Japanese Particles: What Each One Does, With Examples

Take the sentence 私は友達と駅でコーヒーを飲みました (わたしはともだちとえきでコーヒーをのみました, watashi wa tomodachi to eki de koohii o nomimashita). It means "I drank coffee with a friend at the station." Four of its characters have no meaning you could draw a picture of: は, と, で and を. Those are particles.

A particle is a short tag, one or two hiragana long, that sits right after a word and tells you what that word is doing in the sentence. は says "this is what I'm talking about." と says "together with this person." で says "this is where it happened." を says "this is the thing the verb acts on." English does the same work with word order and with prepositions that come before the noun. Japanese puts the marker after the noun, and that accounts for a lot of why the two languages feel so different in the first few months.

The 15 particles you'll meet first

Most particles have more than one job. The table gives the one you'll see most often as a beginner, with a single example for each. Read it once, then come back to it when a sentence confuses you.

Twelve of these attach to nouns. か, ね and よ are different: they go at the very end of a sentence and change how the whole thing lands. ですか is a question, ですね invites the other person to agree, and ですよ hands them information you think they don't have. Too much よ can sound pushy, so go easy on it at first.

Three particles that aren't said the way they're written

If you've learned hiragana, you know は as ha, へ as he and を as wo. As particles, they're pronounced wa, e and o. Only as particles, though. The は in はな (hana, flower) is still ha, and the へ in へや (heya, room) is still he.

The reason is historical. Japanese spelling was reformed in 1946 to match modern pronunciation, but the reform made an exception for these three particles and left their old spellings alone. を now exists almost entirely as the particle. You'll hardly ever see it inside an ordinary word.

This also explains a spelling that confuses everyone once. こんにちは (konnichiwa) ends in は, not わ, because it started out as the opening of a longer sentence, something like "as for today...", and that は is the topic particle. Same for こんばんは (konbanwa).

When you type, go by the spelling. On a romaji keyboard you enter ha, he and wo to get は, へ and を, even though you'd say wa, e and o. As for を, the standard pronunciation is a plain o, identical to お. You'll sometimes hear a clear wo in songs or in very careful speech, and nobody will misunderstand you either way.

Pairs that beginners mix up

A few of these overlap just enough to cause trouble. Each pair needs a longer explanation than fits here, so treat these as first approximations.

• は and が. は sets the topic, the thing the rest of the sentence comments on. が points at the subject, often because it's new or because it's the answer to a question. 誰が来ましたか (だれがきましたか, dare ga kimashita ka, "who came?") takes が, and so does the answer.
• に and で. Both can follow a place. に marks where something is or where it ends up: 東京に住んでいます (とうきょうにすんでいます, toukyou ni sunde imasu, "I live in Tokyo"). で marks where an action is carried out: 東京で働いています (とうきょうではたらいています, toukyou de hataraite imasu, "I work in Tokyo").
• に and へ. With verbs like 行く (いく, iku, to go), they're nearly interchangeable. へ leans toward the direction of travel and に toward the arrival point. If in doubt, に is the safer pick because it covers more uses.
• と and や. りんごとみかん (ringo to mikan) is apples and mandarins, nothing else. りんごやみかん (ringo ya mikan) is apples, mandarins and things like that.

Particles do the job word order does in English

In English, "the cat ate the fish" and "the fish ate the cat" are different events, and only the order tells you which. In Japanese the particles tell you. 猫が魚を食べました (ねこがさかなをたべました, neko ga sakana o tabemashita) and 魚を猫が食べました both mean the cat ate the fish, because が stays attached to the cat and を to the fish.

The verb still goes at the end, and there's a usual order that sounds most neutral: topic, time, place, object, verb. But you can shuffle the pieces for emphasis without breaking the sentence, as long as every noun keeps its particle. Swap the particles instead, 猫を魚が食べました, and now the fish has eaten the cat.

Which particles get dropped in casual speech

Listen to friends talking and you'll notice that a lot of the particles in your textbook just aren't there. This is normal spoken Japanese, and it follows a pattern.

The ones that disappear most are は, が and を, because context usually makes the topic, subject and object obvious:

• ご飯食べた？ (ごはんたべた, gohan tabeta?) "Did you eat?" The を after ご飯 is gone.
• これ、おいしいね。 (kore, oishii ne) "This is good, isn't it?" The は after これ is gone.
• お腹すいた。 (おなかすいた, onaka suita) "I'm hungry." The が after お腹 is gone.
• どこ行くの？ (どこいくの, doko iku no?) "Where are you going?" The に or へ after どこ is gone.

The question particle か drops in casual speech too. A rising tone does the work, sometimes with の at the end. Plain-form questions that keep か, like 食べたか, can sound blunt or gruff, so friends mostly avoid them.

Particles that carry meaning you can't guess tend to stay put. で, と, から, まで, も and の are almost never dropped, because without them the listener can't tell "at the station" from "from the station." に is in between. It drops after a destination, as in どこ行くの, but usually not when it marks a time or the person receiving something.

Our advice for beginners is to keep every particle in until you've heard a lot of real conversation. A sentence with all its particles sounds a little careful. A sentence with the wrong one missing sounds broken. Writing, and anything said in polite です and ます style to someone you don't know well, keeps most of them anyway.

Getting them to stick

A table like the one above is good for looking things up and bad for memorizing. Particles stay with you when you meet them in sentences you understand. A few habits help:

• Learn verbs with their particles. Some verbs pick a particle you wouldn't predict from English. 乗る (のる, noru, to ride) takes に, so it's バスに乗る. 会う (あう, au, to meet) also takes に: 友達に会う. Memorize the pair, not the bare verb.
• Read aloud and say wa, e and o. Reading silently, it's easy to keep hearing ha and wo in your head. Reading aloud fixes that quickly.
• Take one small sentence and swap the particle. 私は行きます, 私も行きます, 私が行きます. Same words, three meanings: I'm going, I'm going too, I'm the one who's going.
• Don't wait until は and が make sense. They don't for anyone at the start. Use は for the topic, が after question words, and adjust as you read more.

Common questions