Lesson 17 · パンを たべます — the first verbs with objects
Eleven verbs, and a day to spend them on
Chapter 14 brought verbs that happen to you — waking, sleeping, working. Chapter 16 brought verbs that move you. Today the course gets verbs that do things to things: eleven of them, a particle to hook the thing on with, and a page of nouns that are all answers to the same question — what?
This sheet has a shape, and it is worth seeing before the words: eleven verbs at the top, each printed with a bracket or waiting for one, and then forty-odd nouns that exist to be swapped into those brackets. Meals for eating, drinks for drinking, games for doing, a letter for reading and a report for writing. The sheet is not a list — it is a machine, and the particle を is its moving part.
About the verbs on this page
Eleven verbs arrive today, each with a Roman numeral beside it, and the standing rule from chapter 14 has not moved: learn each word with its ます already attached, as one fixed shape. The numerals are for building a verb's other forms, and this course does not build them yet — no negative, no past, nothing on this sheet needs them.
And for the first time at this scale, all eleven markers are right. The sheet that got おきます wrong in chapter 14 and かえります right in chapter 16 scores eleven out of eleven today — checked one by one against the dictionary.
1.The frame: 〜を, and the verb comes last
You have met を once before — chapter 13's ［〜を］みせて ください, where it sat inside a fixed phrase. Today it becomes a pattern: the thing acted on takes を, and the verb closes the sentence. That is the whole machine. Swap any noun on this page into the slot and the sentence is yours.
パンを たべます。
| Japanese | Reads as | English |
|---|---|---|
| パンを たべます。 | bread-を / eat | I eat bread. |
| おちゃを のみます。 | tea-を / drink | I drink tea. |
| テニスを します。 | tennis-を / do | I play tennis. |
| たばこを すいます。 | tobacco-を / smoke | I smoke. |
The last row is chapter 13 paying off: たばこ has been on a card since the shopping chapter, waiting four chapters for its verb. The sheet prints these brackets itself — ［たばこを〜］ beside すいます, ［写真を〜］ beside とります — which is the teacher's way of saying what this lesson says: the verb and its noun are learned as a pair.
Trick 1 · Japanese ends where Arabic begins
Line the two languages up on the same sentence and they are mirror images. Japanese: パンを たべます — object first, verb last, always. Arabic: يَأْكُلُ الْخُبْزَ — verb first, object after, in the classical order. English sits in the middle and starts with neither.
This is not a curiosity, it is the reading skill of the chapter: a Japanese sentence keeps its verb until the end, so you hold the を-word in mind and wait. An Arabic sentence hands you the action first and lets the details follow. Two opposite ways of keeping you listening.
2.The eleven verbs
Six food-and-drink verbs, four desk-and-screen verbs, and one that meets people. Every one is common, every one is group-marked on the sheet, and every marker is correct.
| Japanese | Kanji | English | Arabic |
|---|---|---|---|
| たべます | 食べます | eat | يَأْكُلُ |
| のみます | 飲みます | drink | يَشْرَبُ |
| すいます | 吸います | smoke, inhale | يُدَخِّنُ |
| みます | 見ます | see, look at, watch | يَرَى |
| ききます | 聞きます | hear, listen | يَسْمَعُ |
| よみます | 読みます | read | يَقْرَأُ |
| かきます | 書きます | write, draw | يَكْتُبُ |
| かいます | 買います | buy | يَشْتَرِي |
| とります | 撮ります | take (a photograph) | يَلْتَقِطُ |
| します | — | do | يَفْعَلُ |
| あいます | 会います | meet | يُقَابِلُ |
One cell on the sheet to correct
The photograph verb is 撮ります, and the sheet prints 取ります. Four common verbs share the sound とる, and the kanji chooses which taking: 取る picks something up, 撮る takes a photograph, 捕る catches, 採る harvests. The row's own bracket — ［写真を〜］ — settles it, and the textbook prints 撮ります. This is the neighbouring-cell slip of earlier chapters arrived in a new form: not the wrong row, but the right sound wearing its commonest spelling — which is exactly why nothing looks wrong.
Trick 2 · The homophones have reached the verbs
Seven chapters running, the dictionary check has said the same thing — a short kana string identifies almost nothing — and today it says it about verbs. かいます is 買います buys and also 飼います keeps an animal. ききます is 聞きます hears and also 効きます takes effect — this medicine works. あいます is 会います meets and also 合います fits. And みます is 見ます sees and also 診ます examines a patient. All of them common; all of them told apart by one character.
Trick 3 · あいます points with に, and Arabic agrees
Ten brackets on this sheet say を; one says に — ［ともだちに〜］, on あいます. That is not decoration. You do not meet a friend the way you eat bread: the friend is not acted on, they are met with, and に points at them. Arabic makes the identical choice — يَلْتَقِي بِصَدِيقِهِ needs its بِ the same way. Two languages, one instinct: meeting is a direction, not a doing-to. Learn the bracket as part of the verb, the way the course has learned every frame since 〜から きました.
