Forum Rocket Japanese Japanese Grammar Are both of these sentences correct?

Are both of these sentences correct?

イ リ ニ

イ リ ニ

Hello,

When I was testing myself on lesson 3.8, I translated the sentence “(I will) read (my) book under the tree” as follows: 

本を木 の 下で読みます/ hon o ki no shita de yomimasu

The correct answer was:

木 の 下で本を読みます / Ki no shita de hon o yomimasu

Could you please tell me if my translation is also correct, and if not, why not? :-)

I was using を in the same sense I used it for:

本を鞄に入れます / (I will) put the book in (my) bag

 

Thanks so much!!

EarleyGrave

EarleyGrave

They both look correct to me. I tend to put the を object as close to the verb that it's linked to as possible, but technically I think both answers should be acceptable.

Emma-Rocket-Japanese-Tutor

Emma-Rocket-Japanese-Tutor

こんにちは (Konnichiwa) イ リ ニ and EarleyGrave,

Thanks for your question!

Both of these sentences are correct. 
Unlike English, the sentence order doesn't really matter too much in Japanese (as long as the verb comes last). This is because sentence order is not determined by the placement of words, but by using particles. Particles help to tell us how words are connected in a sentence.

The particle を (o) marks the object that is connected to the verb. Regardless of where we place the object in the sentence, we can still tell that it is connected to the verb thanks to the particle を (o), just like in these examples: 

本を木 の 下で読みます。 (Hon o ki no shita de yomimasu.)
(I) will read the book under the tree. 
木の下で本を読みます。 (Ki no shita de hon o yomimasu.)
(I) will read the book under the tree. 

The same goes for 本を鞄に入れます (Hon o kaban ni iremasu). You could also say 鞄に本を入れます (Kaban ni hon o iremasu), which is also correct. 

Remember, Japanese is SOV (subject, object, verb), so as long as the object comes BEFORE the verb and AFTER the subject, your sentence will be correct. 
Our tests are self-rated, so feel free to mark your answer as correct if you feel that your answer is also right. 

I hope this helped. Please let me know if you have any other questions!

勉強を頑張って下さい! (Benkyō o ganbatte kudasai!)



 
イ リ ニ

イ リ ニ

Thanks so much.  This statement was very helpful - it's now a sticky note on my computer :-)

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