1. Basic Word Order

The sentence order is very different from English. In English we use Subject-Verb-Object (SVO), but in Japanese it is usually (but not always!) Subject-Object-Verb (SOV).

English	S	V	O
	I	eat	bread.
Japanese	S	O	V
	watashi wa	pan o	tabemasu.

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Notice the "extra" words wa & o. These are called particles (or grammatical markers) and tell us a lot about the function of the word it follows. Don't worry! We will get to particles soon enough.