Basic Structure of Sentences in Japanese

The following are examples of typical Japanese sentences.
Examples
1. Arisu san ga kimasu. "Alice san will go."
2. Ame ga furimasu. "It will rain."
3. Ruin san ga hon o yomimasu. "Mr. Lwin reads a book."
4. Arisu san ga teepu o kikimasu.
"Alice san is going to listen to the tape."
5. Ruin san ga Arisu san o sensee ni shookai shimasu.
"Mr. Lwin introduces Alice san to a teacher."

From the five examples above, you may draw some conclusions. They are :
1. All these sentences end with a word ending in -masu.
2. All of these are verbs(See Lesson 1,NOTES ON SENTENCE
3. GRAMMAR II.). Japanese sentences end in a verb.
4. All verbs are preceded by at least two words(Examples 1 and 2), Arisu san"Alice san," Ame"rain"and ga. Arisu san, Ame, etc. are nouns and ga is a particle. As you can see, nouns are followed by a particle. This applies to hon o in Example 3, teepu o in Example 4, Arisu san o and sensee ni in Example 5. These units will be called a noun phrase in this textbook.
5. Japanese sentences consist of one or more noun phrases { a verb in this order. The number of noun phrases is determined by the meaning of the verb.
6. Particles are those small words which never change their form and are used with a noun which precedes them. For further details, see Lesson 1, NOTES ON CONVERSATlONAL GRAMMAR II.
7. For many students, the selection of a particle is always confusing.
8. However, as is shown in the above examples, ga is added to a noun which ndicates the person who does something or the thing which happens; o is added to a noun which indicates the thing which an actor does and ni is added to a noun which indicates the person who is the recipient of the action. This knowledge will help you select an appropriate particle. But this does not apply to the following case.
Arisu san ga Ruin san ni aimasu.
Alice san will meet Mr. Lwin."

Aimasu is a verb which takes ga and ni and not ga and o, although some students may expect o instead of ni.
It is advisable to memorize verbs with their appropriate particles. In the vocabulary lists in this textbook, each verb is shown with particles, as shown here.

Japanese verb (particles) - English equivalent
taberu (`ga `o) eat