chiimu wa kinou shourishimashita.

topic particle

Breakdown of chiimu wa kinou shourishimashita.

• 昨日きのう: yesterday
• チーム: team
• 勝利しょうり: a victory

Questions & Answers about chiimu wa kinou shourishimashita.

How do you pronounce チーム は 昨日 勝利しました?

A natural reading is:

• チーム → chiimu
• は → pronounced wa here
• 昨日 → usually kinō
• 勝利しました → shōri shimashita

So the whole sentence is pronounced roughly:

Chiimu wa kinō shōri shimashita.

A couple of pronunciation notes:

• チーム is a katakana word borrowed from English team.
• 勝利 has long vowels: shōri.
• しました is the polite past form of する.

Why is は written ha but pronounced wa?

This is one of the first things learners notice.

When は is used as the topic particle, it is pronounced wa, not ha.

So in this sentence:

• チームは = As for the team, ...

But when は is part of a word, it is normally pronounced ha.

This special pronunciation only happens in its particle use.

What does は do in this sentence?