Japanese and nouns

Here’s a tip for understanding Japanese language: Japanese language tends to use a lot more nouns than verbs to describe things. English speakers of Japanese tend to sound real wordy to Japanese because we’re trying to apply English grammar, with it’s required S-V-O format, when in Japanese the subject or even just the object is enough.

For example, a lot of words in Japanese are expressed as a kind of noun-phrase, which fits the Japanese model of pithy, short sentences. For example, if you want to say “small bird” the textbook way is usually chīsai tori (小さい鳥). That’s how an English speaker would express this, and it works fine. However, if you want to sound really Japanese you would instead use the pithier kotori (小鳥). Note that the two words have been collapsed into a single noun-phrase. This is true with another phrase koinu (子犬) or “puppy”. In a more complex example, if you want to say a new piece of art, or sakuhin (作品), you could say atarashii sakuhin (新しい作品). However if you collapse this into a single noun-phrase, shinsaku (新作), it sounds even better.

Another example, in normal conversation, if you want to say “I am driving” (note the verb in English), you would say ima unten chū desu (今うんてん中です). Literally this means “I am in the middle of driving”, but you can often shorten this to just ima unten chū, or “in the middle of driving”. There’s no active verb here. You could say (like in English) unten shiteimasu, but unten chū, which only uses the noun, works just fine, and sounds nicer in Japanese. Remember, when speaking Japanese, try to get pithy though never rude. Drop unnecessary words, and your Japanese will sound less wordy.

Again, with other words, like “to study” (benkyōshimasu) you can “noun-ify” them with the chū. To say “I am studying”, you can say benkyō chū (勉強中).

Another example where Japanese use nouns rather than verbs would be the following:

* I was born in America.
* Amerika umare desu. (アメリカ生まれです)

Here, the grammar’s quite different than English. You could use umarimasu (to be born), but just they prefer the noun-form umare (birth, birth-place). Both are fine, but you’ll sound less wordy if you the noun-form.

So, do Japanese use active verbs? Of course! All the time. But you just have to get used to the fact that a lot of phrases we would expect in English are expressed as nouns, not verbs, in Japanese. Once you understand this, you can really start to speak and listen to Japanese better. This is true for both respectful, polite Japanese, but also with more casual conversation.

Namo Amida Butsu