Particle confusion


I'm about halfway through Genki II, and the particles are starting to mess
with me like never before. In particular を, が and に.

I know the general principles like が and に making a subject or indirect
object, を making a direct object, に being used for "direction" etc. But this
somehow doesn't seem to help me a lot of the time. I mean I often make the
right guess, but that's just what it is, a guess. And I suppose that's what's
bothering me.

For one, with some verbs it's simply unclear to me what to use. 飲む is obvious,
but 卒業する? I'm not going to fetch my book, but I'm _guessing_ に since I believe
it means "to graduate **from** ". Is this the best way to think of it? It's
all a bit of a pain when words like 働く/務める comes into play, but I guess no one
said it should be easy..

Secondly, it gets very confusing when different constructs change the
particles. In particular は/が. I never thought you'd use は in a quote, but
apparently that's entirely OK. And then there's the act of doing something for
someone else, or getting something done for yourself, which does mess with
these particles.

Long story short, is there an easy way to learn when to use what particles?
Right now, it only seems to get more confusing the deeper into the language I
get.




I'm sorry to say that the short answer is that, no, there is no easy way to
learn particles. They are probably the trickiest part of learning
Japanese...there is only so far you can learn them using brute force
memorization, then you just have to get a feel for them. Like Tsuyoshi says,
the small, grammatically heavy words in languages (in English we have
prepositions) are the toughest to learn. (I'm saying this from personal and
second-hand experience, I'm not looking to start a debate on the hardest part
of a language to learn.)

With that being said, there are resources out there. The Kodansha reference
book, _[A Dictionary of Japanese
Particles](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/4770023529)_ , is a great
book to help you get a grip on particles.

This is also a situation where Google can be your friend. Of course, this
doesn't work during a conversation, but if you have a relatively general
phrase, plug it into Google and see what kind of hits you get. It's not an
exact science, but it can help.

My last piece of advice is "don't panic". Particles are hard. They have been
really tricky for me too, they still are really tricky, and to be honest
they're still going to be really tricky for me for a while. If you keep at
them, they will come more naturally and you'll get the feel for them better.
Study diligently but don't beat yourself up, you'll get there.




I'm sorry to say that the short answer is that, no, there is no easy way to
learn particles. They are probably the trickiest part of learning
Japanese...there is only so far you can learn them using brute force
memorization, then you just have to get a feel for them. Like Tsuyoshi says,
the small, grammatically heavy words in languages (in English we have
prepositions) are the toughest to learn. (I'm saying this from personal and
second-hand experience, I'm not looking to start a debate on the hardest part
of a language to learn.)

With that being said, there are resources out there. The Kodansha reference
book, _[A Dictionary of Japanese
Particles](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/4770023529)_ , is a great
book to help you get a grip on particles.

This is also a situation where Google can be your friend. Of course, this
doesn't work during a conversation, but if you have a relatively general
phrase, plug it into Google and see what kind of hits you get. It's not an
exact science, but it can help.

My last piece of advice is "don't panic". Particles are hard. They have been
really tricky for me too, they still are really tricky, and to be honest
they're still going to be really tricky for me for a while. If you keep at
them, they will come more naturally and you'll get the feel for them better.
Study diligently but don't beat yourself up, you'll get there.

