Where do you put どこ in a sentence?

I’m new to Japanese and while I was doing a quiz from one of my apps they asked me how to say “Mariko where is your teacher’s dog?” I translated this with どこ at the beginning of the sentence but it wasn’t. I’ve definitely seen other sentences with どこは at the beginning so I assumed that this was like that. I think the reason for that was because どこ is not the subject is that true? If it is then how would I know for sure if the subject is どこ or not?

Risposte

megumi3

5 feb 2021

Domanda in primo piano

Giapponese

I guess you chose wrong particle "は" and it wasn't a matter of word order??
There are no expression using どこは. It should be どこが、どこに、どこで、どこへ、どこから、どこまで、 etc. I don't know grammatical explanation of this since I'm native and I speak without thinking about grammar..

Word order in Japanese is not as strict as English. “Mariko where is your teacher’s dog?” can be,

まりこ、先生の犬はどこにいるの？
まりこ、先生の犬はどこ？
まりこ、どこに先生の犬がいるの？
The subject of these sentences are 先生の犬.

Utente esperto

Condividi questa domanda

Copy URL

megumi3

5 feb 2021

Giapponese

I guess you chose wrong particle "は" and it wasn't a matter of word order??
There are no expression using どこは. It should be どこが、どこに、どこで、どこへ、どこから、どこまで、 etc. I don't know grammatical explanation of this since I'm native and I speak without thinking about grammar..

Word order in Japanese is not as strict as English. “Mariko where is your teacher’s dog?” can be,

まりこ、先生の犬はどこにいるの？
まりこ、先生の犬はどこ？
まりこ、どこに先生の犬がいるの？
The subject of these sentences are 先生の犬.

Utente esperto

weeaboonumber2

5 feb 2021

Inglese (Stati Uniti)

@megumi3 Ohh ok, thank you! It makes more sense after reading your explanation. In my app it says まりこさんの since it’s her teacher. But I’m guessing that that’s just one of the ways you can say it and you don’t have to use の right?