English Translation
The sun is larger than the moon.
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太陽は月より大きい。 (Taiyō wa tsuki yori ōkii.)
“The sun is bigger than the moon.”
Component-by-Component Breakdown:
太陽 (taiyō): This is a noun meaning “sun.” It functions as the subject of the sentence.
は (wa): This is the topic marker particle. In Japanese grammar, は identifies what the sentence is about. It differs from the subject marker が in that は emphasizes the topic being compared or contrasted with something else, which is perfect for comparison sentences like this one.
月 (tsuki): This is a noun meaning “moon.” It serves as the object of comparison.
より (yori): This is a comparative particle meaning “than” in English. This particle follows the object of comparison (moon) to create the comparative structure. This creates the relationship between the two celestial bodies being compared.
大きい (ōkii): This is an i-adjective meaning “big/large.” In Japanese, adjectives function as predicates without needing a linking verb like “is” in English. The sentence ends with this adjective, which contains the core assertion about the sun.
Grammatical Pattern:
The sentence follows a standard Japanese comparative structure:
[Topic] は [Object of comparison] より [Adjective]
This pattern is equivalent to the English structure:
[Topic] is [Adjective] than [Object of comparison]
Additional Notes:
Japanese is a subject-object-verb (SOV) language, which is why the adjective comes at the end of the sentence.
The period (。) is the Japanese full stop, equivalent to a period in English.
This type of comparison using より is one of several comparison structures in Japanese. Others include ほど (hodo - “to the extent of”) and のほうが (no hō ga - “more than”).
Alternative Ways to Express This:
To deepen your understanding, here are some alternative ways to express the same idea with slightly different grammatical constructions:
太陽のほうが月より大きい。
(Taiyō no hō ga tsuki yori ōkii.)
“The sun is bigger than the moon.” (with more emphasis on the comparison)
月は太陽ほど大きくない。
(Tsuki wa taiyō hodo ōkikunai.)
“The moon is not as big as the sun.” (negative comparison)
This sentence demonstrates how Japanese uses particles to establish relationships between words, rather than relying on word order as heavily as English does.