Is Hanako a student? - Japanese Teaching Ideas

Creating basic sentences
Creating questions
Creating negatives
Word order
 Japanese is SOV (Subject + Object + Verb)
スミスさんはにほんにいきます。
Sumisusan wa nihon ni ikimasu.
Smith
(topic) Japan
to will go.
 English is SVO (Subject + Verb + Object)
Smith is going to Japan.
Basic punctuation
 Japanese uses no spaces.
(Spaces are used to help new learners of the language only.)

。= full stop

、= comma
Topic - Wa
 Topic (what the sentence is mainly about) is marked with
Particle wa – は (hiragana ha but read wa).
はなこさん
はがくせいです。
Hanako san wa gakusei desu.
Hanako
(topic) student
is.
Hanako is a student.
 The topic of the sentence is Hanako, the rest of the
sentence provides information about the topic ie describes
Hanako.
Ellipsis – omission of topic
 When the topic is understood or obvious, it is common to
omit the topic.
わたしはがくせいです。
Watashi wa gakusei
desu.
わたしはがくせいです。
Watashi wa gakusei
desu.
 First and second person pronouns (me – わたし watashi)
(you – あなたanata) are often omitted, as they are obvious.
Creating questions - Ka
 Simply add the Particle ka - か
がくせいです。
Gakusei desu.
I’m a student.
がくせいですか。
Gakusei desu ka.
Are you a student?
Answering questions – no topic
 Topic is often omitted when answering questions
はなこさんはがくせいですか。
Hanakosan wa gakusei desu ka?
Is Hanako a student?
はい、はなこさんはがくせいです。
Hai, Hanakosan wa gakusei desu.
Yes, Hanako is a student she is.
Negatives
 です
desu
ではありません OR じゃありません
dewa arimasen (f)
ja arimasen (if)
がくせいです。
Gakusei desu.
I’m a student.
がくせいじゃありません。
Gakusei ja arimsen.
I’m not a student.

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