Grammar: Particles

Particles in the Japanese language confuse the bejessus out of me. And since they're used so often in spoken and written Japanese, I have to learn them and learn them soon if I want to proceed in my quest to learn the language. That's why I'm going to make it my mission today to understand particles.

Tae Kim's Japanese Grammar Guide looks like a nice place to start...

Particles:

Generally, particles are used to associate a noun with another noun. It's one or two hiragana characters that attach to the end of a word to define what grammatical function that word is serving in the sentence. Using the correct particles is very important because the meaning of a sentence can completely change just by changing the particles.

The 「は」 topic particle

The topic particle essentially identifies what it is that you're talking about, basically the topic of your sentence. It is written with the character 「は」. Now, while this character is normally pronounced /ha/, it is pronounced /wa/ only when it is being used as the topic particle.

The 「も」 inclusive topic particle

Another particle that is very similar to the topic particle is the inclusive topic particle. It is essentially the topic particle with the additional meaning of "also". Basically, it can introduce another topic in addition to the current topic. The inclusive topic particle is the 「も」 character.

The 「が」 identifier particle

Ok, so we can make a topic using the 「は」 and 「も」 particle. But what if we don’t know what the topic is? What if I wanted to ask, “Who is the student?” What I need is some kind of identifier because I don’t know who the student is. If I used the topic particle, the question would become, “Is who the student?” and that doesn’t make any sense because “who” is not an actual person.

This is where the 「が」 particle comes into play. It is also referred to as the subject particle but I hate that name since "subject" means something completely different in English grammar. Instead, I move to call it the identifier particle because the particle indicates that the speaker wants to identify something unspecified.

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Dummies.com gets into the nitty gritty without being too technical. Think of it as a mini-Japanese Particles for Dummies book. Here's an exerpt which describes particles in the simplest way possible...

Forming Sentences in Japanese:

The basic word order in English is subject-verb-object, but the order in Japanese is subject-object-verb. Instead of saying I watched TV, you say I TV watched. Instead of saying I ate sushi, say I sushi ate. Now you know the pattern. So repeat after me: Put the verb at the end! Verb end! Verb end! Go ahead and try it! I sake drank, I karaoke did, and I money lost! Good, you the basic word order in Japanese have.

Introducing particles

Subject-object-verb is the basic word order in Japanese, but object-subject-verb is also okay. As long as the verb is at the end of the sentence, Japanese grammar teachers are happy. For example, if Mary invited John, you can say either Mary John invited or John Mary invited in Japanese. Like I said, as long as the verb is at the end, the order of other phrases doesn't matter.
Although it sounds great, a smart person like you may be saying, "Wait a minute! How do you know who invited whom?" The secret is that Japanese use a little tag called a particle right after each noun phrase. The particle for the action performer is ga, and the particle for the action receiver is o. So, both of the following sentences mean Mary invited John:

Marî ga Jon o sasotta.
Jon o Marî ga sasotta.

Actually, ga is the subject-marking particle, and o is the direct object-marking particle. They can't be translated into English. Sorry, it's just Japanese.

Other Japanese particles include kara, made, ni, de, to, and ka. Luckily, they can be translated into English words like from, until, to, with, by, at, in, on, and, and or. But each particle is translated differently depending on the context. For example, the particle de corresponds to in, by, or with in English:

Bosuton de benkyôsuru. (I'll study in Boston.)
Takushî de iku. (I'll go by taxi.)
Fôku de taberu. (I eat with a fork.)

Translation is not always the best way to figure out a foreign language, so remember the particles in terms of their general functions, not their exact English translations.