Commemorative coins are always cool. This caught my eye since I also learned some things I didn’t know about the Japanese coins during my research for 一口シリーズ A Series of One Bites 2021.
つく
作る
they will make it
こう か
硬貨を作る
They will make a coin
- Literally, ‘hard money’.
- The particle を marks the noun that is being acted on by the subject/topic.
- Someone is doing something (the verb) to something (the noun).
き ねん
記念の硬貨を作る
They will make a commemorative coin
- The particle の here is used to tell us what kind of coin.
- の goes between two nouns or between nouns and adjectives that are kind-of nouns.
ごじゅうねん
50年 記念の硬貨を作る
It’s 50 years so they’re making a commemorative coin
- The space after 50年 separates the front half as the reason for the back half.
- Spaces in Japanese are often used for emphasis.
- In this sentence, で was replaced by the space.
- で means ‘and’ when used to connect two separate sentences where the last word is です.
- Sometimes those sentences don’t directly affect each other but if the first half is the reason for the second half then で acts like ‘because’, ‘since’ or ‘due to’ as it does in this sentence.
もど
戻ってから50年 記念の硬貨を作る
It’s 50 years after returning so they’re making a commemorative coin
- A verb in て-form followed immediately by から means that only after this happens/doing that verb, something else happens.
- In other words, the action before てから goes first.
にっぽん
日本に戻ってから50年 記念の硬貨を作る
It’s 50 years after returning to Japan so they’re making a commemorative coin
- にっぽん is the patriotic way to say the country’s name.
- The particle に stands for ‘in,’ ‘at,’ ‘on’ or ‘to.’
- In the context of this sentence, ‘to’ makes the most sense.
おきなわけん
沖縄県が日本に戻ってから50年 記念の硬貨を作る
50 years since Okinawa Prefecture returned to Japan, so they’re making a commemorative coin