I’ve been learning Japanese for about two months, so I’m still fairly new to it (though I had a little boost on vocabulary from having visited Japan as a tourist a couple times).
I’m struggling with putting complex sentences together — particularly those with a lot of particles. Something like this: 机の上には4冊の本があります。
I can make out the parts of the sentence by looking at it and I can put it together in my head. If I hear it, I can logically deduce what’s being said. But I can’t even begin to formulate a sentence like that without putting a lot of thought to it, since the structure is so different from any language I’m used to. “Desk’s atop on, four’s book, there are.”
Certainly, that would not flow from my mouth fluently, even though I confidently know all the vocabulary.
I know I’m just beginning, but does this just naturally come together with practice or am I totally looking at this the wrong way? Are there any strategies to make this flow easier?
7 comments
You just need practice
Ideally you learn the grammar so you know for a fact what’s going on in the sentence. Then you add immersion on top, hands on immersion if possible. So you get tons and tons of examples of that grammar in work, until it solidifies in your mind and you get comfortable at switching out words and whole clauses on the fly.
The way I look at your example is:
First I notice the obvious sentence parts as identified by particles.
机の上には – は tells me this is the topic and the rest of the sentence is going to comment on that in some manner. I’ll also notice the に, which means there’s going to be an action that’s going to resolve at whatever comes before the に. Which in this case is 机の上 – on the desk. So right off the bat, I see there’s a topic about something going onto or being on top of the desk. My brain is already predicting possible follow-ups and prepping for variations.
4冊の本が – next I notice the subject marker が. It’s telling me that whatever is preceeding it is going to be the main actor in that sentence. Something or someone that is either doing something, or being something. And that actor is: 4冊の本 – four (book counter) books. “Four Books” is the subject, the main actor of the sentence that is doing or being something.
And then finally, I’m expecting to see an action or description or a thing that the subject is. And because I already know the subject is “four books” AND I know there must be a verb that’s gonna act on it and make it so the books end up on the desk, AND because there’s no を to indicate a likely transitive verb, the list of things that I expect to see, are pretty limited. I’m expecting an intransitive verb. The book is going to be essentially doing something to itself.
あります – and there it is. ある + polite form. And that caps off the sentence in one of the most expected ways. A basic existence verb. Just what you usually expect to see when you’re expecting a simple verb after が. And my brain puts together the full thing:
“On the desk, four books exist” – or in pretty English – “There are four books on the desk.”
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I don’t think there really are any shortcuts. Learn the grammar, then immerse yourself as much as humanly possible. And actively use the language. Try to think in Japanese, try to speak it, even if it’s just speaking to yourself. Read and write if you can. Everything helps.
When I started learning Japanese, it felt like I had to turn my brain upside down to get it. Now it’s automatic. The main challenge is that to us English and other indo-germanic language speakers, Japanese sentence structure feels like the reverse of what we’re used to. It takes time and practice, but you’d be surprised at how the human brain is able to manage any form of language: we were built to do this (think about how children pick up any language effortlessly), we just get less flexible with age is all.
Reminds of of the old (1970s) HP calculators with their reverse logic (forget what it was called): you’d actually have to enter your formula with the operator at the end – same in Japanese: verb or operative part connecting sentence elements is at the end.
Practice complex sentences
I think that the first step to learning a language is to memorize as many example sentences as possible.
So in your case, first, you need to memorize the base forms, “机の上に本が1冊あります” and “There is one book on the desk.” in pairs. Then, you can change the words in the Japanese sentence freely, like changing 机 to イス, or 1冊 to 4冊. This process will make it easier for you to increase variation of the sentences you can make.
After months of practice it won’t feel so unnatural. But when it does, it helps to read it in the voice of Yoda
Desk there is, young paddawan, four plates above must exist, it is your destiny
It helps if you learn the particles specifically. Tofugu.com has several articles on は、が、に、へ, and more and they’re really detailed and easy to understand. I have been studying for a long time, and still found these so incredible helpful.