What are other language equivalents to Japanese particles?


When a person is learning は and が in terms of particles, what are the best way
to relate them to English equivalents?

The closest I can come to explaining them to others is "the" and "a" but I'm
not sure if there's a better way to explain them.

This applies to other particles as well:

の relates to [of] or ['s]

へ relates to [towards] etc.




Prepositions, and their equivalents postpositions and case inflections
(declensions), are some of the most idiosyncratic aspects of languages and do
not map well from language to language. Learners tend to have difficulties in
these areas because a lot of rote memory or experience is required to become
good at them.

The Japanese language concept of particles doesn't even map neatly to these
aspects of other languages though with English there seems to be greatest
overlap between English prepositions and Japanese particles compared to other
English parts of speech.

Having said that, Korean has a much better alignment of particles to Japanese
than does English. Some even have the same or very close pronunciations
between the two languages:

  * Japanese "が" (ga) : Korean "가" (ga) -- indicate the subject of a sentence
  * Japanese "へ" (e) : Korean "에" (e) -- indicate movement towards something

These are close in sound as well as meaning but there are more which are
similar in meaning only. Also "가" (ga) is only used after vowels whereas "이"
(i) is used after consonants.

Aside from Korean and aside from prepositions I have found that some languages
have a particle which indicates the direct object like "を" (wo), but usually
only under various circumstances:

  * Hebrew "את" (at) - Only when the direct object is semantically definite.
  * Korean "을" (eul) / "를" (reul) - Like many Korean particles, this works very similar to the Japanese particle.
  * Romanian "pe" - Only used when the direct object is 1) a proper noun; the name of a person or animal 2) a common noun referring to a specific person, generally known to both the speaker and listener 3) a common noun acting as a metaphor for a person 4) a common noun in a construction in which the subject and the direct object are the same noun and they precede the predicate.
  * Spanish "a" - Only used before words referring to people, pets, or personified objects or places that function as direct objects. This is called "personal a".

