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I'm Jeroen, from the Netherlands and I'm currently learning Japanese.

I'm using Anki, and it's a great tool, and I came across this sentence in the
Japanese Core 2000 #1 set:

> 彼{かれ}の日本語{にほんご}のレベルは私{わたし}と同{おな}じくらいだ。

I understand most of the sentence and vocabulary. the only new word to me is
位{くらい}. I know that the particle marker と is like "and" in English, kind of,
and I understand that 彼の日本語のレベル is one part of the sentence. I also know that
だ is the casual form of です.

I'm asking if somebody could break the sentence down for me, grammarwise, so I
understand it and can make a sentence like it myself.
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2015-07-21T15:52:03.250
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2015-11-19T12:33:00.020
2015-11-19T12:33:00.020
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grammar translation words particles learning
Grammar of 彼の日本語のレベルは私と同じくらいだ
> **Q. I'm asking if somebody could break the sentence down for me,
> grammarwise, so I understand it and can make a sentence like it myself.**

**A.** I'll try to break this down into individual pieces to make it as
understandable as possible.

「彼の日本語のレベルは私と同じくらいだ。」

  * 彼 - he
  * の - particle showing possession (i.e., 's, of) 
    * **彼の** - his
  * 日本語 - Japanese
  * の - particle that connects a nominal (noun) to another nominal (noun); or particle showing possession (i.e., 's, of)
  * レベル - level 
    * **日本語のレベル** - level of Japanese (Japanese level)
  * は - particle that marks what the (main) topic of the sentence is (the topic here being "His level of Japanese")
  * 私 - I/me ("mine" in this context)
  * と - particle used when making comparisons (meaning "as" here; this can also mean "and" as you pointed out, but not in this context)
  * 同じ - (the) same 
    * **私と同じ** - the same as me
  * **くらい - approximately; about; around; or so; to (about) the extent that; (almost) enough that; so ... that ...; at least; as ... as ...; like;** (くらい is sometimes also written/spoken as ぐらい with the same meaning. 位{くらい}, however does not have the same meaning. The character 位 means throne or rank. For example, 一{いち}位{い} - first place, 位{くらい}を譲る{ゆずる} - to hand over the thrown/crown)
  * だ - is (as you stated, it's the casual (direct) form of です) 
    * **私と同じくらいだ** - is about the same as mine

So the sentence holds the following meaning:

**彼の日本語のレベルは私と同じくらいだ。  
His level of Japanese is about the same as mine.**
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2015-07-21T17:34:58.970
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2015-07-21T17:58:20.523
2015-07-21T17:58:20.523
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answer