verbs and stuff

[tzuzuki]

Hi, I am learning Japanese on my own, armed only with a couple of books, the dictionary and the internet. Some of these sources however seem to conflict when it comes to sentence order. Some say it must be Subject, Object, Verb, and some say it doenst matter so long as the verb is at the end of the sentence. And I also heard that you can drop the 'desu' or 'da' when its obvious because of the context. Is this so? I am confused though, say you wanted to say the car is blue, that would be:

kurama wa aoi desu

but would it be correct written just

kurama wa aoi

because where is the verb in that sentence, oh I am soooo confused PLEASE HELP ME!!!

[InsanityRanch]

Hi, tsusuki!

You don't pick a tough question or anything, do you?

When I was getting started, I was very fond of a book called _A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Sentence Patterns_. It's not a bad place to start trying to untangle Japanese word order.

As for your actual question, yes, both forms are good. But that's because certain Japanese adjectives actually function as verbs. See what I mean about this being tricky? You will find a lot of surprises in Japanese, even if you have learned other (European) languages previously. It is organized quite differently from English, so ... enjoy!

Shira

[tzuzuki]

Thank you! (I sorta understand now)

I learn French at German at school, and they're quite comparable to English. Japanese is definately very different, I think thats why I find it so interesting. And thanks for the book, I will look into getting that sometime. I WILL find a teacher at some point, but seeing as its quite easy to learn some basics and kana on your own, I am saving the money for now;)