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Noun in Japanese only have one form, which is used under all circumstances. The noun itself even includes the concept of English articles ‘a, an, the’. As an example, the word ‘星’ (hoshi) can be translated as ‘star, a star, the star, stars, the stars’; depending on the context.

 

Plurals

The commonly singular and plural forms that English uses – a, an, -s, -es’ – have no exact equivalents in Japanese. The formation of plural noun in Japanese is by:

1. Addition of the Suffixes

Examples:

子供 → 子供達

kodomo → kodomotachi

child → children

 

学生 → 学生達

gakusei ￫ gakusei-tachi

student → students

 

彼 → 彼ら

kare → karera

he → they (male)

 

彼女 → 彼女ら

kanojo → kanojora

she → they (female)

 

2. Noun Repetition

The symbol 々, which is known as the 同の字点 (dō no jiten) in Japanese, is the punctuation mark that represents the duplicated of kanji character. Examples:

山 → 山々

yama → yamayama

mountain → mountains

 

人 → 人々

hito → hitobito

person → people

 

3. Using Japanese counters

By using Japanese counters, we can clearly determine the number of objects – singular or plural. Read: Top 5 Japanese Counters You Must Know!

Examples:

一個

ik-ko

one piece

 

二個

ni-ko

two pieces

 

三個

san-ko

three pieces

 

の (no) – the Noun Modifier

の (no) is the particle that we can use to link two nouns. For better understand, you can translate this particle as preposition ‘of’ (the closest but not the best translation). It can be used to indicate possession, material, origin, and so on.

Structure: Noun 1 + の + Noun 2

Examples:

先生の研究室です。

Sensei no kenkyūshitsu desu.

It is the teacher’s laboratory.

 

太陽の光です。

Taiyō no hikari desu.

The light of the sun.

 

木の葉です。

Ko no ha desu.

The leaf of the tree.

 

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