kore ha watasi no kuruma desu.

This is my car.

Breakdown of kore ha watasi no kuruma desu.

• これ: this
• は: topic particle
• です: to be
• 私わたし: I
• 車くるま: car
• の: possessive case particle

Questions & Answers about kore ha watasi no kuruma desu.

What does これ mean, and how is it different from それ and あれ?

これ is a demonstrative pronoun meaning “this (thing close to me).”

• それ means “that (thing close to you).”
• あれ means “that (thing over there, distant from both).”
  Use これ when the object is near the speaker.

What is the function of the particle は in これ は 私 の 車 です?

The particle は marks the topic of the sentence. It tells the listener “what we’re talking about.”

• Here, これ is the topic: “As for this…”
• It does not mark the grammatical subject in the same way English does; it emphasizes the theme.

Why do we use the particle の between 私 and 車?

の is the possessive/genitive particle.

• 私
  • の
    • 車 = “my car.”
      It links a possessor (私) to what is possessed (車).

What does です do at the end of the sentence?

です is the polite copula, roughly equivalent to “is/are/am” in English.

• It makes the sentence polite and complete.
• Without it, you’d have a more casual statement: これ は 私 の 車.

What is the word order in これ は 私 の 車 です, and how does it compare to English?

Japanese is typically Topic–Subject–Object–Verb, but copula sentences look like:

1. Topic (これ は)
2. Possessor
   • の
     • Possession (私 の 車)
3. Copula (です)

In English you’d say “This is my car.” (Subject–Verb–Complement). In Japanese, the verb/copula comes last.

How do you pronounce これ は 私 の 車 です in romaji?

kore wa watashi no kuruma desu

• watashi is pronounced “wah-tah-shee.”
• kuruma is “koo-roo-ma.”

Can you omit 私 in this sentence?

Yes, if it’s clear who the possessor is, you can say:
これ は の 車 です → actually you must keep の, but drop 私 only if context fills in:
これは車です (This is a car.)
Or, if everyone knows it’s yours, you could simply say:
これ、私のです。 (This is mine.)

Why do we use は here instead of the subject marker が?

• は introduces or contrasts a topic: “As for this…”
• が would present new information or emphasize the subject itself:
  これは私の車がです would be ungrammatical here.
  To emphasize 車 as the subject, you might say 車が私のです (It’s my car), but that shifts nuance.

Can you rephrase the sentence as 私 の 車 は これ です? Does that change the meaning?

Yes: 私 の 車 は これ です means “My car is this.”

• You’ve shifted the topic from “this” to “my car.”
• Nuance changes from pointing out this thing to clarifying which of your cars (if you had many) it is.

What do the individual kanji mean in 私 and 車, and why are they used here?

• 私 (わたし) originally meant “private” but is now the standard “I/me” pronoun in polite speech.
• 車 (くるま) literally means “vehicle” or “wheeled thing.”
  Kanji help distinguish homophones and give visual meaning, but you could also write the whole sentence in hiragana:
  これ は わたし の くるま です。