sofa no ushiro ni neko ga imasu.

There is a cat behind the sofa.

Breakdown of sofa no ushiro ni neko ga imasu.

• 猫ねこ: cat
• が: subject particle
• の: possessive case particle
• に: location particle

Questions & Answers about sofa no ushiro ni neko ga imasu.

Why is ソファ written in katakana?

ソファ is a loanword borrowed from English sofa, so it is written in katakana, the script usually used for foreign words. Its pronunciation is closer to sofa than to any native Japanese word, but it follows Japanese sound patterns: so-fa.

What does の mean in ソファの後ろ?

Here, の links two nouns together.

• ソファ = sofa
• 後ろ = back / behind
• ソファの後ろ = the back of the sofa / behind the sofa

A very literal way to think of it is the sofa’s back/behind, though in natural English we would usually say behind the sofa.

What does 後ろ mean exactly?

後ろ means behind or the back.

In Japanese, words like 上 (above), 下 (below), 前 (in front), 後ろ (behind), 中 (inside), and 外 (outside) are often treated like nouns. That is why you often see them in patterns like:

• X の 後ろ = behind X
• X の 前 = in front of X
• X の 上 = on top of X

So ソファの後ろ is literally the area behind the sofa.