Making Sense of Japanese Grammar

2. Use the verb at the end!

2 Use the verb at the end! The basic word order in English is Subject-Verb-direct Object (SVO). The basic word order in Japanese, on the other hand, is Subject-direct Object-Verb (SOV), as shown by the following examples: S O V Kyoo-wa Sachiko-ga kono hanashi-o yomimasu. today Sachiko-Subject this story-Object (will) read “Today, Sachiko will read this story.” S V Kyoo-wa Sachiko-ga ikimasu. today Sachiko-Subject (will) go “Today, Sachiko will go.” The SO sequence, however, is not always observed in practice. You can switch the subject and the direct object around. What you must do is to place a verb (or something like a verb—see Unit 5) at the end of a sentence. Linguists call this property of Japanese right-headedness, because if you write a sentence from left to right, you put the verb—the most important part of the sentence—at the end of a sentence. You need not worry about the order of the other elements as long as you put the verb at the end. You can use either SOV or OSV, although the emphasis is slightly different depending on which one comes first. The following sentence is also grammatical: O S V Kyoo-wa kono hanashi-o Sachiko-ga yomimasu. today this story-Object Sachiko-Subject (will) read “Today, Sachiko will read this story.” For related topics, see also Units 3, 4, 5, 6, and 36. 5 ...