When I first started off with Japanese, I thought こと was just like…”thing” or something. But as time went on I started seeing it in more and more unique ways, and I feel like the longer time goes on, the more confused I am with this word. It seems to have 1,000,000 subtle meanings and grammar patterns that use it. Whenever a sentence has こと in it I want to curl up into a ball.
Are there any good guides for こと anyone has? Or a good explanation I could have at least? It’s one of those grammar walls that I feel like I need to overcome because of how common it is. It translates horribly into English!
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I’ve seen it used when expressing something that is like an English past perfect analogue e.g. 読んだことありますか？Although, I also do not fully understand its nuance.
I don’t know about a million subtle meanings and nuance, but a lot of the time it’s used like もの to turn the preceding verb or phrase into a noun.
1. Refers to a non-physical thing. そんなことを知らなかった。I didn’t know such a thing.
2. As such, it is usually paired with verbs for thought, speech/communication and so on to make a nominalized verb phrase. 先生が言ったことはわかしません。I don’t know/understand what the teacher said.
3. It’s used in several grammar points as an idiomatic phrase. すしを食べたことはありませんが、ラーメンを食べるごとはあります。I’ve never had sushi but there are times when I eat ramen.
I think of it like “story” than “thing”. Usually it fits in that category more. As others say, a “thing” is more like もの.
My recommendation is to go into [Imabi.net](https://Imabi.net), Ctrl+f Koto until you find it and Imabi will take care of all the nuances and uses for you.
Keep in mind that particles in Japanese do not function on their own most of the time, they can have many other uses related to certain grammaer points or vocab points. For example Ha and Ga after Koto changes their meaning as you will see, and there’s also Koto ni naru and Koto Ni suru (cure dolly made a good video about that), not to mention To iu koto, so just reading the Koto page will not give you every thing because grammer particles do not function in a vaccum as most textbooks/people make them seem so. But with Imabi you will nail koto when u see it.
And yes, you can ignore the subtle cases in most grammer points except in particles. You have to read every example and every nuance point to fully comprehend them, but it will be worth it and will even get you to speak Japanese comfortably,
Lots of ways to use こと, I’d recommend find examples you don’t understand and ask teacher. One example is こと can be used when talking about a past experience (-たことがある) or occasional experience (-ことがある).
An example from a podcast I remember was メロンパンを食べたことがありますか. My understanding is this changes the nuance from “have you eaten” to “have you tried/experienced eating”, but if someone could properly explain how the nuance changes by adding こと here I would personally appreciate that.
Looking up a guide might not be enough. You just need to see it being used in context and really pay attention how it’s use. Just try to think of it as a tool for conceptualizing ideas into a more literal form. Not so much a “thing” but an idea you can present to another person. Here’s some examples (or ways I end up seeing it used or use myself)
私達ってこと同じ様ですか
大変な事あるよ
そんなことある?
日本語を喋ることが出来ない
バーガー食べたことがある?
Tofugu has a decent guide on it: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese-grammar/koto/
Its thing as in a concept – cerebral, non-physical, movement etc.
こと also functions as a nomilalizer.
The earliest example you usually come across in a text book is -たことがある to express an experience that has already been done. The experience itself has to be a noun because it is an object you already possess/ exists but because an experience is not tangible it has to be こと.
There’s a lot of the phrases that use a similar idea. Sometimes you do have do to some mental gymnastics to get to the japanese perspective from the English one though.
it’s not so much that it has lots of meanings, it’s that it has a very generic use and ends up in a lot of places. aside from being “intangible thing”, it is also one of the extremely generic it/thing/stuff type of noun that is there for purely grammatical purpose.
think “it’s raining” in english. what’s “it” in that case? there’s no meaning, it can’t be translated. it’s just there because english demands a subject in that kind of construction.
likewise こと is used as a nominalizer
たべる – eat
たべること – eating (or act of eating)
and since that pattern can fit literally every single verb in japanese, it seems like it’s being used in a ton of ways, but it’s not, it’s serving a grammatical purpose.
now there are also other uses for it, but you’re probably not running into it yet, it’s probably either a generic noun like “thing” or part of a nominalizing grammar construct
lesson: don’t translate word by word, focus on phrases and sentence patterns
こと means “thing” but it refers to intangible “things” .
It can be used on it’s own.
For example そんなことはしない – “I wouldn’t do something like that”. or
仕事のことで相談したい ” I want to talk to you about a work thing”.
In this case こと is pretty synonymous with the English words “thing” or “something”.
And it can be used to nominalize a verb phrase. This means that it’s taking the verb phrase and making it function like a noun. English does this using infinitives and gerunds.
For example: すしを食べる means “eat sushi”.
In すしを食べること,the こと allows the act of eating sushi to function as a noun. It’s a very clunky translation but I found it helped to think of it as meaning something like “the thing/ act of eat sushi”
In most grammar structures that you see こと in, this is what it’s doing.
e.g.
テレビを見ることがすき – “I like the thing of watch TV” i.e. “I like watching TV”
日本に行ったことがあります – “I have the thing of went to Japan” i.e. “I have been to Japan”
歯をみがくことが大事です – “The thing of brush teeth is important” i.e. “Brushing your teeth is important”
u/iammrnoone wrote this comprehensive guide on こと usages: https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/ytebmj/briefjapanese_how_to_use_こと_what_does_きみのことがすき/ I find it very useful.
Cure Dolly explanations
https://youtu.be/aoP6sFyTsIk
https://youtu.be/aYlgQaK7lS4
To be honest, I think it’s one of rare cases when it’s easier to memorize just as it is, rather than try to find logic. こと indeed is used in like 30 or even more expressions, and some of these overlap with other expressions involving の or もの. It’s more important to focus on differences, rather than some hidden logic why people have decided to do it such way. Otherwise you can end up with 300 pages book, which still might have blanks. If you really want to dig into details, there are many research papers about this.
It’s a Japanese equivalent of “thing”, so simplify it for myself as follows:
もの ≈ tangible thing
こと ≈ intangible thing
For example, 食べれるもの is something you can eat and 食べること is the act of eating, which is something you can do (できること).
Think of an as an abstract essence of something
It’s also used in lists of do’s and don’ts which has no useful grammatical explanation other than to know it is used for lists of do’s and don’ts
Haha my native language has similar concept and people here learning English struggle to related it to just “thing” as it doesnt always translate this way.
something like the English *infinitive* and *gerund* combined
Functionally, こと turns a verb into a noun, so you can use a second verb or an adjective in relation to it.
Usually, this means “to verb” or “verbing” – such as in the following examples:
日本語を勉強することが好きです。I like to study Japanese.
走ることが難しくない。Running is not hard.
It can also be used to make a certain kind of past tense by using こと-noun alongside ある – I like to think of this as “I have verbed” (and the た/ました form just as “verbed”).
Note that you DON’T use a こと noun with 行く:
食べるかとに行く。WRONG
食べに行く。CORRECT