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In this thread, we are going to discuss basic sentence structure and such. It's going to be a work in progress for a while, I bet, but please be patient. I'm going to reserve a few spaces for continued expansion, but please PM me with any questions or comments on this thread just in case I need more space. Thanks!

The Bare Basics: Your First Sentence

First, let me tell you about particles. Particles are a part of speech in Japanese that are put after words to indicate what part of speech that word is. Our first example will allow us to complete our first sentence.

The first particle you need to know is は (ha). Although this particle is written as "ha," when this letter is used as a particle, it is pronounced "wa" as in "water." However, since if you were to type the sentence on your computer, you would need to type "ha" to make the right letter come up, that is what I use when writing it down. Just remember in these examples when you see "ha" by itself, be sure to pronounce it "wa."

は is the subject particle. It says that the word (or words) that came just before it is the subject of the sentence.

To complete our basic sentence, let me explain "desu." It means "to be," and it counts as a verb for these sentences.

So here's how a very basic sentence works:

(SUBJECT) は (NOUN) です。
(SUBJECT) ha (NOUN) desu.

Here are a few examples:

わたし　は　アイビー　です。
Watashi ha Ivy desu.
I am Ivy.

わたし　は　がくせい　です。
Watashi ha gakusei desu.
I am a student.

あなた　は　きょうし　です。
Anata ha kyoushi desu.
You are a teacher.

あなた　は　にんげん　です。
Anata ha ningen desu.
You are a human being.

Turning Sentences Into a Question

It's very easy to turn sentences into a question in Japanese. All you need is the particle か (ka). Just put it onto the end of your sentence and voila! You've got a question instead of a statement. Quick example from above:

あなた　は　にんげん　です　か。
Anata ha ningen desu ka.
Are you a human being?

Notice that I did not use a ? in the Japanese version of this sentence. Since か is on the end of the sentence, a ? is not necessary, so use a period instead.

これ、それ、あれ: Kore, Sore, and Are

Let's make our basic sentence a little more versatile by learning the words for "this" and "that."

これ (kore) means "this" in Japanese.

それ and あれ (sore and are), on the other hand, are a little more complicated. They both mean "that," but それ (sore) refers to something that is near the person you are speaking with. あれ (are) refers to something that is far away from everyone involved in the conversation.

Here are some examples:

これ　は　ゲーム　です　か。
Kore ha ge-mu desu ka.
Is this a game?

それ　は　ズボン　です。
Sore ha zubon desu.
Those are pants. (It's implied that the pants are next to or being held by the person you are talking to.)

あれ　は　ねこ　です。
Are ha neko desu.
That is a cat. (It's implied that the cat is, for example, across the street or similarly far away from the people in this conversation.)

All Together: How To Ask What Something Is

To finish our first lesson, let's learn to ask what something is. In these sentences, simply replace the noun with なん (nan).

Examples:

これ　は　なん　です　か。
Kore ha nan desu ka.
What is this?

それ　は　なん　です　か。
Sore ha nan desu ka.
What is that? (Next to or in the hand of the person you are asking.)

あれ　は　なん　です　か。
Are ha nan desu ka.
What is that? (Far away from both you and the person you are asking.)

Next time: Adjectives and Possessives!

{Reserved for sentence order and verb conjugation.}