Japanese and English: opposite word order

As one study of Japanese languages moves beyond the beginning stages (introductions, simple statements, etc) it becomes increasingly obvious the Japanese sentence structure is radically different than English. In many respects the structure is a mirror opposite of English in my opinion. I’ve also heard the same concept expressed on JPod101 lessons too. Here’s a very basic sentence in Japanese:

昨日、うどんを買った。
(kinō, udon wo katta)

“I bought udon yesterday”)

Notice that even in this simple example, the main points of sentence, shaded in blue and red, appear in reverse order between Japanese and English. But at this level, the grammar is still fairly straightforward. Here’s a more complicated example:

昨日竹田が買ったうどんを作った。
(kinō no takeda no katta udon wo tsukutta)
“I cooked the udon that Takeda bought yesterday

Now, you could translate the sentence into English a few different ways, but most noticeable feature I think is how the noun “udon” is modified before anything in the sentence even gets started, and it’s a long chain of modifications (“yesterday”, “Takeda bought”, etc). So, Japanese sentences often have a long “setup” before you get to the end where the action occurs. Again compare this to English where the verb tends to come toward the beginning. This really makes a difference when listening to a conversation, because you have to be careful not to jump to conclusions (as I often do), before you hear the whole sentence. Of course, if you are a student of the language, you should hone your listening skills to the point where you can take in the whole sentence without thinking about it, but until you reach that point, this reverse order in sentences can be confusing.

Think of this as a lesson learned that I wanted to share with other Japanese-language students.

P.S. disclaimer: I made these example sentences myself, and did my best to proof-read and double-check grammar, but I could still be wrong. Apologies for any errors.