Sensei ni narimashita.
He became a teacher, he turned into a teacher.
ネットカフェにしました。
Netto kafe ni shimashita.
They made it into an Internet café.
きれいに書きました。
Kirei ni kakimashita.
He wrote neatly.
Occasionally, a particle like ni will be used in an expression that calls for an unexpected equivalent in the English translation:
だれに日本語を習いましたか。
Dare ni Nihongo o naraimashita ka.
Who did you learn Japanese FROM?
2.12. Words meaning ‘is’
In this lesson we find three different Japanese words translated as ‘is’ in English: desu, arimasu, and imasu. The word desu is the COPULA and it means ‘equals.’ Whenever an English sentence containing the word is makes sense if you substitute equals for is, the Japanese equivalent is desu.
あれは富士山です。
Are wa Fujisan desu.
That is Mt. Fuji. (That one = Mt. Fuji)
あの人は私の友達です。
Ano hito wa watashi no tomodachi desu.
That person is my friend. (That person = my friend)
それは私のです。
Sore wa watashi no desu.
That’s mine. (That = mine)
Preceding the word desu, there is always a noun or a phrase consisting of NOUN + no or some other particle, but never wa, ga, o (discussed in 3.6.), de (discussed in 3.5), or ni.
When an English sentence containing the word is makes sense if you reword it as ‘(something) exists,’ the Japanese equivalent is arimasu:
ATMがあります。
ATM ga arimasu.
There is an ATM.
When the English sentence can be reworded ‘(something) exists in a place’ or ‘(something) is located,’ the usual Japanese equivalent is also arimasu:
リモコンはそこにあります。
Rimokon wa soko ni arimasu.
The remote control is there.
But often, especially if the topic is itself a place, for example, a city, a building, a street, a location, either desu or (ni) arimasu may be used:
映画館はあそこです。/映画館はあそこにあります。
Eigakan wa asoko desu./Eigakan wa asoko ni arimasu.
The movie theater is over there.
お台場はどこですか。/お台場はどこにありますか。
Odaiba wa doko desu ka./Odaiba wa doko ni arimasu ka.
Where is Odaiba?
When an English sentence containing the word is makes sense reworded as ‘(somebody) exists (in a place)’ or ‘(somebody) stays (in a place)’ or ‘(somebody) is located,’ the Japanese equivalent is imasu ‘stays’:
| 「あの人はどこにいますか。」“Ano hito wa doko ni imasu ka.”“Where is he?” | 「外にいます。」“Soto ni imasu.”“He’s outside.” |
There are other uses of these two verbs, arimasu and imasu, which we will examine later. It may help to think of tag meanings for these words as follows: desu ‘equals,’ arimasu ‘exists,’ imasu ‘stays.’ Note that ‘exists’ is the usual way of saying ‘(somebody) has (something)’:
プリンターはありますか。
Purintā wa arimasu ka.
Do you have a printer? (Does a printer exist?)
2.13. Inflected words
Words like desu, arimasu, and imasu are called inflected words, because their shapes can be changed (inflected) to make other words of similar but slightly different meaning. In English, we change the shapes of inflected words to show a difference of subject—‘I am, you are, he is; I exist, he exists,’ as well as a difference of time—‘I am, I was; you are, you were.’ In Japanese, the shape of an inflected word stays the same regardless of the subject: Gakusei desu can mean ‘I am a student, you are a student, he is a student, we are students, you are students, they are students’ depending on the situation. If you want to make it perfectly clear, you can put in a topic: Watashi wa gakusei desu, anata wa gakusei desu, ano hito wa gakusei desu.
2.14. Dropping subject nouns
In English, every normal sentence has a subject and a predicate. If there is no logical subject, we stick one in anyway: ‘IT rains’ (what rains?), ‘IT is John’ (what is John—it?). Sentences that do not contain a subject are limited to commands—‘Keep off the grass!’—in which a sort of ‘you’ is understood, or to a special style reserved for postcards and telegrams, for example, ‘Arrived safely. Wish you were here.’ In Japanese, the normal sentence type contains a predicate, Arimasu ‘There is (some),’ Kamera desu ‘(It) is a camera’—and to this we may add a subject or a topic, but it isn’t necessary unless we wish to be explicit. Since the topic of a sentence is usually obvious in real conversation, the Japanese often doesn’t mention it at all, or occasionally throws it in as an afterthought.
A predicate may consist of a simple verb, arimasu, imasu, or of a noun plus the copula, Kyōshi desu ‘It’s (I’m) a teacher,’ but it cannot consist of the copula alone. The Japanese can talk about the equation A = B, that is A wa B desu as in Kore wa kamera desu ‘This is a camera,’ by dropping
