Find out more about now the nouns in japanese of the nihongo!
As many of you may already know, nouns are words used to refer to (designate) people, places, animals, thoughts or concepts. It is important to know as many nouns as possible, since without them we will not be able to talk about concrete things (fish, pen, person, cake...) and even less about more abstract concepts (peace, love, affection...) .
nouns in japanese
Nouns are the basis for communication in any language. But don't forget to learn some grammar, as we need to know how to order and relate words coherently.
About the articles
That was the first thing that caught my attention in the Japanese language. There is no equivalent to our definite (o, a, os, and as) and indefinite (um, um, uns, umas) articles. The exact meaning of a word is only known from its context. In this way, the word 魚 can mean "a fish" or "the fish".
When we want to be more specific, we can use demonstrative pronouns in Japanese, like この, その and あの, before the noun or else using counters, but that's something we'll cover another time.
About gender and number
The Japanese language makes life very difficult for beginners when it comes to gender (male/female) and number (plural and singular). To get an idea, let's use the word 子. That's what you must be imagining. the kanji 子 can be translated as "boy", "girl", "boys" or "girls", without making the slightest distinction between gender and number.
Despite being confusing, Japanese nouns facilitate learning, as they are never modified in their form, always presenting the same construction.
how not to get confused
In order not to confuse masculine and feminine, the Japanese use kanji combinations to make the conversation more objective and a little less confusing. To make things clearer, let's use the phrase これは子です.
At first glance, it is not possible to know if we are talking about someone in the masculine or feminine. It is also not possible to know if the sentence is about one or more people. It is difficult to even risk a translation into Portuguese.
To make it easier to understand, we need to add more words to the sentence. See the examples below:
これは男の子です。
これは女の子です。
これは女の子が五人です。
これは男の子が六人です。
Despite the demonstration that we can form sentences more clearly, they are not used much by the Japanese, except in cases where it is really necessary to distinguish between gender and number. The Japanese always prefer to leave the real meaning of things in context and not explicitly.
Kanji calligraphy exercise
Below are the Japanese ideographic symbols used in this article. Selecting the desired kanji, copy and paste them into Worksheet for Kana and Kanji Practice , a new window will open where you can view the printable file and practice Japanese calligraphy by covering the gray symbols and then trying to write yourself. Just print and practice.
| 魚 | 子 | 男 | 女 | 人 |