Learn Hardcore Japanese: kinou ha nagaku arukisugite, hiza to senaka ga sukosi itaku narimasita. - Yesterday I walked too much, and my knees and back started to hurt a little.

Word

昨日きのう　は　長ながく　歩あるきすぎて、　ひざ　と　背中せなか　が　少すこし　痛いたく　なりました。kinou wa nagaku arukisugite, hiza to senaka ga sukoshi itaku narimashita.

Meaning

Yesterday I walked too much, and my knees and back started to hurt a little.

Part of speech

sentence

Pronunciation

Course

Lesson

Breakdown of kinou wa nagaku arukisugite, hiza to senaka ga sukoshi itaku narimashita.

Why is there a は after 昨日?

は marks 昨日 as the topic: as for yesterday or yesterday, ...

So 昨日は sets the time frame for the whole sentence. It is very natural in Japanese to make a time expression the topic.

A rough breakdown is:

You could also see 昨日 without は in some contexts, but 昨日は feels very natural when introducing what happened on that day.

Why is it 長く and not 長い?

長い is an i-adjective, and before a verb it usually changes into its adverbial form:

So:

Here 長く describes how the person walked, so it works like an adverb.

What does 歩きすぎて mean exactly?