Basic Japanese. Eriko Sato
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remote control is there.
But often, especially if the topic is itself a place, for example, a city, a building, a street, a location, either desu or (ni) arimasu may be used:
映画館はあそこです。/映画館はあそこにあります。
Eigakan wa asoko desu./Eigakan wa asoko ni arimasu.
The movie theater is over there.
お台場はどこですか。/お台場はどこにありますか。
Odaiba wa doko desu ka./Odaiba wa doko ni arimasu ka.
Where is Odaiba?
When an English sentence containing the word is makes sense reworded as ‘(somebody) exists (in a place)’ or ‘(somebody) stays (in a place)’ or ‘(somebody) is located,’ the Japanese equivalent is imasu ‘stays’:
| 「あの人はどこにいますか。」“Ano hito wa doko ni imasu ka.”“Where is he?” | 「外にいます。」“Soto ni imasu.”“He’s outside.” |
There are other uses of these two verbs, arimasu and imasu, which we will examine later. It may help to think of tag meanings for these words as follows: desu ‘equals,’ arimasu ‘exists,’ imasu ‘stays.’ Note that ‘exists’ is the usual way of saying ‘(somebody) has (something)’:
プリンターはありますか。
Purintā wa arimasu ka.
Do you have a printer? (Does a printer exist?)
2.13. Inflected words
Words like desu, arimasu, and imasu are called inflected words, because their shapes can be changed (inflected) to make other words of similar but slightly different meaning. In English, we change the shapes of inflected words to show a difference of subject—‘I am, you are, he is; I exist, he exists,’ as well as a difference of time—‘I am, I was; you are, you were.’ In Japanese, the shape of an inflected word stays the same regardless of the subject: Gakusei desu can mean ‘I am a student, you are a student, he is a student, we are students, you are students, they are students’ depending on the situation. If you want to make it perfectly clear, you can put in a topic: Watashi wa gakusei desu, anata wa gakusei desu, ano hito wa gakusei desu.
2.14. Dropping subject nouns
In English, every normal sentence has a subject and a predicate. If there is no logical subject, we stick one in anyway: ‘IT rains’ (what rains?), ‘IT is John’ (what is John—it?). Sentences that do not contain a subject are limited to commands—‘Keep off the grass!’—in which a sort of ‘you’ is understood, or to a special style reserved for postcards and telegrams, for example, ‘Arrived safely. Wish you were here.’ In Japanese, the normal sentence type contains a predicate, Arimasu ‘There is (some),’ Kamera desu ‘(It) is a camera’—and to this we may add a subject or a topic, but it isn’t necessary unless we wish to be explicit. Since the topic of a sentence is usually obvious in real conversation, the Japanese often doesn’t mention it at all, or occasionally throws it in as an afterthought.
A predicate may consist of a simple verb, arimasu, imasu, or of a noun plus the copula, Kyōshi desu ‘It’s (I’m) a teacher,’ but it cannot consist of the copula alone. The Japanese can talk about the equation A = B, that is A wa B desu as in Kore wa kamera desu ‘This is a camera,’ by dropping the topic (A) and just saying = B, that is B desu as in Kamera desu ‘(It) is a camera.’ But they never say just = (desu) or give a one-sided equation like A = (B). Something has to fill the blank before the word desu, in all cases.
2.15. Words of relative reference and question words
Notice the related shapes and meaning of the following classes of words:
| わたしwatashiI | あなたanatayou | あの人ano hitohe, she | だれdarewho |
| これkorethis one | それsorethat one near you | あれarethat one over there | どれdorewhich one |
| このkono(of) this | そのsono(of) that | あのano(of) that there | どのdonowhich |
| こんなkonnalike this | そんなsonnalike that one near you | あんなannalike that one over there | どんなdonnawhat sort of |
| ここkokohere | そこsokothere | あそこasokoover there | どこdokowhere |
| こうkōin this way | そうsōin that way | ああāin that way there | どうdōin what way, how |
The words in the column with watashi are used to refer to something near the speaker. The words in the column with anata refer to something near the person you are talking with, or to something you have just mentioned. The words in the column with ano hito refer to something at a distance from both you and the person you are talking with. For some situations, either those in the column with anata or those in the column with ano hito may be heard, since the reference is a relative matter. Be sure to keep dare ‘who’ and dore ‘which’ distinct. Instead of konna, sonna, anna, and donna, we often hear the more colloquial kō iu, sō iu, ā iu, and dō iu. (Note that iu ‘says’ is often pronounced as if spelled yū or ‘you.’)
その中にカメラがあります。
Sono naka ni kamera ga arimasu.
Inside it, there is a camera.
どんな本ですか。
Donna hon desu ka.
What sort of book is it?
どうですか。
Dō desu ka.
How is it?
あの人はだれですか。
Ano hito wa dare desu ka.
Who is that person?
2.16. Words for ‘restaurant’
There are a number of different words for various types of restaurant in Japan. You will often hear the word resutoran, from the English word of French origin. Other words include old-fashioned shokudō ‘dining room/hall,’ kissa or kissaten ‘a kind of French-type café,’ and specialized restaurants or shops that end in ya ‘store,’ as in sushiya ‘a sushi restaurant,’ sobaya ‘a noodle restaurant,’ yakinikuya ‘a table-top BBQ restaurant,’ yakitoriya ‘a grilled chicken restaurant,’ and izakaya, a friendly bar that serves home-style dishes and alcoholic beverages.