に followed by nouns, what is its usage?


Most of the usages of に I've seen have it directly followed by a verb directly
attached to it. (The location of existance **にある/にいる** , The action objective
**e.g 私は電車に乗りました** , etc)

I know there are some that don't directly have に follow a verb, but its still
heavily reliant on a verb **(私は六時に家を出る)**

However, に can also be used when there are no verbs in the sentence

> 私に必要です Or 私には必要です

  * I interpret (at least the first sentence) as [smth] is essential to [me] or 私*

I (somewhat) get the fact that に and には mean kinda different things and are to
be differentiated, so i will just refer to the first sentence.

What usage does the **に** fall into here? Is there a certain way it gets
applied in any sentence with only a noun/ adjective (as in it gets used the
same way/ means the same thing)

_Other maybe-related examples i found_

> タバコは体に悪い。 The way i see it (i guess) is that the に marks that tabacco is 悪い
> towards/ for the body/体. But why can't we use something like が here?

> 私に何か用ですか。 I guess this sentence works in a similar way to the 必要 one,
> labelling 私 as "What will i use/ be in use for me"

Sorry if this seems like an obvious question, but im genuinely stumped.

(Edited to explain how i see it)




As I said in my comment, the particle に can be rendered as _in, on, at, to_ or
_for_. It depends on the context which you’ll use.

* * *

にある/にいる identify where something (ある) or someone (いる) is. Lest you be confused
by my parentheses here ある means _is_ for nonanimate things (hence _something_
); いる means _is_ for living things, not just people (as _someone_ might
imply). In either case, ある/いる only mean _is_ in the sense of location in
space.

For example, に shows where something is. Here we’re talking about an animate
object, a cat.

> ねこは家にいる  
>  The cat is **in** the house.

Here’s an example with an inanimate object, a book.

> 本はつくえの上にある  
>  The book is on the desk.

* * *

Let’s look at some of the examples you posted.

> 私は電車に乗りました。  
>  I got **on** the train.

Here に shows what you got _on_ or _in_ to ride someplace.

* * *

> タバコは体に悪い  
>  tobacco is bad _for_ your body

Here に is best rendered as _for_

In a comment you asked why you couldn’t use が here. First, タバコは体が悪い, just
doesn’t make sense. To see this a bit consider omitting talking about
_tabacco_

> 体が悪い

would be saying

> The body is bad

* * *

Your next example involved an expression of time. In time expressions に is
usually rendered as _at_.

> 私は六時に家を出る  
>  I leave the house at six

* * *

As for

> 私に必要です

This just means (literally)

> It’s necessary for me.

or (more loosely but depending on context)

> It’s important to me.

* * *

Your last example is somewhat idiosyncratic from the point of view of English
and depending on your familiarity with other languages that have similar
constructs, it may or may not come easily to you.

> 私に何か用ですか。

Generally this might be rendered fluently as

> Do you need _me_ for anything?

where the _for anything_ is how I’m translating 何か; it has nothing to do with
the particle に here. The わたしに part is just translated as _me_.

But this translation obscures what’s happening in the Japanese because in
English this is the most natural way to render this particular type of
question.

However a more strictly literal translation might make the grammar of this a
bit more clear

> Is there some kind of need _for_ me?

Basically what you have here is the idiomatic expression

> 何か用ですか

This is just the standard way of asking, “is there something I can do for
you?”

You can modify this form to express different but related ideas. For example,
if you said something like

> この本に何か用ですか

you be asking “do you have some kind of need (intended use) for this book?”

* * *

As you can see, you selected a diverse variety of uses for に. In a Japanese
language class, each of these might be handled in separate lessons.

