Technical differences between where words are placed

I’m pretty good at basic Japanese sentence structure, but as the sentences get more complicated I’m finding myself struggling at wording certain sentences. For example, is there any real difference between this

私は車で学校に行きます

And this?

私は学校に車で行きます

The bottom one is the one that I read, but I can’t really find a good answer on if the top one is considered grammatically correct or if it’s just another way to say it, similar to how adverbs can be placed anywhere before a verb.

3 comments
  1. They are exactly the same, just the emphasis is slightly different.In the first one, the emphasis is that you will go by car.

    In the second one, the emphasis is that you will go to school by car.

    But really, in casual conversation, the difference is insignificant and you can use either. The beauty of Japanese particles is that they allow you to do this kind of word order rearranging because the particles define so much of what happens when, where and to whom. So almost any order is understandable.

    And most people wouldn’t say 私は, in this sentence in casual conversation.

  2. Because the role of individual words and phrases is mostly determined by particles, you can switch these segments without changing the meaning. So it’s grammatical. However, it’s less common to use unusual orders. Usually people follow specific patterns like “3 big red squire plastic boxes” and not “3 squire plastic red boxes”. Doesn’t sound the same, right?

    Classical Japanese word order is はーにーがーとーでーからーへ・にーを. Two に here, because first に is about time/location where subject does something, and second に is for intransitive/ditransitive verbs, typically destination, indirect objects and so on. In talk, however, it depends quite a lot on our thinking process. If you have full sentence in your mind, you might use classical order, but what if you don’t? You can think about “how I get to the school?” and say 学校に first, or you can remember something and add details later. So in casual talk word order can be significantly different. In text too, especially for emphasis. And some of these can be exchanges with little to no difference, while some would be quite unusual. For example, while 学校に is slightly closer to the verb than 車で, both describe the verb and belong kinda to the same block. On the other hand, time of occurrence is much more common at the beginning. We usually don’t say things like “I sent him yesterday a message”, right? It’s quite unusual to place it in between. There are some stronger connections between some of these, like から with へ・に, or を with a verb, these naturally come as a pack. And typically you won’t place something else in between. But it’s not so much something to memorize, rather it’s how people usually think.

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