Two particles bump on the street. The first particle says, "Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry! Are you okay?" The second particle says, "I think I lost an electron!" "Are you sure?" asks the first particle. "I'm positive," responds the second.
So, now we know what particles are, right? Well, yes, they are little masses of energy, but in terms of the Japanese language, particles are in fact very different (I'm sure that was a hard conclusion to come to). Particles are basically one syllabled words that go in between clauses and indicate the type of clause which will follow or has preceded. There are many particles that you will have to remember in the Japanese language: wa, ni, o, da, and others.
The first particle we will discuss is wa. The first thing that you need to know about wa is that it isn't written with the wa symbol. It's written with the ha symbol. This seems weird, but just accept it; it's just the way it goes. Also, wa is only written with the hirigana symbol. Katakana words are nouns, adjectives, etc., but they are never particles. The meaning of this particle is "talking about." I'll explain this:
Watashi wa Allison desu. I am Allison.
In this example, watashi means "I". Now see how wa follows right after watashi? This means that watashi is the subject of the sentence. So wa is the subject indicator particle. The word or words preceding wa are the subject.
Here's another example: Mark no inu wa kawaii desu. In this sentence, what is the subject? Well, the words before wa are Mark no inu, so they make up the subject. Inu means dog, by the way. Mark no inu wa can be read as "Mark's dog (who is being spoken of)", or "(Talking about) Mark's dog". Mark's dog is cute, and Mark's dog is the subject. I suggest that you print out a copy of the hirigana/katakana chart right now so that you can refer to it as you read, and so I don't have to cut and paste and upload tiny little wa's and ni's and the like and use up valuable time :).
Now we will discuss the particle of no. This one is used in many ways. Actually, you know what, I'm not even sure that this is a particle. It's a word with one syllable that indicates something, though. So it's all good. And you can look it up in a real textbook if you really want to; anyway, I'm going to teach you how no is used, and teach you well. So it doesn't really matter. If I find out myself, I will gladly change this web site accordingly. For now, let's talk about the function of no.
No is an indicator of possession. A simple way to think of this is to just replace no with an apostrophe, s ('s). For example:
Sammy no sakana wa kuro desu.
In this example, sakana means fish and kuro means black. In this case, we are talking about Sammy no sakana - Sammy's fish. After reading the part of this tutorial about the wa particle, you now know that Sammy's fish is the subject of the sentence.
Now for Example Number Two: Kore wa anata no hon desu ka? Here, kore or "this" is the subject. The new vocab words in this sentence are desu, "(it) is", anata, "you", and hon, "book". (Note: Ka is the Japanese equivalent of a question mark. In Japanese, they do not use question marks. They simply write ka and end the sentence with a circle, which is the Asian equivalent of a period. Hence, desu ka means "is it?".) Now we can translate this sentence into English: Is this your book? Directly translated, the sentence reads, "(Talking about) this, your book is it?" When you translate from one language to another, always keep in mind that direct translations do not always work. Each language has its own unique way of structuring sentences (aka grammar), and you might need to move the words in the sentence around to get an intelligible meaning.
No can also be used to describe something. It is used this way in the exclamation, Ranma no baka!. Obviously, Ranma is the subject of this sentence. The no baka part does not mean that we are talking about Ranma's baka, though (Not unless there is a specific idiot who belongs to Ranma). The no baka actually means something like "is an idiot!", or "That idiot Ranma!". It can be loosely translated into "Ranma, you're an/you fool!", also. You have to be careful when deciding which function no is performing when you read. Once you get good enough, you should be able to figure out easily through the context. Just remember that this type of no usually precedes something that you could call a person - idiot, funny-face, etc. In anime, ...no baka!! is probably the most common way no is used in this way. Also, kuro no sakana means the black fish. The no in this case is describing the fish as black(kuro), just as the no in Ranma no baka describes Ranma as an idiot (baka).
To Be Continued!