Talk:Japanese particles

message: This page lists particles in a table. Each particle has an id ('id="bakari"' for example) to which one can link with an anchor. Rather than clutter the table of contents, this is in a separate list which must be maintained by hand. That isn't such a big deal since the particles shouldn't change too much.
To make things easy, one can regenerate the list from the table markup using grep, sed and awk. If you run Linux you have these. If you run Macintosh you may have these. If you run Windows you're on your own.
In a shell, run
 $ grep -E -e "particle *=" <oldfile> | sed -e "s:.*particle *= *::" | awk '{ print "* "$0"" }'
where <oldfile> is a file with the  templates (e.g. copied from the article wikimarkup.
I believe one can simplify this further by having awk do the trimming instead of sed, but I'm not bothered enough to look into that.
--Swift (talk) 11:37, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Particle anchor list maintenance 

message: Wrote sections on "ni/de" and "ni/e" and made cosmetic changes to some particle examples.  I also included links to non-Japanese-specific grammatical pages, which may not accurately describe the grammatical processes of Japanese.  If anyone has input on the case links, please let me know.  JFHJr 20:06, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your edits. --DannyWilde 00:45, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: ni/de and ni/e sections

message: Added/replaced links to the Japanese grammar article in two places: one in the wa/ga, where information on wa/ga is already available (as opposed to a link to nothing) and is rather exhaustive; the other is at the end for reference to the particle section of the grammar article. ...Or does anyone think it's worth putting wa/ga in this article also? JFHJr 00:30, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The information in the Japanese grammar page is very far from exhaustive. --DannyWilde 03:10, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What do you suggest?  Working on it on the Japanese grammar entry, or moving info from there to this one and then building on it that way? JFHJr 06:54, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Links 

message: I don't understand the change made to the subordinate clause no line.  The comment left in the edit was that there is no wa in subordinate clauses, which means the same thing as I had previously written: that the no replaced the wa in such cases.  The subordinate clause is watashi-no tsukutta instead of *watashi-wa tsukutta, even though watashi is the topic of the subordinate clause.  The marking of the subordinate clause no bearing on how the noun it modifies is marked, so keeki can be marked with either wa or ga, each meaning different things. Also, the construction watashi-ga tsukutta keeki-wa oishikatta is possible, so the ga in subordinate clauses is not necessarily replaced.  In fact, the use of no and ga in subordinate clauses are complementary/contrastive, just like wa and ga in other conditions.  So while the example currently up is gramatically correct, it no longer demonstrates the compulsory use of no that I wanted to show in adding this to the section.
Perhaps the wording should be something along the lines of "No must be used instead of wa in subordinate clauses to mark topic;"  along with the original example.  How does this sound?
JFHJr 07:04, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please clarify your meaning on the main page as you like. --DannyWilde 07:10, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subordinate clause ''no'' 

message: ばかり
Following: 
* Nouns
* i-adjectives
* Verbs
Meaning: 
* "just, only, full of"
:Tabeta bakari desu, "I just ate"; tabeta meaning "ate".
:Tōkyō wa hito bakari desu, "Tokyo is just full of people"; hito meaning "people".
Following: 
* te form of Japanese verbs 
Meaning: 
* A repeated activity
:Kare wa tabete bakari iru., "He's always eating."
Colloquially, bakkari ばっかり and bakka ばっか are often used instead of bakari to mean the same thing.
----
A list of bullet points strikes me as more succinct and more easily accessible, less explanatory text to dig through.  That's why I ditch the explanation of the hiragana spelling and just give it at the beginning.  Also note that I want to avoid hyphens unless we're dealing with a compound noun that simply looks too long written all together in romaji.  So not "Tōkyō-wa hito-bakari desu", but rather "Tōkyō wa hito bakari desu".  
This takes up more space vertically, so one thought might be to put the "Following" and "Meaning" bits into a table, with "Following" on the left and "Meaning" on the right.  
Anyway, your thoughts, please!  :)  Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 06:17, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that as the article is now, it's too free in form.  It started out chatty, and when I added, I stuck with what was already there.  How un-bold of me.  Anyway, I personally find it useful to see particles attached to the words they modify, unless they end a phrase or sentence.  I can definitely understand that some people would find it easier to read without hyphenation, though.  I like your idea about the chart.  Here's an idea using no below... JFHJr (㊟) 12:29, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: ''bakari''

message: Regarding my proposed merge from Japanese grammar, Mkill described that this Japanese particles entry and the particles section of the Japanese grammar entry have different purposes. Specifically, this entry mentions each particle separately, providing easy lookup of a specific particle. By contrast, the particles section on the Japanese grammar page groups them by usage and leaves out the less common ones to show the larger picture.
In order to improve the quality of both entries, I propose that we move the "big-picture" content about particles from the particles section of the Japanese grammar entry to this Japanese particles entry and that we copy each single Japanese particle to Wiktionary. See, for example, the entry I just created at wikt:ばかり. How does that sound? The Rod (☎ Smith) 06:09, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hm, while I get your point, moving all these particle examples one by one to separate Wiktionary pages would 1) be tedious and 2) render this no longer a list where users can quickly see all the particles at once, for easier comparison / contrast and discovery.  I'm not so sure we should remove what we've got here.  That said, it might be a good idea to have these in Wiktionary as well, and I like your sample entry.  Perhaps any users of this page as a reference could chime in?  I contribute, but I don't really use the page to look anything up, so I might be overestimating the utility of having all the particles visible in one place.  Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 16:17, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the input, Eiríkr Útlendi. I'll wait for more input into this matter, but in the meantime, note that if include the Category:Japenese particles in the Wiktionary entries, they will all appear on the wikt:Category:Japanese particles page. The Rod (☎ Smith) 21:14, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Excellent that they can be so easily listed.  One concern is that such a list would have only the header (i.e. the particle itself), and not also include the text.  But again, I'm not sure how important this is.  Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 21:39, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Agreed. I propose to move the "big picture" of particles currently presented on Japanese grammar into this page. Particles that do not fit into the categories currently show on Japanese grammar could remain at the bottom of this page. Please let me know if there are any further objections or recommendations. The Rod (☎ Smith) 00:49, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe you should just start. --Mkill 17:34, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I will. I just wanted to allow time for further objections after I answered Eiríkr Útlendi's objection. The Rod (☎ Smith) 19:00, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I have begun this process. To track progress, I am linking each particle migrated to Wiktionary. When all particles are migrated, it be time to move the particle-related content from Japanese grammar to here. Any help would be appreciated, otherwise, I will proceed, but slowly. The Rod (☎ Smith) 03:29, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My vote for this goes for no. It's more accessible in the table form.  Half of the reason to have a list of particles is so that if you want to know what particle to use for a particular purpose, you can just look through.  If you put them all in the same category, you'll have a list for if you want to know what particle X does, but as for knowing what particle to use for purpose Y... you're boned.  If some underlying thought here is that having a list of particles is somehow unencyclopedic, it seems like pretty good appendix fodder to me -- and appendices are still part of an encyclopedia. --Dookama 18:38, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Just throwing in my two cents, I personally enjoy things how they are. I'm a college student studying japanese and often use this page and the japanese grammar page, yet think both are pretty much fine as they are. Midusunknown 04:36, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge from [[Japanese grammar]] 

message: This "なんて" (from "などとて"), I believe, cannot be written as "何て"/"何と" ("what a ..." or something), and this "なんか" is usually written without any kanji. However I couldn't decide just to remove these kanji versions. I hope it is going to be solved. Mulukhiyya 10:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kanji for ''nanka/nante'' 

message: At a glance, a great number of the "particles" listed in this article aren't particles at all. 何か? め? もの (perhaps supposed to be 物)? ずつ? 沿い? 達? Short phrases and adpositional words are not necessarily particles. I am going to be removing many of these shortly. I suggest reviewing the equivalent Japanese-language article over at ja:助詞 as well as EDICT for a better idea of what does and does not constitute a particle. tgies 22:31, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you. But as for もの, it's not 物/thing. だって、そうだもの/そうだもん。Meaning 'But that's what it is.'　I wanted to explain the difference between が and を, but I don't trust my English writing. Will you help me? ご飯が食べたい is 'what I want to eat is rice', you know. --Oda Mari 16:17, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article is a bit of a mess 

message: In the explanation of 'kedo', the word 'okashii' was used as strange... In order to keep the english translation correct, I changed 'okashii' to 'hen'. Reason being that okashii is used in japanese not as strange, but more as crazy. Hen is the appropriate word for strange. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure about this one. Hoshi.ni.Drifting 16:13, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edited 

message: I'd like to make a few suggestions for additional information to add to the article, specifically around the particles ni and de. This is my first go at wiki, so I haven't made any changes directly to the article - I wanted to run it past everyone first, just to be on the safe side. Here are my suggestions:
de
* Expansion of the instrument category to add a little more detail. The book I'm using to study Japanese (see below for reference) suggests this particle is used for methods/means (i.e. Koko dewa Nihon-go de hanashimashou), tools (i.e. Naifu to fouku de tabemasu), transportation method (i.e. current instrument category example) and materials/ingredients (i.e. Kore wa ringo to satou de tsukurimasu).
* Addition of a new category to illustrate usage of this particle to indicate the number of people doing an action (i.e. Kinou wa hitori de uchi e kaerimashita).
ni
* Expansion of the location category to add a little more detail. Specifically, the use of ni to indicate the place of existence specifically when using iru/aru (i.e. Koko ni hon ga arimasu) and to indicate the place where the result of an action remains (Kono kami ni anata no namae o kakimashou). 
* Addition of a new category to illustrate usage of this particle to indicate the time that actions are performed (i.e. Juu-ichi-ji ni machiawase o shimashita).
What do you think? By the way, the book that this information came from is The JET Programme Japanese Language Course Beginning Level Book 3 (2005) Fujitsu Learning Media Limited, Tokyo.
Clownba0t (talk) 00:58, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Extra Detail for de and ni 

message: While it's nice to have them there for comparison, nante for one isn't a particle, and several others are questionable. One option is to change the main article name  - "Japanese Particles and Suffixes", or something more suiting. Preferably something simple and crisp that can eloquently encapsulate all of the content (nothing comes to mind right now). Any ideas? 地炎風水闇陽 (Talk) 14:39, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: What, if anything, should be done about the non-particles in this list?

message: The article says this:
:When an i-adjective is marked with hodo, there should be no verb, since an adjective cannot be the agent or patient of a verb in Japanese.
I personally have no idea about this sort of thing, but this thread on a forum seems to indicate otherwise. What's going on here? - furrykef (Talk at me) 12:03, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I cannot explain it grammartically, but they are right. So I removed the i-adjective part. Oda Mari (talk) 14:44, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  程 (hodo) 

message: http://homepage3.nifty.com/jgrammar/grammar/jgr_pnom.htm mentions the compound particles での de no "at, in, with" and への e no "to, towards," and なの na no (copula) and states that they are used when modifying a noun such as 学校での人 gakkō de no hito (my own example) meaning "people at school." There are also からの kara no "from" and までの made no "until" that are not shown on that page, but as far as I know there is no にの ni no, and への is used instead. There may be other particles that can be followed by の in this way. There are other particle+particle compounds like には ni wa and にも ni mo (some are already listed in the article). The particle は wa can follow に ni, で de, へ e, と to, から kara, より yori, まで made, and の no. The particle も mo can follow all the particles that は can, but it can also follow を o. There's also the archaic をば o ba or woba (nowadays は replaces を rather than following it).
In addition, there are very common particle compounds using の no and に ni like の中に no naka ni "inside, within," の上に no ue ni "on top of, above," and の下に no shita ni "below, underneath." These also occur with で de with similar meaning, like の中で. I have also seen へ e used with these. I believe that に, で, and へ in these phrases have the same meaning as plain に, で, and へ, so の中に can also mean "into," but の中で means only "inside," and の中へ can only mean "into." 76.205.85.0 (talk) 08:16, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additional "compound" particles 

message: I must say that I really don't like this example because it's got three different possible meanings and I believe it needs to be changed.
These could be:
*When asking a question to someone, without stresses: i.e. アラビア語って難しくない？, "Arabic─isn't it difficult?" (This is what I originally thought when I read it at first reading and I agree with Oda Mari that if this example must be used it's the most reasonable translation.)
*When asking a question to someone, but with a stress on the end: i.e. アラビア語って (breath) 難しくない!?, "Are you saying that Arabic isn't difficult!?" (Arguably makes more sense as the sentence: アラビア語って難しくない! "Arabic isn't difficult at all!")
*Finally, it could be someone talking to themselves: i.e. アラビア語って難しくない（んだ）, "Oh, so Arabic wasn't difficult after all" (I think this was what the original sentence was getting at, hence my earlier edit, but definitely it's the most obscure)
Regardless I question whether an example should be so ambiguous and it's the fact that the sentence ends in a negative which is making it  awkward, it's got nothing to do with the particle "って". How about "あなたって優しい人ね" "(Wow,) you're a kind person" as the example? (Admittedly I'm struggling to work out a way of getting across that the fact that the person is kind is a revelation to the speaker, but at least it's not ambiguous, also I think it's a better example of replacing って with は).
Feel free to correct me - I'm no grammar expert, hence my post on this talk page first! Thank you for reading, JTST4RS (talk) 17:42, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: アラビア語って難しくない？ is a standard question to ask someone. If you want to say "Are you saying that Arabic isn't difficult!?", it would be アラビア語が難しくないって言うの？. "Arabic isn't difficult at all!" would be アラビア語って少しも難しくないよ。When someone asking/wondering themselves, it would be アラビア語って難しくないのかな？ or アラビア語って難しいんじゃないのかな？ I don't think the example is ambiguous, but if you want to change, I don't mind at all. Hope these pages are helpful. , , and . Oda Mari (talk) 10:19, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for taking your time to explain it to me, that's clarified it very well! I think I was over-thinking it having originally been perplexed by the example; definitely "アラビア語って難しいんじゃないのかな？" makes far more sense than the third bullet point... I could swear I have seen the second bullet point used before - though more than likely now, I misunderstood. Regardless, I certainly have heard of アラビア語って少しも難しくないよ, which does indeed sound natural - I am fully convinced that there is no ambiguity in the example. It's never going to be my favourite example but I'm not going to change it, I can't see it being productive if editors changed perfectly valid examples simply because they prefer other ones. Thanks for coming up with the additional alternatives and searching for the examples too, they were very helpful in convincing me, JTST4RS (talk) 11:03, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meaning of アラビア語って難しくない？ 

message: I think this article is simply marvelous. It makes me wish I could practice Japanese with somebody. 172.56.27.160 (talk) 10:50, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Wow!

message: Never knew it could also mean "or". Didn't find anything on it on the web too. Rozchwierutany (talk) 14:19, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  "それ と これ と" means "that or this"? 

message: Over half of this article is a table containing the list of particles. However, since Wikipedia articles are required to be primarily prose, I feel that we should spin off the table into a separate list, List of Japanese particles, so that this article will remain largely prose. Tikisim (talk) 15:21, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split list 

message: The particle も means "even if" if you put it after the て-form of a verb.
Example sentences:
「うるさくても、寝られます」
"Even if it's noisy, I can sleep."
「洗濯はいつやってもいいですか。」
"Can I use the laundry any time?"
So the sentence means "Even if I used the laundry any time, would that still be good?"
Should we add this definition to the particle も?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.8.47.126 (talk) 04:48, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conditional form ても 

message: Hi,
In the article it says:
Noun: preposition	Boku to ikitai? 僕と行きたい？	Do you want to go with me?
The word comes after its head, not before it, so in Japanese it's a postposition.
I know that it corresponds to an English preposition, but that is not what the column is referring to.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.107.178.197 (talk) 15:26, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: What do the reliable sources say? That's all that matters. Canterbury Tail talk 15:28, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  と is called preposition but it's a postposition