Grammar Info

N5 Lesson 1: 8/12

のIndicates possession

(A) の (B) = (B) belongs to, or is a quality of (A)

Structure

Noun (A) + の + Noun (B)

Details

  • Part of Speech

    Particle

  • Word Type

    Case Marking Particle

  • Register

    Standard

About の

From the perspective of English, の has several different meanings. It can indicate possession, like putting (A)'s on the end of a word. In Japanese, however, the meaning is a bit broader, and shows that (B) is an attribute/possession of (A).

In the first sentence, we can see that の is showing ownership, however in the second sentence, it is simply showing a relationship between (A) and (B).

の is also often used in the same way as が, to highlight the subject of a statement. Our lesson for が will be covered separately.

Both of these examples are slightly advanced and use adjectives, but don't worry, we will be covering them next!

Caution

の is usually used after nouns, but can also be used after other types of words, specifically when it is transforming them into a noun-like phrase. This is called nominalization in English. We will cover this in detail in the の - Nominalization grammar point.

Related

Examples

--:--

    あれは私(わたし)のペンです。

    That over there is my pen.

    これも私(わたし)のペンです。

    This is also my pen.

    これは私(わたし)の猫(ねこ)です。

    This is my cat.

    先生(せんせい)の傘(かさ)です。

    (It) is the teacher's umbrella.

    あなたの名前(なまえ)は？

    Your name is?

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      の – Grammar Discussion

      Most Recent Replies (5 in total)

      • Jake

        Jake

        indicates possession

        Structure

        • Noun1 + の + Noun2

        View on Bunpro

      • Anthropos888

        Anthropos888

        Are there any rules when it is necessary to use の for compound words? For example:

        ワインの生産 - vine production (requires の)
        デジカメ市場 - digital camera market (doesn’t require の)
        アジアの言語 - Asian languages (requires の)
        定期購読予約 - subscription contract (doesn’t require の)

        So how can I know in which cases I need to use の?

      • mrnoone

        mrnoone

        Sorry for being quite late with the answer

        So, first, let’s talk about の.
        We know that の are the possessive particle['s/of](for those knowing grammatical cases(格助詞) - it points genitive case).
        But の is a bit bigger than that, if we look from the wider perspective we will see that it is used when we want to modify a noun with another noun. (Like な put before a noun modified by なadjective.)

        So Noun1 + Noun2 require の, therefore we use Noun1 + の + Noun2.

        So now let’s move to compounds.

        For example, compounds, without の, are often created with suffixed and prefixes.

        超 + word, word + 的, a name of the city + 市, surname + 氏 etc.

        Another method is:
        Where word1+word2+…+wordN are added one to another. it is often used in business(where some kanji compounds are deeply rooted), games(where some made up phra...

      • Anthropos888

        Anthropos888

        Interesting, thanks for the explanations. Good to know that it’s relatively free to use の or not in compounds.

      • Samraku

        Samraku

        I don’t remember where I first saw this (I’m pretty sure I didn’t come up with it myself, as I vaguely remember reading something to the effect a few years ago?), but doesn’t の act pretty much identically in most cases to the bang notation for characters in fandoms (eg. dark!Harry, post-HBP!Snape, Time-Turned!Alt-Universe!Hermione, hpmor!Quirrel, rational!Harry, &c.)?

      • mrnoone

        mrnoone

        Hey and sorry for the late answer

        That’s a really good point! It works very like that.

        To be more precise, it lets the preceding noun modify the following noun, expressing some kind of relation between them. In many cases, the first noun works very similarly to an adjective or possesive s.

        So there are cases when it will express possession like in アイコのペン (Aiko’s pen), property of something ナイロンのドレス (nylon dress), kind of something チワワの子犬 (chihuahua puppy). Can also express location, subject of something, etc.

        The bolded ones are the closest to ! function in my opinion.

        Cheers!

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