esazara wa chiisai.

The pet food bowl is small.

Breakdown of esazara wa chiisai.

• は: topic particle
• 小ちいさい: small
• 餌皿えさざら: a pet food bowl

Questions & Answers about esazara wa chiisai.

How do you read 餌皿?

It is usually read えざら.

• 餌 here is え
• 皿 is さら, but in compounds it often becomes ざら because of voicing called rendaku

So the full sentence is read:

えざらは ちいさい。

But remember: the particle は is pronounced わ, not は, in this sentence.

What does the particle は do here, and why is it pronounced わ?

Here, は marks the topic of the sentence.

So 餌皿は小さい means something like:

• As for the feeding dish, it is small
• or more naturally in English, The feeding dish is small

Even though it is written は, when it is used as a particle, it is pronounced わ. This is just a standard rule in Japanese.

Why is there no word for is at the end?