Japanese Particles - Differences From English Prepositions

Differences From English Prepositions

Many Japanese particles fill the role of prepositions in English, but they are unlike prepositions in many ways. Japanese does not have equivalents of prepositions like "on", and often uses particles along with verbs and nouns to modify another word where English might use prepositions. For example, ue is a noun meaning "top/up"; and ni tsuite is a fixed verbal expression meaning "concerning", and when used as postpositions:

Tēburu-no  -ue-ni   aru.
Table-  top/up- exists.
"It's on the table."
Ano  hito-wa,    gitaa-ni   tsuite  nandemo wakaru.
That person- guitar- concerning anything  knows.
"That person knows everything about guitars."

Read more about this topic:  Japanese Particles

Famous quotes containing the words differences and/or english:

    When was it that the particles became
    The whole man, that tempers and beliefs became
    Temper and belief and that differences lost
    Difference and were one? It had to be
    In the presence of a solitude of the self....
    Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
    The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
    Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)