What does direct object marker mean?


I’ve just begun trying to learn Japanese using this video https://youtu.be/8YV8KmfBbBM and at 16:59 they have you determine which order the words should be in using sov, and so far have explained that the subject is absent from sentences if it is obvious. Do what does direct object marker mean? I’ve never come across this term.

As I’m writing this I’m beginning to think it’s like the English “an” that connects the two. If so, what does it mean in English? The example sentence used in the video wouldn’t make sense if it was “apple an ate,” or at least, not to me right now since I’m so used to svo. Also it’s worth mentioning that previous examples used in the video left out direct object markers for simplicity sake. Please help me, and thank you!

2 comments
  1. Japanese is different from English because it uses particles, rather than word order, to tell you what function words have in a sentence.

    If I say, “The dog bit me,” I know the dog was the one doing the biting because it comes first in the sentence.

    If I say, “I bit the dog,” I know that I’m doing the biting because “I” comes first in the sentence.

    Japanese is not like that. You have to use particles to mark the direct object (the thing that is being bitten, or eaten, or acted on in some way).
    So the function of “wo” is to tell you what the direct object is. That’s why they call it the direct object marker – it marks the direct object. It doesn’t have any English equivalent at all, not even a “it’s sort of like…”

  2. For reference:

    は (pronounced *wa* here as a special case) is the topic marker. It may or may not also be the subject of the sentence, but the sentence is all about it one way or the other.

    が is the actual subject marker. Note that Japanese verbs do not necessarily work the same as their English counterparts.

    を is the direct object marker. It is always the direct object marker. This *hiragana* has no other function in the language but to be the direct object marker. If you’re having trouble parsing a sentence, look for the を first.

    に is indirect object marker #1. Its usage is roughly equivalent to various English prepositions including, *at, to, in, on*, and several others, but it’s not actually a preposition and does not function by any of the same rules. It generally shows directionality or location.

    で is indirect object marker #2. Its usage is roughly equivalent to various English prepositions including *at, to, in, on, by, with,* and several others, but it’s not actually a preposition and does not function by any of the same rules. It generally shows tangential relationships to the action, for example an item that is used to perform the action.

    If you translate “I cut the carrot with a knife” into Japanese, then you could use は with *I*, を with *carrot*, and で with *knife: 私はナイフでニンジンを切る*

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