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Particles before their words

Particles before their words makes slightly more sense when trying to turn these directly into English.

Not to sound redundant, but I think a really good way to look at particles (as they would sort-of translate to English) is to put the English approximation of the particle BEFORE the word it's modifying.

So in as much as で = 'by way of', the 'by way of' should come before the word that で modifies. So this way, the sentences look like this (を is tricky ...)

公園で私はお弁当を食べた。
becomes
'by way of' park ; 'as for' me ; 'the?' box lunch ; ate.

お弁当を私は公園で食べた。
becomes
'the?' box lunch ; 'as for' me ; 'by way of' park ; ate.

And while it doesn't read smoothly in English, the concept is fairly clear, and you avoid ending up with something like 'by way of me' just because you have a で before a 私.


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