Structure
Verb + の
Details
Part of Speech
Particle
Word Type
Case Marking Particle
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Standard
About の
In Japanese, のは and のが behave in a very similar way to the words 'that' and 'which' in English. This means that they perform a task called nominalization. Nominalization is when a phrase is treated in the same way as a single noun.
Rather than a single noun, we can see from these examples that the phrases 沢山食べるのは and バスに乗るのが are behaving in the same way that a single noun would. In English, this can either mean 'that which', or 'the one who/that'.
This construction can be used after verbs in any tense, except for the polite ます or ません, which are only used at the end of a sentence, or certain clauses.
Caution
の cannot be used as a substitute for こと in set expressions like ことができる, or ことがある. It also may not be followed by だ, である, or です, as this would become the explanatory ~んです, or のです in that case.
Synonyms
Examples
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読むのは私です。
I am the one who reads.
君を愛するのは、私だ。
I am the one who loves you.
この仕事をするのは私だ。
I am the one who does this job.
寿司を食べるのは、彼だ。
He is the one who eats sushi.
漢字を覚えるのは、彼女です。
She is the one who remembers kanji.
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Marugoto Elementary 1 (A2) Rikai
Page 42
みんなの日本語 II
Page 84 [CH 38]
[DBJG] A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar
Page 7, 318 & 337
Tae Kim's Japanese Grammar Guide
Page 70
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の – Grammar Discussion
Most Recent Replies (19 in total)
Daru
Pretty much! Uses like this is what make は and が almost indistinguishable from each other at first.
It’s worth mentioning that は would establish that プールで泳ぐ is going to be either what you’ll be comparing stuff to or the subject for the rest of the things you’ll be saying, whereas が has “shorter” range, and it’s energy or relevance in the sentence would pretty much stay in the same sentence you’ve said.
This of course depends 100% on context, but you’d possibly need to clarify you’re still talking about プールで泳ぐ later on in this imaginary conversation.
Hope this helps!
Glaciem52
Can someone explain me why is のは instead of こと. I don’t understand really well the difference betweeen nominalizers
Marcus
I’m currently watching Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You and mining it for example sentences to add to self study here in Bunpro (sticking to N5 and easy N4 sentences). The anime is very sweet and good fun, and mining it for sentences is really helping my Japanese a lot, making me think hard about grammar, and helping me see patterns.
Anyway, I was about to add this sentence to the の(は) grammar point, but then I started thinking about it! It seems simple enough…
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