Breakdown of watasi ha mainiti kanzi wo kakimasu.
はha
topic particle
私watasi
I
をwo
direct object particle
書くkaku
to write
毎日mainiti
every day
漢字kanzi
kanji
Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have hundreds of Japanese lessons and thousands of exercises.
Questions & Answers about watasi ha mainiti kanzi wo kakimasu.
Why is the particle は used after 私 instead of が?
The particle は is the topic marker. It tells the listener “as for me…” and sets the context. If you used が (私が), you’d be marking “I” as the subject introducing new information or emphasizing who performs the action, rather than simply stating a habitual fact about yourself.
Why doesn’t 毎日 have a particle like に after it?
Words like 毎日, 昨日 (yesterday), 明日 (tomorrow) function as adverbial nouns when they describe frequency or time and don’t require に. Saying 毎日 alone already means “every day.” Adding に (毎日に) would sound unnatural in this context.
What role does the particle を play after 漢字?
The particle を marks 漢字 as the direct object of the verb 書きます. It indicates what is being written.
Why is the verb 書きます in the polite form? How would you say it casually?
書きます is the polite or formal present/future form (the –ます form). In casual or plain speech, you use the dictionary form 書く, so you’d say 私は毎日漢字を書く。
Can you omit 私は in this sentence? If so, why?
Yes. Japanese often omits the topic (or subject) when it’s clear from context. So 毎日漢字を書きます。 still means “I write kanji every day,” with 私は understood implicitly.
What tense or aspect does 書きます express here? Present, future, or habitual?
The non-past –ます form covers both present and future, but combined with 毎日 it clearly expresses a habitual action: “I write kanji every day.”
Why is the word order 私 は 毎日 漢字 を 書きます instead of like English?
Japanese follows a Subject–Object–Verb (SOV) order. Particles (は, を, etc.) mark each phrase’s grammatical role, so the verb typically comes at the end and word order is more flexible than in English.
Why is 漢字 written in kanji characters instead of hiragana or katakana?
漢字 means “Chinese characters,” so it’s standard to write it in kanji. You could write かんじ in hiragana to show pronunciation (e.g., in a children’s book or furigana), but the word itself is normally written as 漢字.