の vs こと – The Difference between No and Koto Made Simple
There are more than a few meanings of の in Japanese. It can mean of or like express ownership, It can mean the one like something being chosen out of a group of other things, and it can even be used to make noun phrases. Here we are talking about the last choice. That is の as a noun phrase when you want to talk about using phrases as if they were nouns. The other meanings are important but don’t worry about them now. You can just consider them as separate words.
猫のしっぽ
the cat’s tail
赤いの
the red one
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の as a noun phrase
So, as stated already の creates noun phrases. If you want to talk about complex things in Japanese, you need a way to create complex sentences. の does this for you by taking full sentences and making them into phrases that can be used as if they were single words.
鳥が空を飛ぶ
A bird flew through the sky
+
私が鳥を見た
I saw a bird
↓
私は鳥が空を飛ぶのを見た
I saw a bird fly through the sky
See? that is all that is to it. Well, it is easy enough to create a noun phrase as we did above. It is a different thing to know the right situation to use の to do it though.
こと Introduction
こと is also a similar word to の. It takes phrases and makes them usable as if they were nouns. If you have not read it yet, I would suggest first reading about how こと works as a noun phrase.
This will give you a better understanding of the word こと so that the difference between の and こと will also be easier to comprehend.
The Difference between の and こと
Anyway, both の and こと transform full phrases into the equivalent of single nouns, allowing you to make more complex sentences. That is great, except that we now have a new problem. Trying to figure out which one to use in which situation.
こと
The word こと means something close to thing or something but is only for things that are non-physical. For example, events, situations, thoughts, things people said, you get the idea. Remembering this restriction, when こと shows up in noun phrases it often (not always) non-concrete, intangible feeling to it. That restriction means that こと is used in phrases when you want to talk about things abstractly or in more general terms.
日本語で話すことは難かしい
speaking in Japanese is difficult
As a side note though, there are situations that you can only use こと regardless of what the meaning of the phrase is. For example, the following would not be able to be exchanged with の
～ことだ
～ことがある
～ことにする
Thinking of these situations as set phrases will make it easier instead of considering them as exceptions to the rule.
の
の on the other hand shows up when talking about more tangible or more directly experiential situations. Meaning, の comes after phrases where the speaker is talking about their own experience or something that is being talked about in more personal terms instead of general terms. For that reason, even words for seeing, hearing, or other senses are one type of verbs that can only be used with の.
日本語で話すのは難かしい
speaking in Japanese is difficult
The sentence above means the same thing as if we used こと. The difference is that here it feels a little more personal. Like the speaker is talking from their own experience instead of a general statement.
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