What Is a Particle?
In Japanese, a particle (助詞 じょし) is a small grammatical word that follows a noun, verb, or phrase and defines its role in the sentence. Particles are the backbone of Japanese grammar — they tell you who is doing something, what is being acted on, where something happens, how it is done, and more.
Because Japanese word order is flexible, it is the particles — not position — that carry grammatical meaning.
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