12969
I'd like to say “Tomorrow is Monday”. Is it correct for me to say 「あしただげつようび」?
Or is there simply no particle at all?
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2013-09-27T01:54:59.840
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2014-10-24T23:22:54.610
2014-10-24T23:22:54.610
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grammar particles
Can だ be used as a particle in a phrase?
# **_No_** , you can't use だ that way.

Here's what you're trying to do:

> あした ＝ tomorrow  
>  だ ＝ is  
>  げつようび ＝ Monday

Unfortunately, **that doesn't work**. Why not?

  * Japanese grammar is different from English grammar. That means you can't put words together the same way in both languages.
  * Japanese vocabulary is different from English vocabulary. That means that words in one language don't always correspond directly to words in the other, either in terms of meaning or usage.

So what can you do?

  1. Stop guessing how to make sentences. Find a _textbook_ , a _reference book_ , or a _website_ , and start learning some correct sentences. You can find lots of these in our [Resources for Learning Japanese](https://japanese.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/756/resources-for-learning-japanese) section. Here are a few in particular:

    * [Genki I: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/4789014401) is a full textbook that'll teach you the basics.
    * [A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Sentence Patterns](http://www.amazon.co.jp/Dictionary-Basic-Japanese-Sentence-Patterns/dp/1568365101) is a reference that can teach you how to construct basic sentences like this one.
    * [Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese](http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/) is an online alternative that is often recommended to beginners.

Of course, you could also _take a class_.

  2. Make your own sentences based on the patterns you've learned.

Feel free to stop reading here. **Go to a store and buy a textbook, or sign up
for a class!** You'll learn a lot more that way. But because I feel like
writing, and because it's educational for _me_ to articulate my thoughts, I'll
do my best to answer your question anyway.

* * *

# A comparison between English and Japanese

To understand what's different between English and Japanese, we first have to
understand what's going on in English. Let's take a look at your sentence:

> Tomorrow is Monday.

The verb _**" is"**_ is called a "copular verb". The "copula" part comes from
Latin, and it literally means that it **joins two things together**. When you
say "A is B", you're joining A with B somehow. And of course, the copula has a
lot of uses in English. Here are a couple important ones:

  * _Ascriptive use_ : _**B**_ is a trait of _**A**_ ( _Cats are nice._ )
  * _Specifying use_ : _**A**_ and _**B**_ are the same thing ( _My cat is the one on the left._ )

What about Japanese? Does it have something similar? Well, **だ** is often
described as _**the copula**_! And in fact, it does something pretty similar,
joining two things together. But there are two big differences:

  1. The copula **だ** isn't a verb. It's a kind of suffix.
  2. Japanese word order is totally different!

So you can't just stick **だ** where you'd stick _**is**_ , even though it's
pretty similar.

* * *

# Predicators

**In Japanese, we usually put predicators at the end of a sentence.** But
wait, what's a predicator? Well, in English, we really only have one type of
word that can be a predicator, and that's a verb! But Japanese has three
types:

  1. **Verb** :

> ストアに **いく** ( _sutoa-ni **iku**_ )  
>  **go** to the store

  2. **Noun + copula** :

> これは **リンゴだ** ( _kore-wa **ringo-da**_ )  
>  This **is an apple**

  3. **Adjectives** :

> そらが **うつくしい** ( _sora-ga **utsukushii**_ )  
>  The sky **is beautiful**.

The key here is that **the predicator comes at the end** , no matter which
type of word it is. Of course, there's a lot more to say about these examples,
and of course I want to focus on the **noun + copula** combination. But first,
we'll have to take a look at some of the other words in these sentences.

* * *

# Suffixes

You'll notice something about the words ストア, これ, and そら. All three of these
are marked with a suffix that tells you what role it plays in the sentence. In
example 1, for instance, we've got the suffix に ("to") attached to the noun
ストア ("store"):

> ストア **に** ( _sutoa- **ni**_ )  
>  **to** the store

These suffixes are usually called _**particles**_. And when you add one of
these suffixes, it makes a new "phonological word". In less technical terms,
that means you should pronounce the _-ga_ in _sora-ga_ as though it's part of
the same word! Let me repeat this, because it's really important:

When you pronounce _sora-ga_ , **do not pause after _sora_!**

And だ is a special kind of suffix, too. When we add だ to リンゴ ("apple"), we get
the predicator リンゴだ ("is an apple"). And again, you can't pause between リンゴ
and だ. Phonologically speaking, the combination is a single word! And like all
predicators, リンゴだ **has to come at the end of the sentence**. We can't stick
it in the middle.

