How to Use Japanese Demonstratives When You Know What You are Locating

Using demonstratives in Japanese is probably one of the easiest grammatical points. The rules are simple and can be understood by anyone. This article concentrates on the correct demonstratives for a known item.

Before explaining the rules in greater detail, let’s once again introduce three new words which we’ll be using in a number of examples in this article.

犬：いぬ：inu: dog

鳥：とり：tori: bird

雲：くも：kumo: cloud

この、その、あの

The three Japanese demonstratives to be memorized are: この (kono)、その(sono) and あの(ano)。There are other Japanese demonstratives but we’ll stick to these ones for this article.

All three of them are noun modifying particles, which means that they must be used before the nouns they define.

この , which can be roughly translated as this, is used to talk about a thing which is close to the speaker. Let’s look at the following picture for a minute:

“この犬はわんわんとほうえました.”

This dog barked.

Notice how A (speaker) is talking to B (listener) about this dog, as the dog is right next to him. This is why この is used during the conversation. Notice how この precedes the noun that it is defining. (犬)

その, which can be translated as that, is used to talk about something which is far from the speaker but relatively close to the listener.

Once again, another picture:

''その鳥は面白いですね！''

That bird is amusing!

Notice how the bird this time is farther away from the speaker A and closer to the listener B. Once again, notice その which once again precedes the noun (in this case, 鳥).

その can also be used when talking about something not in sight which is familiar to either only the listener or the speaker as in:

''その日はとても風が強かったよ。''

That day the wind was very strong!

Perhaps the speaker was by himself on that windy that and the listener doesn’t know of which day he is talking about. Or perhaps the speaker knows that the listener experienced a windy day without actually exactly when that was.

あの is used to discuss something which is far from both the speaker and the listener.

''あの雲は遠いですね！''

That cloud is far!

Finally, あの can also be used to talk about something which is familiar to both the speaker and the listener as in:

あの時何をしていたのですか？

What were you doing at that time?

In this situation, both speaker and listener are aware of when exactly the “time” is referred to there.

This article covers the use of Japanese demonstratives when you do not know the name of the item you are referring to.