Japanese Particle: も (mo)
I’ve only learned the first two uses of this particle in class. The rest of the usages are pretty obscure on online resources.
Sources:
This one is a little weird. I’ll prolly have to do more studying and come back to it in the future. Feels like theres more foundational stuff I should be learning now since a lot of these usages are very nuanced.
"also/too"
Attaches to a nominal, such as in place of は or が, and indicates that that nominal is part of the group specified in the context. Like English’s “also” or “too”. You can also use it after other particles. Right now the only one I know of from class is に.
僕も行った - “I also went”, “I went too”
トムもパソコンを買った - “TOM, also bought a computer”. Tom, is among the others who bought a computer.
トムはパソコンも買った - “Tom also bought a COMPUTER”. A computer is among the things that tom bought.
KFCは日本にもある - “KFC is also in Japan”
"both"
Similar to the useage above, it can bind a complete set of nominals together, by being placed after each nominal in succession. Has the connotation of a complete set of sorts. Like “wine and cheese”, “water and fire”. Similar to English’s “both X, and Z”.
彼も彼女も嫌いだよ - “I hate both him and her”
赤も緑も青も好きだ - “I like red, green, and blue”
Emphasis
You can attach this to adverbs, nouns (counter expressions), and verbs ? (You can do it for negatives since it usually turns the verb into an adjective). When using it with a quantity / amount, often the implication is added that something is “too much / too long / a lot”. When using it with a negative, it is roughly equivalent to “not even / not at all / can’t even …” in English.
彼は大学生でもない - “He is not even a college student”
まで半分も読みませんでした - “I did not even read half (of the book)”
一万円もかかった - “It costed 10,000 yen”. Add emotion to the sentence, emphasizing that 10,000 yen is a lot.
赤くもある - “It is also red”
赤くもある - “It is also not red” / “It is not red either” / “It is not even red”
Gerund?
You can also attach it to a gerund, to possibly mean “also do”. This one is a little fuzzy for me
毎日たくさん食べてもいる - I am also eating a lot every day.
Relation to でも?
I read somewhere in some phrases it replaces でも and means “even though” or “no matter”. Thought this is old fashioned (???)
Interrogatives
You can also attach it to interrogatives. The negative/positive version depends on the sentence context itself. Not too sure the full details on this…
何も - nothing, anything
誰も - nobody, anybody, everybody
いつも - always, never
どこにも - nowhere. (!!) Special because you need に
どちらも - both/either (?)
Vocab:
Here are some kanji from the lessons that I wasn’t really familiar with at this point: