How to use の (no) of belonging in Japanese?
の (no) of belonging
When something or someone belongs to something, somewhere and etc, we can use a particle の (no) :
XのY
X no Y
Y belonging to X
日本の漫画
nihon no manga
Japanese manga
トヨタの車
toyota no kuruma
Toyota’s car
東京大学の学生
Toukyou daigaku no gakusei
Student at the University of Tokyo
You can add more like :
日本のトヨタの車
nihon no toyota no kuruma
Japanese Toyota’s car
You can change the word order as follows :
トヨタの日本の車
toyota no nihon no kuruma
Toyota’s Japanese car
How to ask a question about belonging?
We can replace X with a question word どこ (doko) to ask a question about belonging such as :
これはどこの漫画ですか。
kore wa doko no manga desu ka.
Where is this cartoon from?
これはどこの車ですか。
kore wa doko no kuruma desu ka.
Where is this car from?
*We can answer this question with either
トヨタの車です。
toyota no kuruma desu.
It’s a Toyota’s car.
日本の車です。
nihon no kuruma desu.
It’s a Japanese car.
*Note : of course, you can use どちら (dochira), a polite form of どこ (doko).
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