# I intend to invite Luke to the wedding



## languageguru

Is this how you would say:  I intend to invite Luke to the wedding

私はルクさんが結婚式にしょうたいするつもりです。

I always get confused with the particles.  Thanks in advance.


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## Lupen The Third

Hello!
This is my try :

私はウエディングにLuke を招こうと思います

Or

私はウエディングにLukeを招きたい

As always, I am not sure of my sentences, I hope that someone else will help you better then I did!

Regards,
ルパン三世


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## Flaminius

languageguru said:


> 私はル*ー*クさんが結婚式にしょうたいするつもりです。
> 
> I always get confused with the particles.


You have got all but one particle correct!  The verb _shōtaisuru_ (招待する; better write it in kanji) marks the object noun with _-o_.

I might be inquisitive but I would like to ask what Luke is to you.  The Japanese polite speech makes a clear distinction between in-group referents and out-group referents.  If, for example, Luke is your brother and you are talking about an invitation to him with your soon-to-be mother-in-law, then he is in-group in the eyes of your interlocutor.  You cannot apply honorific devices to an in-group referent while speaking with an out-group interlocutor.  The honorific device I am talking about here is the suffix さん.  Depending on your relationship to Luke, here is my rewrite (where the brackets marks an optional element):
私はルーク[さん]を結婚式に招待するつもりです。


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## Lupen The Third

Greetings,

I would like to ask a few things if it is possible to me, thank you.

Is there something wrong in the sentences I wrote?
Their grammar is right but they sound unnatural to a native Japanese speaker?

One more thing please.
Flaminiusさん wrote >
私はルークを結婚式に招待するつもりです.

I don't doubt absolutely that this sentence is incorrect but ,please, somebody would tell me why the direct object precedes the other complement since the moment that I have always knew that a Japanese period is written following the order "subject" - "indirect comlement" - "direct object" and "verb" ?

Ex : If I have to write "the schoolboy writes a letter to the teacher" I would write, as well as my textbook says, something like 
生徒は先生に手紙を書く and not 生徒は手紙を先生に書く

Thank you.

Post scriptum : Sorry Flaminius, I took your sentence in order to clarify my doubt.
Hoping that this will not sound rude to anybody.

Best regards,
ルパン三世


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## kaito

I'm aware that books tend to teach that Japanese has Subject-Object-Verb word order, but actually Japanese has no real word order other than that the verb always comes last.
A different order will probably have a different nuance though.


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## Derselbe

kaito said:


> but actually Japanese has no real word order other than that the verb always comes last.



And even that rule is being broken by native speakers all the time 

@Lupen:

There are two general ways to efine the function a word has within a sentence. One is by means of word order. That's the approach English uses. Those language usually have a very strict word order, because without that nobody would know what's objekt and subjekt.
The other way is to use particles and the like. That is what Japanese (and also German and all the romanic languages I think) does. Those Languages usually define object and subject by means of particles or declension. The advatage is that the word order is quite up to the speaker. Japanese is somewhat outstanding on that with virtually no word order rules at all. German is less strict than English but still has word order rules, but in Japanese almost everything is fine


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## Lupen The Third

I did not know it!

I have always knew that the Japanese grammar is SOV and that indirect complements always precede the direct object; this is not only what my textbook says, but also what websites and people have ALWAYS told me before your posts!!

Well, I'll keep those thing in my mind but now my habit is that one of making a sentence like I have always knew, sorry.

I'll try to open my horizons of course, but now I am curious to know what my university is going to teach me next month about Japanese grammar!

Regards and thank you guys,
ルパン三世


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## lrosa

Derselbe said:


> The advatage is that the word order is quite up to the speaker. Japanese is somewhat outstanding on that with virtually no word order rules at all. German is less strict than English but still has word order rules, but in Japanese almost everything is fine



Just to add that that is not to say that there are not _common_ ways to form each sentence and less common ways. Depending on the sentence, one word order usually sounds more natural and typical than others 

Of course, changing the word order can also change the point of emphasis of the sentence. For example, my sense is that 生徒は先生に手紙を書く is the more common order, while "生徒は手紙を先生に書く" puts the emphasis on _whom_ the letter was sent to (in other words, 手紙は先生に書いてあげる).


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## Derselbe

> Just to add that that is not to say that there are not _common_ ways to form each sentence and less common ways. Depending on the sentence, one word order usually sounds more natural and typical than others


 
Right! That is exactly the advantage of a free word order. If you don't need to follow word order rules in order to define subject and object you can use different word orders for other purposes like emphazising certain words. Plus, it is very convenient if you are writing peoms because it makes it much easier to rhyme.


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## languageguru

Flaminius said:


> You have got all but one particle correct!  The verb _shōtaisuru_ (招待する; better write it in kanji) marks the object noun with _-o_.
> 
> I might be inquisitive but I would like to ask what Luke is to you.  The Japanese polite speech makes a clear distinction between in-group referents and out-group referents.  If, for example, Luke is your brother and you are talking about an invitation to him with your soon-to-be mother-in-law, then he is in-group in the eyes of your interlocutor.  You cannot apply honorific devices to an in-group referent while speaking with an out-group interlocutor.  The honorific device I am talking about here is the suffix さん.  Depending on your relationship to Luke, here is my rewrite (where the brackets marks an optional element):
> 私はルーク[さん]を結婚式に招待するつもりです。



You are right, I do not need to use さん because Luke is indeed an in-group person.  Thanks so much.


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