During my lessons, when the person doesn’t know how to phrase certain things in Japanese, I try to break it down for them. In the process, I’ve found that there are some very key elements and concepts that form the core of basic sentence construction. While obviously, you can’t be breaking down sentences while you’re conversing, I still think it’s a great training exercise to start getting your sentences into shape so that you can eventually skip the whole process and go straight to clean and nicely formed sentences.

Let’s look at some sentences that at first may appear complex but is really just an application of the same basic principles when broken down.

1. What kind of food do you think he likes to eat?

2. Can you tell me the name of the Greek restaurant you went to last week?

3. Exercising a lot is fine but taking adequate rest is also important.

While it is usually a gross oversimplification that causes more confusions and misconceptions, the idea that Japanese is “backwards” is true in the fact that the core/focus of your sentence always comes at the end and it’s always a verb (either an actual verb or a state-of-being).

So if you want to break a sentence down, the first thing you should ask is:

What is the main verb?

1. What kind of food do you think he likes to eat?

2. Can you tell me the name of the Greek restaurant you went to last week?

3. Exercising a lot is fine but resting properly is also important.

In sentence 2, “tell” means more than just saying something but rather to teach someone something new. This is 「教える」 in Japanese. In sentence 3, you have two main verbs because it is a simple compound sentence with “but” being the conjunction. So our sentences should look like this:

1. 思う？
2. 教える？
3. いいが、大切。

Using 「と」 with relative clauses

One major part of sentence structuring is using 「と」 as a quotation particle to attach a verb to whole sentences.

More details: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/quotation.html

This is especially useful for things that need to be phrased such as thoughts and things said or heard.

Let’s take a look at the first sentence in more depth.

1. What kind of food do you think he likes to eat?

In this sentence, the thought is phrased as a sentence so you can break out the quoted sentence as:

“What kind of food does he like”と思う？

So let’s break down the relative clause as a separate sentence. What’s the main verb?

What kind of food does he like?

We’ll need to add a declarative 「だ」 here for the 「と」 quotation particle since 「好き」 is a na-adjective so we have:

好きだと思う？

Now, we’ve finally gotten to the details of sentence. What likes is the question asking about? It’s “What kind of food” and it’s seeking to identify an unknown so it should use the 「が」 particle.

“What kind of food”が好きだと思う？

Now, we just have to convert the object in question (food = 食べ物) and the question word (what kind = どんな）.

どんな食べ物が好きだと思う？

Based on the context, you may or may not need to specify the topic. In most cases, you won’t but it’s easy enough to add.

彼は、どんな食べ物が好きだと思う？

Directly modifying a noun with a verb clause

Another major piece is the ability to attach a verb phrase directly to a noun, treating it just like an adjective. A textbook example would be a sentence such as, “The man wearing the yellow hat.”

More details: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/subclause.html#part1

We’re going to need this for the second sentence.

2. Can you tell me the name of the Greek restaurant you went to last week?

If you already know how to make requests (http://www.guidetojapanese.org/requests.html), you know all you have to do is add 「くれる」 or 「もらう」 to the te-form of the main verb)

教えてくれる？

The rest is simply specifying what you want to be told: the name of the Greek restaurant.

ギリシャレストランの名前を教えてくれる？

The tricky part is the “the Greek restaurant that you went to last week” part of the sentence. Essentially, you have a relative clause, which is its own verb phrase, directly modifying the Greek restaurant. So we can take it out and break down the main verb of that clause.

Went to last week.

So the whole clause becomes:

先週に行った

Now, all you have to do is directly modify the noun “Greek restaurant” with the whole clause, and you’re done!

先週に行ったギリシャレストランの名前を教えてくれる？

Treating verb phrases as nouns

This leads to the final major piece, which is being able to treat verb phrases as nouns. This allows us to use adjectives and other useful parts of speech including other verbs with whole verb phrases. The basic textbook example being, “I like to do [X].”

3. Exercising a lot is fine but taking adequate rest is also important.

In the third sentence, we want to say exercising is good and resting is important. If we try to simply treat the verb “exercise” and “rest” as nouns, we run into some issues since you can’t attach particles directly to verbs (putting aside, special expressions such as 「するがいい」).

運動する「？」はいいが、休む「？」も大切。

Now, in the previous example, we already learned that we can directly modify a noun with any verb phrase. So, all we need to add in the missing piece to link the adjective is any generic noun: 「こと」 and 「もの」! In this case, since exercising and resting aren’t physical objects but an event, we’ll want to use 「こと」.

運動することはいいが、休むことも大切。

Another option which always works is… the nominalizer (http://www.guidetojapanese.org/particles3.html#part4), of course!

運動するのはいいが、休むのも大切。

We’re essentially done, we just have to sprinkle in the adverbs which can go almost anywhere as long as they go before the verb they apply to.

たくさん運動するのはいいが、ちゃんと休むのも大切。

Finally, let’s add a bit of motherly advice-sounding nuance to it and give it a more conversation style, since it sounds like the speaker is trying to admonish the listener.

たくさん運動するのはいいけど、ちゃんと休むのも大切よ。

If you don’t want to sound girly, you’ll want to add 「だ」 when using 「よ」 with nouns/na-adjectives.

たくさん運動するのはいいけど、ちゃんと休むのも大切だよ。

Politeness

If applicable, politeness always goes last. All that remains is to take the last verb (or verbs in compound sentences) and conjugate to the proper polite form. I often mention that you will usually never know the politeness level of a sentence until you reach the end of the sentence. So you shouldn’t worry about it until you’re all done and finished with everything else.

１．彼は、どんな食べ物が好きだと思いますか？
２．先週に行ったギリシャレストランの名前を教えてくれますか？
３．たくさん運動するのはいいですけど、ちゃんと休むのも大切ですよ。

Conclusion

Now, one important assumption in breaking down sentences in this fashion is that you know the appropriate phrasing and vocabulary. But that’s just something you’ll have to learn by reading and increasing your vocabulary. If you find that you know all the parts but have trouble piecing them together to form sentences, these tactics may help you out.

Usually, I recommend trying not to think in English at all but for beginners, there’s really no choice since that’s the only language they’re familiar with. I hope the ability to break down and convert sentences, while slow and impractical for conversation, will at least serve as a nice stepping stone so that you can get used to thinking straight in Japanese.

Good luck!

Some sample sentences for the reader’s exercise:

1. He always says he’ll be on time but he’s always at least 10 minutes late!
2. Could you ask that man wearing the yellow coat to please not smoke?
3. Studying every day is boring but I think my grades will get better as a result.