Sentence-End Postpositions
In addition to postpositions that go after nouns, there are also postpositions that come after the entire sentence and set the mood of the sentence. English has no such system at all and has to rely entirely on tone to express this.
よ - yo - よ adds emphasis to a statement. You can use it to scold someone, encourage someone to listen to a request, or state a fact contrary to what has been said or what you believe your listener thinks.
ね - ne - ね is similar to saying "don't you think so" or "isn't that right" in English and also makes a statement seem more friendly.
な - na - な is almost the opposite of ね。 When you say something you don't expect an answer to, you use な。 It is often used to state impressions you have. Many men use it in the same way as ね。
か - ka - か is the question marker in Japanese. When this is at the end of a statement, you know that the sentence is a quesiton. In fact, when you use か it isn't required to have a question mark at the end of a sentence because the か already let's your listener know it's a question. I will be explaining questions in the next lesson.
To contrast all of these words, here's a list of simple sentences which are all the same except for the final postposition.
Vocab
さむい (samui) = cold (describing weather)
さむいよ。
It's cold (outside).
* This implies either that the listener should do something about this (like putting on a jacket or something) or is used to contradict what they said. The latter isn't very polite though.
さむいね。
Isn't it cold (outside)?
さむいな。
Man, it's cold (outside).
さむいか。
Is it cold (outside)?
* There are some weird rules for questions, and one of them is that using the postpisition か in a plain mode sentence sounds really rough and would only be used by men in familiar situations. In polite mode, though, か is acceptable. I will explain these nuances later.
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