Word Order Myth (Subject, Verb, Object)

In English, the order of a sentence is Subject first, then the Verb and finally the Object of the sentence last; This is known as an S.V.O. language. For example:

In English, the ordering of the Subject, Verb and Object cannot be easily changed but depending where they move to, can change the meaning of a sentence. You can say "The man ate an apple" but it would not be the same to say "An apple ate the man" (the apple actually becomes the subject).

1. The man ate an apple. [S.V.O]
2. An apple ate the man. [O.V.S]
3. An apple the man ate. [O.S.V]

Word Order MythFact Check

Japanese sentences are ordered differently. The Subject usually comes first, then the Object and finally the Verb; This is known as an S.O.V. language in western culture. For Example:

While this may work for very basic sentences, the word order rule is a very biased Western and Mainland European rule and does not completely apply to most languages, not even always in English (as seen in the English example for OSV).

Most languages including Japanese do not observe this strict word order rule that Romance Languages such as French do. It only acts as a guide for beginners and should not be followed strictly, just like how many people use the unnecessary Oxford comma only too shout out "bad grammar" when these strict, personal rules are ignored.

Particles can be used after words in the sentence to identify what type of word is at play. This means that no matter what order the words are in, we'll always know if it's the topic, subject, object, indirect objects, adverbs etc.

Let's take the problem example we used in English: "The man ate an apple".

As can be seen above, the Subject contains the (ga) particle telling us that it is the Subject. The Object uses the (o) particle to tell us it's the Direct Object. The Verb is part of the Predicate and always comes last in a clause.

Because we know what role each word plays by the particle it follows, the order can change but the meaning overall stays the same. In English, this only becomes a problem because it doesn't have a way of identifying each word as particles do in Japanese.

In the Japanese translation of "The man ate an apple", no matter what order these words are placed in, we will always know which one the Topic, Subject, Object and Verb is.

As an example: "The man (が) an apple (を) ate"; In English, this sounds like the man was eaten by an apple because the first word "The man" is heard as the Topic (topicalised object) instead of the Subject and "An Apple" is heard as the Subject instead of the Object. There's no marker to show that "An Apple" is actually the real Object of the sentence.

Generally, in Japanese, the Topic mostly comes first but this is not always true. In the example above, there is no Topic. Adding a Topic particle instead of the Subject particle would give this sentence a slightly different meaning.

In the English example of "(The man) ate an apple" we saw earlier, "The man" can be both the Topic and Subject at the same time but in the OSV ordering, "(An apple) the man ate" the object (an apple) is the real Topic while "The man" remains just the Subject.

However, unlike English, the Topic and Subject are not the same thing in Japanese and they are marked by using the Subject particle が and the Topic particle は; the Topic Particle is what the sentence overall is about whereas the Subject Particle marks exactly what is being talked about.

Knowing this difference, let's add a topic to our "The man ate an apple" example. Notice that "the man" is still the Subject and the thing we are directly talking about. The Topic is still "at home" and it's what the sentence is overall about.

Just be aware that the farther away from the main verb you get, the more irrelevant or unrelated the rest of the Other Information may become. The more important parts tend to be closer to the predicate, in Japanese sentences. Certain word ordering may make a sentence more confusing or too complex, especially if parts are omitted or purposely scattered randomly.

Considering this, it's best to follow the Topic, Other Information (Subject, Object) then Predicate last. Sentences (1) and (2) are more clearer to understand.

Anything closer to the predicate marks that Other Information with more relevance to the verb so placing the less relevant information (the Topic) first makes more sense. This is very noticeable in the Proper Noun ordering such as names (family name first then your forename name) and addresses (Country, Neighborhood, District then Prefecture).

※ If you are using a translation engine to check if these stay the same, please understand that translation engines are not very accurate, even the more reliable AI translators such as DeepL will try to interpret language differently ("interpretation" NOT "literal" or at least carrying the original meaning).

Additional Notes