Breakdown of kyuuzitu ha ongaku wo kiitari, hon wo yondari site rirakkususimasu.
はha
topic particle
本hon
book
をwo
direct object particle
読むyomu
to read
音楽ongaku
music
するsuru
to do
聞くkiku
to listen to
〜て〜te
connective form
listing form 〜たりlisting form 〜tari
listing form
休日kyuuzitu
day off
リラックスするrirakkususuru
to relax
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Questions & Answers about kyuuzitu ha ongaku wo kiitari, hon wo yondari site rirakkususimasu.
Why is the particle は used after 休日, and can we use に instead?
In Japanese, time words like 休日 (holiday, “day off”) can take は to set them up as the topic: 休日は… means “As for my days off…”. Using は also adds a slight contrast or emphasis (“when it’s a day off, I …”). You could say 休日に音楽を聞いたり… (using に), which simply marks “on my days off” as a time expression without topical emphasis. Both are grammatically correct, but 休日は is more common when you want to talk about what you generally do on your days off.
What does the ～たり…～たりする pattern mean and why is it used here?
The ～たり…～たりする construction lists examples of actions you do, implying “things like A and B (and so on)”. It’s an incomplete list. In this sentence, 音楽を聞いたり、本を読んだりして means “doing things such as listening to music and reading books,” without saying that you do only those things.
Why are the verbs in that pattern in the past tense + り form (e.g., 聞いたり, 読んだり) instead of the dictionary form?
The grammar rule for ～たり～たりする requires each verb to be in its plain past tense plus り. So you take 聞く → 聞いた + り, and 読む → 読んだ + り. This distinguishes the たり‐form from, say, the て‐form, which uses plain or polite form plus て.
How does して function after ～たり～たり?
Here, して is the て‐form of する, used to connect the list of example activities to the main verb of the sentence. You could expand it as ～たり、～たりをして、リラックスします, but in practice the object particle after たり is dropped and you just use ～たり…して to mean “by doing these things.”
Why is リラックスします written in katakana and followed by します?
リラックス is a loanword (from English “relax”), so it’s written in katakana. In Japanese it functions as a する‐verb (to relax = リラックスする). In polite speech you use the －ます form of する, giving リラックスします (“(I) relax”).
Could I say 音楽を聴いて、本を読んでリラックスします instead? What’s the difference?
Yes, ～て‐form chains like 聴いて、読んでリラックスします are perfectly natural. That construction lists actions in sequence, implying you did those specific things in that order. The ～たり…～たり form, by contrast, presents examples among other possible actions and doesn’t insist on order or exhaustiveness.
Why do we use the particle を after 音楽 and 本?
Both 音楽を聞く (“to listen to music”) and 本を読む (“to read books”) are transitive verbs requiring a direct‐object marker を. It tells us what you’re listening to or reading. Without を, the relationship between the noun and verb would be unclear.