, and just a reminder… は is pronounced “wa,” not “ha.”

You’ve Accomplished… the ability to make even longer sentences and switch out all those nasty A’s and B’s with actual words. Time to take a look at these kinds of sentences from a slightly different angle… names!

← 後 前 →

Bounty?