The Copula
The English verb "to be" has many uses and has many forms. Let's look at it closely so we can better understand our own language before going on to Japanese.
The verb "to be" (which includes am, are, is, was, been, being, and be) has four uses in English.
Helping Verb
I am going to the store.
He is studying abroad.
Are you talking to me?.
* "To be" just adds tense to the actual verb in the sentence. In the first one, the actual verb is "going," the second one is "studying," and the third one is "talking." These are all in the progressive tense.
Locative Verb
I'm in the bathroom.
She has been in her room sleeping all day.
Tokyo is in the Tokyo prefecture.
* These all show the location of someone or something.
Existential Verb
There are over 40,000 kanji!
There are 9 planets in our solar system.
Are there any McDonald's in Japan?
* These state that someone or something exists. You can also have existential-locative verbs like the last two examples which both state their existence and location.
The Copula
I am Michael.
Are you alright?.
Japanese is fun!
* "Copula" is a funny word tha has the same meaning as an equals sign "=." The copula connects a noun to another noun or an adjective like saying "noun A = noun B." In this lesson, I will be teaching you about the Japanese copula. All these other forms of "to be" are formed differently in Japanese. I will explain them all later.
In a Japanese sentence with a copula, you have a SUBJECT-PREDICATE-COPULA structure. The predicate word is either a noun or an adjective that describes the subject. The predicate in Japanese does not take a postposition because it connects directly to the copula. Here's some vocab and more example sentences.
da = copula (the word I was talking about before)
isha = doctor kirei = pretty
gaka = artist shinsetsu = kind
sensei = teacher suteki = wonderful
kagakusha = scientist
sarariiman = businessman
I am a teacher.
First, let's find our subject. "I" is our subject. It is translated as "watashi" in Japanese and we still add "wa" after it. Second, we find the predicate. The predicate in an English sentence comes after the verb "to be." That means our predicate is "teacher" and we can translate it as "sensei." We do not add a postposition to it, because it then directly connects to the copula "da." Our final result is
Watashi wa sensei da.
She is a doctor.
Again, we find our subject. "She" is our subject, so we translate it as "ano hito" and add the subject marking postposition "wa" after it. Then we find the predicate. It's "doctor" in this sentence. We can translate "doctor" to "isha" but we do not put a postposition after it because of our rule and then we add "da" after it to complete the sentence.
Ano hito wa isha da.
Watashi wa sarariiman da.
Our subject is "watashi" again which translates to "I." We see the copula at the end and it translates to "am." "Sarariiman" is our predicate which translates to "businessman."
I am a businessman.
Kare wa shinsetsu da.
Our subject is "kare" which we can translate to "he" or "she." Let's say it's a woman in this case. So our subject is "she." We have the copula at the end which translates to "is." "Shinsetsu" is an adjective that means "kind." so our result is
She is kind.
Tanaka-san wa gaka da.
Now from Japanese to English. Our subject is "Tanaka-san" in this case because it is followed by "wa." Last time we said it was "Mr. Tanaka" so this time, it is his wife, "Mrs. Tanaka." Remember you can only tell this from context. Next we see that this sentence ends in "da" so we can translate it as "is" in English. Lastly, we find the predicate which comes right before "da." "Gaka" is translated as "artist." So this translates as
Mrs. Tanaka is an artist.
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