この, その, and あの
“Show me a completely contented person and I’ll show you a failure.” - Thomas Edison
I told you this pattern would show up again. Remember これ, それ, and あれ? この, その, and あの hail from that, and are very similar grammatically as well. They essentially translate out to mean the same exact thing, though the way they are used is a bit different. Let’s quickly review.
これ: This
それ: That
あれ: That (over there)
When used in a sentence, these identify what the object is, right? For example:
これ は ペン です
This is a pen
それ は ペン です
That is a pen
あれ は ペン です
That (over there) is a pen
I imagine those three examples are okay by now. Let’s look at この, その, and あの. They mean the same things.
この: This
その: That
あの: That (over there)
If they mean the same things, how are they used differently? この, その, and あの are used when you need to describe something about a noun. That doesn’t make sense? I agree. Let’s break down some examples. Take the following two sentence pieces…
This is a pen…
This pen is…
I imagine you can tell the difference between these two phrases, right? In English, the word “this” is exactly the same in both of those sentences. How they’re used is different, but the word itself is the same. “This.”
これ is a pen…
この pen is…
In Japanese, though, the word is (slightly) different when it’s being used in this different way. Makes sense, as long as you haven’t been speaking a language other than Japanese your whole life. Let’s look at these two pieces in Japanese.
これ は ペン です
This is a pen
この ペン は。。。
This pen is…
With この (or その, or あの), we’re describing a noun. There’s nothing in there describing anything yet, but we’ll add that in right now.
この ペン は べんり です
This pen is convenient
As you can probably guess, using “that” or “that over there” is very similar.
その ペン は はで です
That pen is showy
あの くるま は あんぜん です
That car (over there) is safe
The great thing is this pattern very closely mimics English grammar. “This pen” is “このペン” and “That bicycle” is “そのじてんしゃ.”
We’re going to continue practicing this, but there’s one more thing I want to cover before moving on to な adjectives that come before the noun: conjugating the な adjectives… dun dun dunnn.