と and / with / quotation: Meaning & Examples

How と works

It joins nouns into a complete list (“A and B”), it marks the person you do something together with (“with”), and it closes a quotation or a thought — 「行く」と言った (“said he would go”), 面白いと思う (“I think it’s interesting”). A fourth と, the conditional (dictionary form + と, “whenever A, B”), is a separate pattern that happens to use the same character. What decides which と you are looking at is always what sits on either side of it.

構文こうぶんConstruction

• Noun + と + Noun — an exhaustive list

  パンと卵を買いました。 — I bought bread and eggs.

• Noun + と — the person you do it with

  友だちと映画を見ました。 — I saw a film with a friend.

• Quotation: 「…」と + 言う / 聞く / 書く

  彼は「明日来る」と言いました。 — He said, “I’ll come tomorrow.”

• Plain form + と思う — reporting a thought

  この本は面白いと思います。 — I think this book is interesting.

例文れいぶんIn a sentence

注意点ちゅういてんNuances

• や leaves the list open — “bread, eggs, that sort of thing”.
• Before 思う the clause is ALWAYS plain, even in polite speech: 面白いと思います, never ×面白いですと思います. The politeness belongs to the outer verb.
• A direct quote keeps whatever register the speaker used, because the quoted clause is sealed off: both 「行きます」と言った and 「行く」と言った are fine.
• と for “with” needs a companion. Doing something alone is 一人で, never ×一人と.

練習れんしゅうYour Turn

Tip

Write three short sentences about today: what you bought (と for the list), who you were with (と for company), and what you thought of it (〜と思おもいます). One particle, three jobs.

と (and / with / quotation) in real sentences

Each one is quoted from a published Japanese text in this library and links to the story it came from. Some use older spellings, or break off where the sentence carried on. They are transcribed exactly as their authors wrote them.

Appears in 5 of 367 texts in our library.