3.Rice three times a day
ごはん is cooked rice, and therefore a meal — rice stands for eating itself, the way bread does across much of the world. Add chapter 14's times of day and the pattern hands you all three meals for free:
| Japanese | Kanji | Built from | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| あさごはん | 朝ごはん | あさ morning + rice | breakfast |
| ひるごはん | 昼ごはん | ひる midday + rice | lunch |
| ばんごはん | 晩ごはん | ばん evening + rice | supper |
All three time-words are chapter 14's cards, and their kanji — 朝, 昼, 晩 — were taught there too. What is new is only the pattern: name a time of day, add the rice.
Trick 4 · お and ご are the same word
Four words on this sheet wear a politeness prefix so permanently it has fused on: ごはん, おちゃ, おさけ and おはなみ. The ご and the お are one prefix — the character 御 — with two readings, and the choice between them is a habit of each word, not a decision you make. The sheet brackets some of them ［お］; in practice, tea, sake and blossom-viewing almost never appear undressed.
The rest of the basket teaches itself on the cards below — the Portuguese loaf, the Dutch beer, the crimson tea that English calls black. Three rows of the sheet stay off the cards on purpose: なに, ちょっと and いつも are lesson 6's words re-listed with nothing new on them — the sheet is stocking the question what do you do? with its adverbs, and the course already owns all three. They are revised here, and they live where they always lived.
4.The day
Five scenes, forty-five words, each in exactly one of them. The route this time is not a journey but a day — which the sheet supplied itself: the nouns arrive already sorted into the scenes their verbs live in. Meals in the morning, a shop before noon, games and paper in the afternoon, a meeting under the blossoms, and an evening of screens and speakers.
The day needs JavaScript. Every word in it is on the cards below.
5.Forty-five words
Seven of these are deliberate repeats — にく and にわ from lesson 4, みず from lesson 5, おちゃ, ぎゅうにゅう, しゃしん and しゅくだい from lesson 7 — carried again for two reasons that arrive together: each one is an object this chapter's verbs exist to act on (しゃしん is 撮ります' own printed bracket), and each one gains its kanji here for the first time. Their English and Arabic are the same as before; a word met twice is not two words.
The word cards need JavaScript. Every word on them appears in the day above.
Drill them for meaning
The drill needs JavaScript. Every word it asks about is in the list above.
6.Five answers, waiting for their question
Five rows of the sheet are not words but utterances — and they belong to one conversation. Someone proposes an outing; these are the replies. The proposing half is not on the sheet, so the course now holds the answers to an invitation it cannot yet issue.
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1.Yes. — the warm, informal yes
Japaneseええ。
ē
Arabicنَعَمْ.
naʿam
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2.That sounds good.
Japaneseいいですね。
ii desu ne
Arabicهَذَا جَمِيلٌ.
hādhā jamīl
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3.Understood. / I see.
Japaneseわかりました。
wakarimashita
Arabicفَهِمْتُ.
fahimtu
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4.Yes? — answering a call, not agreeing
Japaneseなんですか。
nan desu ka
Arabicنَعَمْ؟
naʿam?
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5.Well then, see you tomorrow.
Japaneseじゃ、また あした。
ja, mata ashita
Arabicإِلَى اللِّقَاءِ غَدًا.
ilā l-liqāʾ ghadan
Two small things worth hearing in these. なんですか is built from words you own — lesson 6's なん and the ですか of every question since chapter 6 — but as an utterance it is not asking what is this?: it answers someone calling your name, the way Arabic answers a call with نَعَمْ؟ — the same word that agrees, said on a rising tune. And じゃ、また あした carries chapter 10's あした in its pocket: swap it out and じゃ、また alone is see you, open-ended.
Trick 5 · The answers arrive before the question
Every reply above answers an invitation — shall we go together? — and the inviting shape itself is not on the sheet, so this course does not teach it yet. The course has been here before, from the other side: lesson 6 taught いくら two months before the course could count the answer, and chapter 16 supplied どういたしまして four chapters after ありがとう asked for it. Greetings and exchanges in this course arrive as halves, one half per chapter — because that is how conversation actually meets you: someone else says the other line.
7.Sources
- Minna no Nihongo I, 3A Corporation — 第6課, which this sheet reproduces, plus one addition of its own (メキシコ). Read the book's own 会話 for this lesson if you read one thing: it is the invitation these five answers belong to — going to see the blossoms together — and ええ、いいですね and じゃ、また all appear in it, doing exactly the jobs taught above.
- Jisho.org, over JMdict/EDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) — every reading, gloss and commonness tag here, checked 2026-08-20. It is what settled that the photograph verb is 撮ります against the sheet's 取ります, that all eleven group markers are right, and that 買う／飼う, 聞く／効く, 会う／合う and 見る／診る are all pairs of common verbs sharing one sound.
- Lesson 14 — the first six verbs, the fixed-ます rule this chapter inherits, and the あさ・ひる・ばん that the meal words are built on.
- Lesson 13 — ［〜を］みせて ください, where を first appeared inside a fixed phrase, and the たばこ that waited four chapters for its verb.
- Lesson 6 — the home of なに, ちょっと and いつも, which this sheet re-lists and this lesson left there.