annaijo no hito wa egao de watashi ni chizu o kuremashita.

topic particle

Breakdown of annaijo no hito wa egao de watashi ni chizu o kuremashita.

• を: direct object particle
• 人ひと: person
• の: possessive case particle

Questions & Answers about annaijo no hito wa egao de watashi ni chizu o kuremashita.

Why is there a の between 案内所 and 人?

の links two nouns and shows a relationship between them. Here, 案内所の人 means the person of/from the information desk, or more naturally, the person at the information desk.

This is a very common pattern:

• 学校の先生 = the teacher at the school / the school’s teacher
• 日本の会社 = a Japanese company / a company in Japan

So 案内所の人 is a noun phrase meaning the staff member/person at the information desk.

Why does the sentence use 人は?

The particle は marks the topic of the sentence. In this sentence, 案内所の人は sets up the person at the information desk as the topic: as for that person, what did they do?

So the structure is roughly:

• 案内所の人は = as for the person at the information desk
• 笑顔で私に地図をくれました = gave me a map with a smile

Using は does not mean the person is necessarily the grammatical subject in exactly the same way as English. It marks what the sentence is about.

Why is 笑顔で used here? What does で mean?