Japanese meaning of particles?

Hi, I'm just starting Japanese, but have experience of learning languages, and understand the basics of the grammar.

I understand particles in general (i.e. what they are and how they are used etc.) What I am missing though is what the mean from the Japanese point of view.

The books I have all give a bunch of English meanings for each particle.
'Ni' for instance (sorry need to figure out how to add kana to the message) is given as a bunch of meanings such as 'to', 'in', 'per' etc. I can understand the English meaning fine, but it doesn't help me get a sense of the deeper concept that the Japanese see for the particle.
What I am looking for is what the Japanese think and understand by 'ni', and all the other particles.

For instance English "I went into the club because I'm into Jazz" has 'into' with two meanings that you could "translate" as 'enter' and 'like', but they both derive from a common concept with 'into jazz' meaning something like "enter into the soul and spirit of Jazz". I wonder if there are similar concepts that the Japanese particles represent? Concepts that may help me understand the particles better and more on the level of a Japanese persons mind than just a list of english translations.

There aren't many particles in Japanese so they necessarily have a million meanings.

The example you gave is an idiom and if you had experience understanding another language, you would know idioms dont translate at all.

Into can certainly be translated as に if you take the literal meaning of into something. ボールを箱の中に入れる。putting a ball into the box. Into when meaning like would be a idiom and there is no equiv in Japanese. But 好き is the more literal translation. 気にいる also counts but that's a set phrase.

Anyway to get an understanding of particles you have to practice using them. Only then do you slowly get the hang of it. I would say English is too different to Japanese beyond the basics so I wouldn't draw any equivalents between the two.

Especially when it comes to grammatical elements as fundamental as particles. I'm sure you can understand that when speaking another language, your mindset needs to change and you need to let go of old concepts. That's how babies learn languages. They don't make assumptions. They take everything at face value.

Good luck.

Morphling said:

There aren't many particles in Japanese so they necessarily have a million meanings.
....
I'm sure you can understand that when speaking another language, your mindset needs to change and you need to let go of old concepts.
....

Click to expand...

Do they really have lots of meanings? Or just one Japanese one that needs multiple English ones to translate it into our languages own idioms and structures?

I know western grammar very well, but already even at my early stage in the language can see how it does not match Japanese grammatical concepts. But the textbooks try to force it into western grammatical constructs and concepts as they can't easily explain the Japanese ones using traditional western grammatical terms.

The Japanese mindset about Particles - that's exactly what I'm looking for. To truly understand a language I need to find out how to think in their grammatical structures rather than my original English ones. What are the new concepts that I need to grasp to start thinking in that Japanese mindset? How do they see Particles themselves, rather than the 'memorise these various translations' of the textbooks?

But I can see shades of familiar concepts in there. Brief glimpses of what could be a coherent system if only I knew the original Japanese concepts, but whose waters are muddied by textbooks foccused on the specifics of the correct English translation rather than a literal 'bad english' but more meaningful translation.
For instance the wa/ga subject/topic marker situation to me looks to have some shades/echoes of the Nominative/vocative case disitinctions of Latin in how they both perform a very similar but subtly diferent function. Not in how they work obviously (particles vs declensions), but in the underlying spirit of marking out a particular type of subject for instance. Now I'm not saying particles are a case sytem for japanese or anything like that, but instead I'm looking to find the clues that tell what what their sytem is. If there are ways of thinking that can help get into the Japanese mindset and help me put it all together as they see it I would like to know and to explore them.


Ignore the idiom - that was me clumsily trying to illustrate how a single word can have different meanings in translation, but still have a single core concept in the orignal language.

Morphling said:

There aren't many particles in Japanese so they necessarily have a million meanings.
-----------------
Anyway to get an understanding of particles you have to practice using them. Only then do you slowly get the hang of it.

Click to expand...

I basically agree with Morphling-san. For instance, it's said that に indicates "point" in various sense; temporal, spacial or abstract concept, but I don't think this definition is much helpful to understand, e.g., the meaning of に in 蚊にさされた "I was bitten by a mosquito."

Japanese particles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
に - Wiktionary

In an ideal world the way you learn a language is the same as a baby. You just feel your way through, take everything in without question and monkey see monkey do. You devote 100% of your day leaving breathing the language you are trying to learn.

Unfortunately by the time you are in your adolescent, our brains don't function that way anymore and you got a lot more better things to do. That's what textbooks are for. It's more efficient to explain the very basics using a language you know rather than teach by interaction.

Can you imagine every time you try to touch something someone slapping you and say 触れるな！until you slowly get that 触れる means to touch and な is a command telling you not to do that. It will be a very grindy process.

But know this that all explanations of particles are rough ideas. You need to practice. It can't really be explained. That's why languages are complex and hard to master.

In any case particles is the least of your problems. The Japanese mindset is harder to grasp. I.e. You always have to shadow dance to express an idea in a round about way and only say the bare minimum at the same time be mindful of the social status of the other person.

You can speak perfectly grammatically correct Japanese and still be a walking disaster. Only in Japanese can this happen.

触るな would be more likely than 触れるな, would it not? (Not that it affects your very valid point, though).

oops yes 触る is better for volitional which is what I was picturing in my head. But either one can work depending on situation.

Think I've found what I'm after - Tae Kim's grammar guide. "A Guide to Japanese Grammar: A Japanese approach to learning Japanese grammar"
Downloaded the pdf, and as it looks so useful have ordered the physical book too.