Lets say I want to tell you my nationality (I am American) in Japanese. We can use the "A is B" structure.
Before I get into how to do this, let's list some vocabulary we will use in creating this sentence.
- わたし (Watashi) -I
- です (Desu) -is/are (the verb)
- アメリカじん (Amerika-jin) -American
- は (Ha-said as Wa) -the "subject" (think of it like "The")
Alright, now that we have some vocabulary, lets look at the structure we will use:
A は(wa) B です(Desu). A is B.
Here, "A" will be the subject of our sentence, and "B" will be something related to or attached to the subject.
Two things to notice
- は(wa) is placed next to the subject "A". は(wa) tells us that the thing before it is the subject of this sentence. Here, "I" will be the subject, and "American" will be the thing attached.
- です(Desu) is placed at the end of the sentence. This is the "is/are" of sentence, essentially the verb of the sentence.
So, lets put this together:
- First, plug in the subject and the idea in place of "A" and "B"-
A (wa) B (desu).
I (wa) American (desu).
- Now, lets do a little "translation"-
Watashi wa Amerika-jin desu
わたし は アメリカじん です。
Hopefully, this helps! Thanks for reading!!
Jya ne! (Laters)