Someone help me with how these particles are used!

I think its okay now to ask questions related to the JLPT N5 exam that happened yesterday?

There were a lot of questions that needed you to choose the correct particle. I’m afraid I might have got a lot of them wrong. I don’t quite remember the complete questions but perhaps you can answer in a general way what particles these sort of sentences would take?

  1. 毎日さんぽします。でも雨の日 __ しません。There were some four options of particles which included は and で. Which of these two or other possible particles would be correct to fill in the blank?

  2. きのう へや __ そうじ や せんたく しました。Again, there were four options of particles of which two were の and を. Which would be correct?

  3. いっかげつ ___ 二回 ギター を れんしゅうする。Again, there were four options of particles. I picked に. Would another particle be more appropriate there?

  4. _____ とき よく およぎました。Amongst the options (this was a longer question), were 19 さい、19さいの、19さいに and some others. Which would be correct?

Thanks in advance for taking the trouble to reply!

Particles are my weak point so don’t trust me completely, but I think in the first case は is the correct answer. Perhaps に would also be correct here

In the second case の sounds more natural in my opinion.

There are no problems with the 3rd question I think.

In the last case the correct answer would be 19さいの.

Not sure if this was useful ‘~’

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I agree with @Tsuki70 except I would say that に is definitely the correct choice for the first question.

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Why wouldn’t を be correct for the 2nd question?

I’m not sure I trust that number 2 was accurately copied.

the sentence is saying “yesterday i cleaned my room and did laundry…” so “room cleaning” in itself is a noun, therefore making へやそうじ the best answer ^^
if you said へやをそうじ you’d expect the しました to come right after, if that makes any sense…?

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In my opinon, を would be correct if it only was へやを そうじ しました。

But it is へや __ そうじ や せんたく しました, and I don’t think へやを せんたく しました makes any sense (did the laundry to a room?). So I’d say:

( へやの そうじ ) や ( せんたく ) しました。

With the parenthesis, it’s a bit clearer I think.

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Let’s try it and see where it breaks :slight_smile:

きのう へやを そうじや せんたく しました。

を marks へや as the direct object. So now we are using two verbs (そうじする and せんたくする) on the object. This becomes “Yesterday, I cleaned and laundered, and did some other stuff to (oops!) my room”. (The “other stuff” is implied by や). Change を to の and you get:

きのう へやの そうじや せんたく しました。

Maybe you already know this, but in case someone else doesn’t, “へやのそうじ” is a noun phrase meaning something like “room cleaning” or “cleaning (my) room”. So now because there isn’t an を in the sentence, there is no direct object, so if you translate it very literally, it becomes “Yesterday, I did room cleaning and laundry and some other stuff.” Again, the “other stuff” is implied by the use of や. A more natural translation would be “Yesterday, I cleaned my room and did laundry”.

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It does feel like it’s missing something…

Thank you all for your help! Its possible that the second sentence isn’t copied correctly. There was a preceding sentence in the question. But it didn’t seem like it would affect the particle that went into the blank so i don’t remember it. Since they don’t let you take the question paper home, this is from memory and from some keywords i jotted down on my test voucher.

The test certainly taught me that I need to study particles a lot more. There were some 8 or 10 questions on particles alone! I was surprised that you are expected to be that thorough with them even for N5. Genki only gradually introduces you to the various uses of a certain particle. I was told a textbook Nihongo Shoho teaches you the rules to particle use very well but i haven’t managed to find that book anywhere (except a very expensive copy on amazon).

They seriously like room cleaning… (took it from a JLPT N5 sample)

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