タグ: particle de

The following sentence was shown yesterday;

1. Watashi no Ie kara Kaisha made Densha de Yon juppun Kakarimasu.

(It takes forty minutes from my home to the company by train.)

How to describe minutes and hours like Yon Juppun was shown yesterday. So, let us look at some other things in the sentence 1.

[Place A] kara [Place B] made

“Kara”and “made” have been already introduced; “A kara” means the starting time, and “B made” means the ending time. Not only for starting time and ending time, “A kara B made” is also used to express spatial starting point and ending point.

[Means of Transportation] de

Particle “de” is used to describe what you use when you take action. Although there are many types of usage of “-de”, typical usages are as below;

– Means of transportation

example : Maiasa Basu de Kaisha e Ikimasu. (I go to the company by bus every morning.)

– Place where action takes

example : Ie de Nemasu. (I sleep in my house.)

– Tools/Means

example : Nihonjin wa Hashi de Gohan o Tabemasu. (Japanese eat food using chopsticks.)

– Language

example : “Butaniku” wa Eigo de Nan desuka. (What is it called for Butaniku in English?)

Practice and remember the following conversation;

A : Satou-san no Ie kara Kaisha made Densha de Donokurai Kakarimasuka.

(Sato-san, how long does it take from your home to the campany?)

B : Watashi no Ie kara Kaisha made Densha de Ichi jikan Kakarimasu.

(From my home to the company, it takes about one hour.)

This post was written with reference to the exercise A6 on Section 11 of “Minna no Nihongo” published by “3A Corporation”