Kids Web Japan

Vocabulary

	nihongo	Japanese
	- go	language
	ga	object marker
	chotto	a bit, little
	wakarimasu	understand

Grammar

• Affirmative (Yes, I understand) and negative (No, I do not understand) of verbs. Japanese verbs are formed by placing suffixes after a root form. Here we'll look at two suffixes that can make a verb affirmative or negative: -- [masu] and --[-masen].
  

  [Yes, I] understand		Wakarimasu.
  [No, I] don't understand		Wakarimasen.

  Do you remember how to make a sentence into a question?
  Yes, put [ka] on the end of a sentence.
  

  Do [you] understand ?		Wakarimasuka?

• Like we saw before, some words are implied in Japanese but not spoken in a sentence. Here, the words for "yes," "no," "I," and "you" are not in the Japanese sentence, but they are understood by the listeners.
• When you make a sentence including the word wakarimasu (understand), an object marker, [ga], is often used. This marks the word that comes before it - in this case, "Japanese" - as the object of the verb "understand."
• --go (language)
  

  country name	+	go	=	language
  	+		=
  Nihon	+	go	=	nihongo (Japan +language = Japanese)