Cat Speaks

In Japanese, the sentence "cat speaks" has the same word order as in English:

neko ねこ shabelu しゃべる cat talks = the cat talks

If you change the order of the Japanese words, then the English translation gets "which", "who" or "that" between the words:

shabelu しゃべる neko ねこ talks cat cat which talks = talking cat

This is the only way of saying "which" in Japanese. Whenever a verb is followed by a noun, a "which/who/that" must be inserted in the translation.

This is why the verb always goes at the end of the sentence in Japanese. "Eat potatoes" is always "poteto kuu", because "kuu poteto" always means "potatoes (he) eats" or "potatoes which eat (something)" or something like that.

conjugation of adjetives, nouns and verbs
How to Read Japanese Manga
Cat is Clean

Copyright (c) 2003-2008 Jordi Mas Trullenque.
email: jordimastrullenque at gmail dot com
http://purl.oclc.org/NET/manga/gatohabla.en.html
Last revised: 2008-10-13