The difference between ものだ and ことだ

[kenchan]

I realized Japanese Language has several words which has similar meaning but different words/phrase. Below is just one of those example which I couldn't figure out.

ものだ
ことだ

I would appreciate if anyone could help me

 

[Mike Cash]

だ is the plain form of です

In English, both もの and こと usually translate as "thing". The difference is that もの is for concrete objects (those you can touch) while こと is for abstract ideas (things you can't touch).

 

[kenchan]

Thank you so much Mike.

Here I construct some example of ものだ and ことだ

お前は幸せもどだ
お前は幸せことだ

Thank you

 

[Toritoribe]

お前は幸せものだ
In this example, もの is a suffix, meaning "person/people". The kanji is 者. Whereas what Mike-san explained is a pronoun もの. The kanji is 物, but it's common to be written in hiragana.

水は植物に必要なものだ。
Water is essential for plants.
("Water" is a concrete object.)


As Mike-san wrote, こと is used for abstract ideas, so the concrete thing like お前 can't be the subject.

お前と生きていけるのは幸せなことだ
It's a happy thing(= It's happy) to be able to live with you.
("To be able to live with you" is an abstract idea.)

幸せ and 必要 are na-adjectives, so you need to put な when modifying nouns.

 

[kenchan]

ありがとう toritoribe

 

[kenchan]

here I found some sentences example. It goes like this

大人の言うことはよく聞くものだ。
「自分はもう子供ではない」という事を強く頭に入れることだ。

 

[Toritoribe]

Those ～ものだ and ～ことだ are a kind of set phrase. The structure ～ものだ expresses that "it's natural/obvious/reasonable that ~", i.e., this expression has a sense of "as a common sense/generally speaking". ～ことだ has a similar meaning to ～ものだ, but this shows that ~ is the speaker's personal advice.

大人の言うことはよく聞くものだ。
It stands to reason to listen to the advice of adults. = You should obey adults (as a common sense).

「自分はもう子供ではない」という事を強く頭に入れることだ。
You should strongly put the idea into your mind that "you aren't a child anymore" (as my personal advice).

 

[kenchan]

Thank you so much. I am now much clearer.