Grammar Info

N5 Lesson 9: 13/13

やThings like, And the like

Cannot be used after verbs, unlike とか

Structure

Noun + や + Noun

Details

  • Part of Speech

    Particle

  • Word Type

    Sentence Ending Particle

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    Standard

About や

や is a particle that has several different roles in Japanese, with the most common being as an adverbial particle. や is used similarly to と as 'and', but rather than listing specific things in a group, it lists 'things like (A)'.

や is always used to group nouns, and simply comes directly after them.

  • このスーパーには果物(くだもの)や弁当(べんとう)がある。

    This super market has things like fruit and bentos.

    • 飛行機(ひこうき)や船(ふね)は大(おお)きいです。

      Things like planes and ships are big.

      To compare how と and や are different, imagine that there is a bowl of fruit. In this bowl there are apples, oranges, and peaches. If と is used to list the apples and oranges, it would give the listener the impression that there are no peaches. This is called an 'exhaustive' list, meaning that all possibilities should be listed. However, if や is used, the listener would know that there are other things in the bowl apart from the apples and oranges. In this way, や is a better choice when you want to say 'and', but don't want to limit the group that you are listing.

      • 昨日(きのう)の飲(の)み会(かい)でビールとワインを飲(の)んだ。

        Last night at the party, I drank beer and wine. (Only beer and wine)

        • 昨日(きのう)の飲(の)み会(かい)でビールやワインを飲(の)んだ。

          Last night at the party, I drank things like beer and wine. (There were other things, but it was mainly beer and wine)

          Caution

          や cannot be used after verb phrases. This is done with たり, or とか.

          Related

          Examples

          --:--

            コンビニでお水(みず)やおかしを買(か)った。

            I bought things like water and snacks at the convenience store.

            ひらがなやカタカナや漢字(かんじ)があります。

            There are things like Hiragana and Katakana and Kanji.

            京都(きょうと)や東京(とうきょう)や大阪(おおさか)に行(い)きました。

            I went to places like Kyoto and Tokyo and Osaka.

            サッカーやテニスをするのが好(す)き。

            I like playing sports like soccer and tennis.

            果物(くだもの)や野菜(やさい)を食(た)べてください。

            Please eat things like fruits and vegetables.

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          や – Grammar Discussion

          Most Recent Replies (8 in total)

          • Jake

            Jake

            **and

            • and the like
            • things like ~**

            Structure

            • Noun + や + Noun

            *[When listing nouns: や - Non-exhaustive

            • と - Exhaustive]*

            Cannot be preceded by a verb phrase (とか can)

            View on Bunpro

          • Michakun

            Michakun

            I have a doubt with one of your samples. Why in 火曜日かようび や金曜日きんようびも、スポーツするつもりです。appears も after 金曜日? What tries to say with it? Thank you.

          • mrnoone

            mrnoone

            Hey!

            It means something along:
            I exercise on Tuesdays and Fridays too!
            So in previous sentence speaker could say that he does sports on weekends. etc

            週末だけではなく、火曜日や金曜日も運動する。
            I do sports not only on weekends but also on Tuesdays and Fridays too. For example.

          • Michakun

            Michakun

            I see. It’s good to see examples like this, be ause they’re not easily foundable, but without the full context they can be troublesome because they can confuse what to answer. It should be mo? It should be ya? And fail because missleading can be frustrating

          • mrnoone

            mrnoone

            Yes, that is true!. For that reason we are trying (unlike many books) to provide context for grammar points that need it, like:
            わけではない

            I will add some context to this sentence too

          • Pep95

            Pep95

            What does this mean?

          • Inounx

            Inounx

            Hi,
            I have some trouble understanding this sentence:
            冷蔵庫に肉 や 魚とかがあります
            I don’t understand why the “とか” part is here, and what it means ?
            I supposed it was the equivalent of “や” but as “や” is more formal than “とか” I am not sure why they would be mixed ?

          • Pushindawood

            Pushindawood

            @Inounx Hey! You are right that や is usually considered more formal than とか, however, they both can be found together in the same sentence, especially in modern Japanese. Since や implies that not everything is listed and can only be used once in a sentence, any nouns listed after や can be accompanied by とか or など. Cheers!

          • Mino123

            Mino123

            It’s not true that you can use や just once in a sentence, you can repeat it however times you need. However, I’ve read that in writing it’s better to use AやB、C、D rather than AやBやCやD, because it makes reading easier. But AやBやCやD is still very much correct. Here are some sources with citations:

            https://jikobunseki-lab.com/ya-post-positional-particle/82/

            3つ以上の名詞並べる際に、すべて「や」で並列するのも文法的に問題はありません。

            https://bunsyou-kakikata.com/ya/

            このように、『や』を使って関連した単語を繋ぎ合わせていくことは、文法として間違ってはいません。

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