Articles, Gender and Number

articles

Japanese for "a cat" or "some cats" or "cats" is neko ねこ, Japanese for "the cat" or "the cats" is neko ねこ too.

The same works for all nouns, except proper nouns like tanaka sann たなかさん, and so-called pronouns, like watashi わたし, which refer to only one person (at a time).

gender

Japanese for "he will come" is kulu くる, and Japanese for "she'll come" is kulu くる too. The same word works for "it'll come", "I'll come", "we'll come", and whoever else will come.

A politer version of kulu くる "will come" is kimasu きます "will come". Use always kimasu きます unless you are dead sure that you are in aa situation in which saying kulu くる is better.

There's a "word for he" and a "word for she" in the language, but don't use them, they seldom do. Suppose they know you are speaking about Tanaka san and you just say kulu くる "will come". Then they'll understand that you mean that Tanaka san is coming. You do not need to add the information that Tanaka san is a she, they already know that.

But if you want to speak about Tanaka san when you are speaking about anybody else, that won't work, so you should change subject and say tanaka sann wa kulu たなかさんはくる "Tanaka san is coming". In this case, just saying "she is coming" won't cut it. So, most of the time you can and MUST do without words for "he" and "she".

If they ask you if you are coming tomorrow and want to answer that you will, answer just unn うん "OK", or just hai はい "OK". Technically you might answer kulu くる "will come", but that's not so good. And you

Now, imagine that somebody asks in Japanese "will Alice come here tomorrow?". If you answer with just kulu くる "coming!", everybody will understand that you mean "yes, she is coming tomorrow", because we are speaking about Alice, not about you. There is no need to add any "Japanese word for she". In fact, not adding it is far better than adding it.

Now suppose that you want to say that somebody is coming, but you don't think people will understand who are you speaking about. Then you say "Alice is coming".

exceptions

A few Japanese words can only be said about men, or only about woman. Such as "primadonna".

The word bijinn da びじんだ means she's gorgeous / she's beautiful (or you're gorgeous/beautiful). It can be used only when speaking about a woman. When speaking about an aesthetically pleasing man you can say kakooii かこういい (he's handsome / you're handsome).

Curiously enough, the Japanese expression HANNSAMU da ハンサムだ can apply to anybody. It can ean "you're handsome", "you're beautiful", "she's handsome", "she's beautiful", "they are..." and so on.

gender of animals

The word ushi うしmay mean a bull or a cow, uma うま a horse or a mare, gokibuli ごきぶり a cockroach or a "henroach". -- >

number

"Number" is the diffeence betwen "cat" and "cats" or between "he jumps" and "they jump". Japanese has nothing like the English "s", so the word neko ねこ may mean a cat, some cats, the cat, the cats, or cats in general.

If you want to be more precise, add a number and say ippiki no neko いっぴきのねこ "one cat", gohiki no neko ごひきのねこ "five cats", takusann no neko たくさんのねこ "truckloads of cats".

number of pronouns

Japanese words meaning "I", "thou" or "that person", refer always to just one person.

And Japanese words meaning "we", "ye" or "those people" always refer to two or more people. These words usually contain some suffix meaning "and sundry". For details see chapter I, You and They.

wa は, ga が and o を
 How to Read Japanese Manga
are particles important?

Copyright (c) 2003-2008 Jordi Mas Trullenque.
email: jordimastrullenque at gmail dot com
http://purl.oclc.org/NET/manga/articulo.en.html
Last revised: 2008-10-26