What about your sentence?

> * **あしただ** げつようび (* _ **ashita-da** getsuyōbi_)

Well, there are more things we need to learn before we can fix it, but I'm
sure you can see one problem with it now. When you add だ to あした ("tomorrow"),
you get a predicator あしただ ("is tomorrow"). And that has to come at the end of
the sentence! So by the time you start saying げつようび, your sentence is already
over. This is no good.

Instead, we probably want to attach だ to the second word and form the
predicator げつようびだ ("is Monday"). So if we do that, your sentence looks
something like this:

> あした、 **げつようびだ** ( _ashita-∅ **getsuyōbi-da**_ )

Well, that's still not perfect, but it's an improvement. You could get away
with saying this, but it's not quite complete. I put in a ∅ symbol to show
where something has been left out. But before I talk about what to add to make
it complete, I want to talk about English again.

* * *

# Subjects and predicates

The terms _subject_ and _predicate_ come from western grammar. The idea is
that the predicate **says something about the subject**. For example, it can
say something that the subject is doing (like _" goes to the store"_), or it
can tell us about a trait (like _" is green"_). Let's look at your sentence:

> [ Tomorrow ] _subj_ [ is Monday ] _pred_

The subject is "tomorrow". The predicate is "is Monday". That tells us
something about the subject, right? Well, that's what predicates do.
(Remember, our English predicator is the verb "is". The whole predicate is "is
Monday".)

In English, we know that "tomorrow" is the subject because it's a noun and
because it's at the beginning of the sentence. We're pretty good at spotting
subjects, even though we don't mark them with a suffix in English. So it's
easy for us to see what part of the sentence the predicate is acting on.

And in Japanese, we have predicates too. And a predicate contains a
predicator, just like in English. The difference is what a predicate acts on.
In Japanese, you mark the thing a predicate acts on using a particle. And
usually, it's one of these two:

  1. The subject particle が:

> そらが **うつくしい** ( _sora-ga subj **utsukushii** pred_)  
>  The sky **is beautiful**.

Here, そら ("the sky") is the subject, and the predicator うつくしい ("is beautiful")
tells us something about it. The sky is beautiful.

  2. The topic particle は:

> これは **リンゴだ** ( _kore-wa topic **ringo-da** pred_)  
>  This **is an apple**

Here, これ ("this") is the topic, and the predicator リンゴだ ("is an apple") is a
comment on that topic. This is an apple.

In English, both the subject "the sky" and the topic "this" would be expressed
grammatically as a subject. So here again, you can see a difference between
English and Japanese grammar.

* * *

# Completing the sentence

Let's go back to your sentence. We saw earlier that あした was missing something:

> あした、 **げつようびだ** ( _ashita-∅ **getsuyōbi-da**_ )

How do we tell whether we should add は or が? Well, unfortunately the
difference is too complicated to explain here. And it's notoriously difficult
to explain, and controversial to boot, so I'd probably end up explaining it
wrong. (Entire books have been written on the subject!) But since you're just
starting out, you don't need to worry about that yet. You need to learn some
sentence patterns and grammar before you delve too deep into the mystery of は
versus が.

So for now, let's just say that we want to add the topic particle は! Let's add
that in:

> あしたは **げつようびだ** （ _ashita-wa topic **getsuyōbi-da** pred_)  
>  Tomorrow **is Monday.**

And now we've got a complete sentence! Woo hoo! Our predicator げつようびだ ("is
Monday") tells us something about the topic あした. We can say that the right
half of the sentence is "predicating on" the left half. (And remember,
pronounce _ashita-wa_ as one word, and the same goes for _getsuyōbi-da_! Don't
pause!)

So this sentence is done. But remember: _textbook, class, or website_ ;-)

* * *

_In this answer,_ * _means that the sentence is not grammatical Japanese._
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2013-09-28T10:23:04.017
12969
2013-09-28T10:23:04.017
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
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