Direct Object Particle: を (o)

To mark the Direct Object of a sentence, we use the particle を (o). Remember that particles go after the word that is being affected. The particle を as (wo) was the old way of pronouncing it. While you may still hear it being used this way, you'll find it more common in modern Japanese that を when used as a particle is pronounced as お instead.

So, how do we know what the Direct Object is? It's the word that the verb acts on in Japanese. In the phrase "Johnny ate sushi" the sushi is the direct object; the eating happened to the sushi.

Not all objects can be used as a direct object. Let's take the sentence "Johnny walked to the store" as an example. "The store" is not the direct object. The walking didn't happen to the store. The store would not afterwards say "Wow, I just got walked". Instead of を here, the particle まで (made) [to (a place or person)] would be used: ジョニーさんが店まで歩いた (jonii-san ga mise made aruita).

Transitive verbs are used with Direct objects to present a change of state; there is a connection between a subject and an object. In the above example, Johnny caused the sushi to be eaten. For that reason, we use the Subject が particle to indicate this.

Intransitive verbs are the opposite and do not work with Direct objects; the subject does something all on its own rather than something being affected by it. For example, 寿司がなくなった (sushi ga nakunatta) "The sushi has gone". Who or what could have ate the sushi?

To summarise, the Direct Object represents the person or thing receiving the action of the Verb affected by the Subject. This basic use is very similar to English but there are some characteristics that make direct object's unique when learning Japanese.

※ If the topic or direct object (or any part of the sentence) is obvious from context, it is common in Japanese to omit them completely. The examples above should be used as an educational reference only.

What can be a Direct Object?

The direct object を indicates one thing, not necessarily one word; the direct object is a noun or noun phrase followed by the を particle. In the sentence "I played a piano arrangement of Beethoven's Sonata", the thing being played was a piano arrangement of Beethoven's Sonata.

※ A noun phrase in a direct object may also be the form of another state-of-being or relative clause.

を at the of a Sentencecasual

Sometimes, you may find a sentence ends with を without any verb stated. There are a few reasons this may happen such as:

• Clarifying what the object of the verb is.
• To make something sound catchy.
• It's part of a very common phrase or greeting.

These are incomplete sentences and the listener is expected to complete the remainder of the sentence using context or clues. Let's take a look at an example:

Here, in this informal conversation, Shino states that he "played on the piano" ピアノで弾いた.

The ピアノ (piano) is not the direct object as the particle で (de) is indicating the place where the verb happened ("at the piano" in this case). However, the Direct object is missing; notice there is no を particle. For this reason, Yuta is asking what Shino "played on the piano".

Yuta asks "What did you play?" but leaves off the verb 弾いた (to play), because it's already understood from context. Similarly, from context, Shino replies "I played Beethoven" purposefully dropping the verb. Shino clarifies that Beethoven was the thing that got played; Beethoven in this context is the direct object and we know this because of the を particle.

The full sentence would have been 昨日は僕がピアノでベートーヴェンを弾いた ("Yesterday, I played Beethoven on the piano"). Notice that the Subject was also omitted: 僕が (I) as the subject is obvious from context that Shino is talking about himself.

Sometimes, you'll find common expressions or phases that drop everything after the direct object including the verb; for example, 良いお年を (yoi otoshi o). This expression is shortened from the longer phrase 良いお年をお迎えください (yoi otoshi o omukae kudasai). Both of these mean "Have a happy New Year​".
※ In this greeting, the verb is 迎える (mukaeru).

Sentences Without を

As you know already, unlike English, if something is obvious from context in Japanese then it can be omitted. What is talked about is already understood by the listener.

Here, in English context, the object "it" is the topic and refers to old information: the subject "sushi" which is the thing the conversation is about. Without the topic/object "it", this sentence would not clearly state what Johnny had ate. This is not a problem with Japanese sentences, however.

In Yuta's response in Japanese (jonii ga tabeta), there is no object; 寿司 (sushi) is already understood from context. Also, there is no translation or equivalent word in Japanese for "it", the full sentence would have been ジョニーが寿司を食べた (jonii ga sushi o tabeta): Johnny ate the sushi.

Can Sentences Have Multiple Objects?

In Japanese, you cannot have more than one direct object in a single clause (a sentence made up of a subject and predicate). For example: jonii-san ga sushi o tabeta "Johnny ate the sushi"; this is a single clause. However, what if we wanted to say "I think Johnny ate the sushi"?

In the sentence "I think Johnny ate the sushi", the direct object is not "Johnny ate the sushi" even though it appears to look like: Subject (I), Verb (think) then Object (Johnny ate...) in English. However, the thinking did not happen to Johnny ate the sushi. Also, "Johnny ate the sushi" is not a noun or noun phrase.

Remember, the direct object is a noun or noun phrase, a word or group of words that can act as the subject, object or complement in a sentence and functions just like a noun. As a test, fill in the blanks of "___ was nice" and "I liked ___". For example, The person who played the piano was nice and I liked the person who played the piano; these are all noun phrases.

For this reason, "I think [Johnny ate the sushi]" would need something else to describe the clause. Here, we can use the と particle to quote our own thoughts about something. と creates a quote which can then perform the action of the verb: "I think [clause]".

※ In the above example, I've only used 「」 to clarify the clause but these quotation marks can be omitted in Japanese writing.

※ We'll look into more particles in later lessons or as we come across them so don't worry too much about them. For now, understand what the direct object is and how it works. You may check other websites for more information or examples.

Some Verbs Don't Work With Objects

Seeing the English sentence structure of "Johnny ate the sushi" where the word sushi is the direct object, one may think that "bus" in the sentence "Johnny rode the bus" is also the direct object. However, this is not true in Japanese.

The easiest test to check this is to say "the verb-ing happened to the Object", replacing the verb-ing with the verb in its present participle form (riding, eating, running etc.) and the Object with the thing the verb happens to.

In our example, if we say "the riding happened to the bus", this does not make sense; as a passenger, you get on the bus and therefor, you are riding on the bus; this is known as an Intransitive verb.

Since 乗りました (norimashita) [past tense] means to get on, to take or to board and cannot be used with a direct object, we will need to use the に particle to describe the state of existing instead of the を particle. We'll learn about the に particle in another lesson but you may use a dictionary such as jisho.org to find out more.

If you were the driver, however, then you would be driving the bus. for that reason, the driving happened to the bus would make more sense because it is Transitive.

Because 運転した (unten shita) [past tense] means driving (a vehicle), it can be used with a direct object so now we will use the を particle to indicate this. Here are these two examples to check out. Notice the different words and the meanings too, even though the English kind of stays the same.

The problem in English with words such as ride/rode, is that it can refer to either the passenger or the driver: I rode a bike, I rode a horse, I rode a car, I rode a bus and so on. Let's say "I rode a car!" was I a passenger or the one driving the car? See, out of context, we don't know. In Japanese, there is no confusion as to whether I am the passenger or the driver.

Lesson Summary

The Direct Object is the thing that the verb (action) was done to: the eating happened to the sushi. To correctly use the Direct Object, some important points need to be understood:

• The Direct Object is always marked by the を particle, no matter the word order.
• The Direct Object indicates one thing, not necessarily one word. It is a noun or noun phrase followed by the を particle.
• Some verbs cannot take a Direct Object so none can be used.
• Sentences don't always need an object.
• Some English verbs that appear to have an object may act as something else in Japanese; for example: に (state of existence) [I rode...] or と (a quote) [I think...].

The best way to understand if a verb can take an object or not in Japanese is to understand the difference between Transitive and Intransitive verbs.

Additional Notes

Lesson Dictionary