In the last lesson, we learned about the が (ga) 助詞 (jyoshi), which establishes a relationship between a noun and a sentence's verb. Specifically, it specifies the grammatical subject of the following verb. Let's return to an example from our last lesson:

犬が泳ぐ。 (Inu ga oyogu. — The dog swims.)

In this example, we can clearly see that the noun preceding the が (ga) 助詞 (jyoshi)—犬 (inu, dog)—is the subject of the verb—泳ぐ (oyogu, to swim). In other words, the が (ga) 助詞 (jyoshi) tells us that the dog is the one performing the sentence's action, swimming.

However, it also stands to reason that there are other ways a noun could relate to a verb than performing the verb. For example, a noun could have a verb performed upon it. Let's take a look at a reduced version of the final example from our previous lesson:

私がボールを投げた。 (Watashi ga bōru o nageta. — I threw the ball.)

In this example, you can see two different nouns marked by two different 助詞 (jyoshi) to define how they relate to the sentence's verb. The が (ga) 助詞 (jyoshi) tells us who is doing the throwing (私 (watashi, I)) and the を (o) 助詞 (jyoshi) tells us what is being thrown (ボール (bōru, ball)). You may note that, like が (ga) denotes a relation similar to the grammatical subject in English, を (o) is roughly analogous to English's direct objects.

So analogous, in fact, that this could turn out to be quite the short lesson. However, in the spirit of not totally relying on English translations, let's continue with a quick note on "grammatical completeness" in English vs. in Japanese.

Complete Sentences in Japanese

If you learned English in a school setting, you probably have had drilled into your head the concept of a "grammatically complete sentence." That is, generally, a sentence that is a complete thought, has a capital letter at the beginning, a period at the end, and contains a subject-verb pair. You may notice that the first three criteria are fairly subjective, but let's talk a bit more about the last: the sentence containing a subject-verb pair.

Consider this example:

ボールを投げた。 (Bōru o nageta. — [Someone] threw the ball.)

Note that our English translation of this sentence doesn't meet our criteria for a grammatically complete sentence. However, also note that while this sentence doesn't directly tell us who is doing the throwing, it still contains information: that the ボール (bōru, ball) is what is being thrown. And, finally, note that the sentence isn't expressing the information in a passive way (e.g., the English "The ball was thrown."). It's literally just our previous example, with the explicit subject marked by が (ga) taken out. And in Japanese, that's completely valid.

The truth is that in life, that's completely valid. A thought experiment: setting aside English rules of what a "complete sentence" consists of, can you imagine a situation in which you may want to convey that a ball is being thrown where who is doing the throwing is already obvious from context and doesn't need to be said?

Of course you can. And while these situations are slightly more complicated in English because of how certain aspects of a subject ripple throughout the rest of a sentence (for example, conjugation of the verb), sentences which lack a spoken subject are fairly common in Japanese (perhaps because in Japanese, conjugation doesn't change based on the subject). While it's important to remember that verbs don't truly exist without a subject in Japanese (nor in real life), it's completely acceptable in Japanese to allow the subject to be assumed from context, including previously established topics of conversation, subjects from previous sentences, or simply things observable in real life with your own two eyes.

Conclusion

This lesson was short but important. We learned our third grammatical 助詞 (jyoshi), を (o), which marks a noun that the sentence's verb is acting upon, something like a direct object in English. And, since we were getting a little too close to English, we also talked about some of the structural differences between sentences in English and Japanese.

Don't worry: in the next lesson, we will learn about a 助詞 (jyoshi) quite different from anything we see in English, and much more easily approached without references to English grammar: に (ni).

Until next time,

これからもよろしくお願いします。

Kore kara mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu