2-1: Fragments of description
It may be strange for English native speaker that Japanese often omits subjects. Actually Japanese tend to omit words compared with English. Introduction oneself is first step in the learning of foreigner language but, in the case of Japanese, we must be confronted with this problem. Usually Japanese do not say ‘I am XXXX’. It adds only ‘DESU’ with his name like ‘XXXXX desu’. In this case ‘DESU’ is not equal with ‘am’ in English.
It is, so to speak, a post-article to represent or describe something. Then it can be added after a sentence itself. When you introduce yourself, you already represent yourself to others. In this case, you need not to say ‘Watashi (‘I’ in Japanese)’, as long as your representation is clear.
In this sense, ‘ka’ that makes Japanese sentences interrogative also is a post-article. Both ‘desu’ and ‘ka’ modify the whole sentence and can be used at once.
Anata wa otya ga suki desu ka. (Do you like tea?)
By the way, Japanese Hai/Iie (Yes/No) sometimes confuses English speaker. For example, the answer to the question ‘You don’t have a pen, do it?’ is ‘No, I don’t have’ or ‘Yes, I have’ in English. But in Japanese these answers become ‘Hai, motte imasen (Yes, I don’t have)’ or ‘Iie, motte imasu(No, I have)’. It is because English Yes/No relates only to verb but Japanese Hai/Iie to the whole sentence. In other words, if the proportion ‘You don’t have a pen’ is truth, the answer is ‘Hai’ and, if false, it is ‘Iie’.
India-Europe languages including English tend to recognize the world from the point of the contrast between to affect and to be affected. It may be compared to two balls in billiards. For playing it, we need at least two balls: the ball to strike and to be stricken. These languages also need two elements: what to affect and what to be affected, or in the case of ‘A is B’, what should be represented and what to represent. Japanese, however, stresses on the affection itself. It means Japanese can make sentences only with a predicate by putting ‘DESU ’ after it.
Someone may think it is incomplete as a sentence. It is true, if you regard complete sentence should be composed of two different elements at least. But it is not necessary to describe something. For example, what is the subject in the sentence ‘It is fine’ or ‘It rain’? These ‘it’ represent unidentified something, which may be regarded as God.
When I learned English in junior high school, these ‘it’ was very mysterious for me. And when I know the idea of God who creates the world in high school, I thought European people seek the God as a subject to the world, being influenced their language. On other hand, Japanese people need not the idea of God but for them it is enough the presence of the world itself. I consider it is the reason why Japanese people believe in nature as itself.
Even if the role of human language is to represent something with
its relation to others, it does not mean we must always represent something
within definite relation. Rather in actual human communication, incomplete
representation can be an intention to communicate others. Sometimes it
stimulates our imagination. A Japanese portrait that lacks the half of
human face is typical example of it. It is impressive because of its blank.
It will be understand, if you notice human communication is originally
the action to supplement information each other.
2-2: The great role of particles (postpositions) in Japanese
As I already pointed out, India-European languages including English are constructed the opposition between to affect and to be affected concerning verb. It may be call a backbone in these languages. But Japanese does not have it so clearly. We may say India-European languages belong to vertebra language and Japanese to non-vertebra language. In place of the backbone of verbs Japanese has particles (postpositions) to constitute sentences. ‘Wa’ and ‘no’ are typical Japanese particles.
The fundamental function of particles is to overlap something with others. For example, in the sentence ‘ Watashi wa Nihongo no sensei desu (I am a Japanese teacher)’, ‘watashi (I)’ is overlapped with ‘sensei (teacher)’ and so it can mean that I am a Japanese teacher. Therefore Japanese ‘wa’ is not equal be verb in English. When I asked by someone which do I like coffee or tea, I always answer in Japanese following
Watashi wa otya desu (I want tea).
If ‘wa’ is equal to be, it means 'I am tea'. But it is nonsense. Strictly speaking, this sentence lacks verb and if make up it, I should say ‘ Watashi wa otya ga hosii (want) desu’. But it is unnatural in Japanese as the answer. In this case ‘watashi (I)’ is overlapped with idea of ‘otya (tea)’ under the situation that I am asked whether coffee or tea.
‘Wa’ is generally considered as the particle to represent topic.
By proposing something as a topic, ‘wa ’ can represent it as a
subject in English sentence ‘A is B’. On the other hand, ‘no’ will
be easy to understand for English speakers. It is almost same with ‘of’
or ‘s’ in ‘Alice's book’. Even if English belongs to vertebra language,
particles already have important role in it. When Japanese people study
English, which particle (preposition) should be used is a problem. For
example, the difference between ‘apply to’ and ‘apply for’ is a question.
Other European languages, especially old type of them, sometimes change
the last part of nouns in place of using ‘to’ of ‘for’. To tell the
truth, I gave up learning Greek and Latin because of the complexity of
this changing of nouns. Any way, if you regard Japanese sentences are composed
of particles (prepositions in English), it is not wrong on the whole.
2-3: Personal pronouns in Japanese
Japanese has many Personal pronouns. I pick up some of them.
I:
watashi,
watakushi, washi, ore, onore, temae, sessha ---
You:
anata,
kimi, nanji, omae, kisama, otaku ---
He/she:
kare/kanojo,
ano-hito,
You may be troubled by so many personal pronouns but you need
not worry about it. When you speak with Japanese, it is enough to remember
‘watashi’, ‘anata’ and ‘kare/kanojo’. At least
I do not recommend you to use ‘otaku’. This many numbers of personal
pronouns mean rather that they do not have important role in Japanese as
English has. Japanese verbs do not change according to person. Originally
Japanese words to signify ‘you’ or ‘he/she’ are the word to represent
position or direction from one’s point of view. It is very important point
to learn Japanese that it describe our world from the sight of speaker.