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If I wanted to say "I bought the shoes in Tomoyo's shop", how would the particles work? I know "shoes" would take the を particle. But when it comes to "Tomoyo's shop" would I place the の particle after "Tomoyo" and the で particle after "shop" or would I write "Tomoyo's shop" and then ので together? Or are both ways wrong?

To clarify, "Tomoyo's shop" is not the shop's name, it's more like "I have a friend named Tomoyo who owns a shop."

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  • You may have heard ので in some other context, but this is a conjunction, and it has a very different meaning. There are a lot of homonymic grammatical words in Japanese.
    – firtree
    Feb 9, 2015 at 4:45

3 Answers 3

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You are on the right track.

ともよお店靴を買いました。

works. The construction AのB combines two nouns A and B into one noun phrase, i.e. grammatically AのB works just like a single noun.

Just note that this sounds like it's someone's shop, like you know Tomoyo (it sounds like that in English, too). If "Tomoyo's Shop" is just the name of the shop, you can just say

[Tomoyo's Shop]{トモヨスショップ}で靴を買いました。

or use the shop's Japanese name.

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  • Ah, so that's what I thought. Sorry for not being clear about the shops name haha. Thanks for the answer! Feb 5, 2015 at 0:30
  • Well, what are the odds of knowing (on a first name basis!) the owner of the shop where you just bought shoes... I don't know any shoe shop owners.
    – Earthliŋ
    Feb 5, 2015 at 8:56
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You have two choices:

  1. 私/は/TOMOYO店/の/靴/を/買いました。

  2. 私/は/TOMOYO店/で/靴/を/買いました。

Now in either case, you need to put the particle を, which should come after the object denoting the "what you bought" in this case. ( I'd like to call it a particle indicating the object. ( Please do not be confused by the term "object" )).

Though, this site is a bit simplified, this might be a help.

http://blogs.transparent.com/japanese/the-%E3%82%92-particle/

Now, 1's の denotes the possesion, since it will be interpreted "I bought Tomoyo Shop's shoes".

2's で denotes the place since it will be interpreted as "I bought shoes at Tomoyo's Shop".

Good luck.

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  • Thanks for the answer! Sorry for not being clear in the question, but I did not mean 'Tomoyo's Shop' as the physical name of the store. More like the shop owned by a person named Tomoyo haha. Sorry for not saying so earlier. Feb 5, 2015 at 0:28
  • Not at all. Anyway, in my opinion, in the long run, if you want to be "more like a" native, you have to conquer what each particle means. This is reeeeeeeeeeally laborious especially for beginners, but once you go over the peak, then Japanese will be easier. Please do no mind, even Japanese do not exactly what each particle means precisely. haha.
    – user7644
    Feb 5, 2015 at 0:43
  • Yeah particles certainly aren't the most fun part about learning the language. :p Especially particles like ni that have so many different types of meanings. Feb 5, 2015 at 1:29
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these two particles are completely defferent, because の particle indicates possession as for example わたし の 家族 は 4 人 です: in this case kazoku that is family belongs(の) to me(watashi). In your sentence で particle works at the end of sentence>tomoyo-s shop で as you said. So the sentence sounds like : watashi wa tomoyo no mise de kutsu o kaimashita that is: わたし は ともよ の 店 で くつ を 買いました。 ので particle instead is used in odrder to give a reason, explain something, as it is the contracted form of  ˜んです.doesn't matter now. I hope have been clear.

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  • Thanks for the answer! I just noticed that I should have been clearer on the phrase. By "Tomoyo's Shop", I meant that to be like "I have a friend named Tomoyo who owns a shop." That's why I was confused as to where to put the particles since the shop belongs to Tomoyo, but it also needs to use the contextual particle to indicate I bought the shoes in that shop. Feb 5, 2015 at 0:26

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