Talking to a friend と vs を

Japanese
#1

Hi, I’m still a newbie…

I bumped into a practice sentence online (not on bunpro)

明日けんさんと話します

“I will talk to Ken tomorrow”

話す is a transitive verb. Per Bunpro I would have expected
明日けんさんを話します

This use of と looks more like the Bunpro grammar point of “with” (I talk with Ken). I guess that makes sense in english but the Bunpro form was Noun + は + Noun + と+ Verb per と (JLPT N5) | Bunpro – Japanese Grammar Explained

I guess “私は” subject is already set per context so it can be omitted…

  1. Is this example sentence proper use of と ?
  2. Is there a “sense” or a feeling about と vs を here that I can get?

Thank you :bowing_man:

EDIT: maybe the sense is “we’re together” vs “I’m telling”?

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#2

You don’t “Talk a friend” you talk with a friend, or to a friend. を would make your friend an object for which you are performing an action onto. I would highly recommend trying to watch this video

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#3

If you look at the sentence “I will speak with Ken tomorrow” you’ll notice that ‘speak’ (a transitive verb) does not have a direct object. In English, and as you’ll notice the same with Japanese, some transitive verbs don’t require an explicit object. Another example we can use is the word “read”. In English we can say “I am reading” and this is a perfectly fine sentence (same with Japanese – (私は)読んでいる)

With that in mind, we can simplify the sentence to say “I talk” (私は話す) and this is fine as well. By adding と we can add more information to the sentence by saying whom an action (in this case 話す) is being done with.

I definitely recommend watching the video @Vesicularorb linked as well. If you find time, I recommend watching most of her beginning videos, I found them extremely helpful.

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#4

To be pedantic, by definition if it does not have a direct object it is not transitive.

In general there are four flavors of transitivity:

Transitive - Takes a direct object
Intransitive - does not take an object
Ditransitive - take both a direct and indirect object
Ambitransitive - sometimes takes a direct object, sometime does not

話す/ speak is both ditransitive and ambitransitive.

For example:

  • 話す。I speak. (Intransitive)
  • これをあなたに話す。I will tell you this. (Ditransitive)
  • あなたと話す。I will talk to you. (Intransitive)
  • これを話す。(I say this.) - Transitive.

The core verb is 話す・speak/talk/say
The direct object is これを・this
The indirect object is あなたに・you
あなたと・with you (prepositional phrase)

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#5

From my understanding, Japanese is different in how transitivity works. Instead of intransitive and transitive, Japanese has 自動詞 (self move verbs) and 他動詞 (other move verbs). Unlike English, Japanese “transitive” verbs do not actually need a direct object, because transitive in Japanese is actually 他動詞. To my knowledge, 話す is strictly 他動詞 as it cannot “move itself”, which is where I was coming from when saying this.

I’m not 100% sure though, so feel free to correct me!

#6

In a philosophical sense of what is allowed to be self moving or not, I could agree.

The other issue is as you allude Japanese is more flexible on what is considered a direct object than English is. So in that way if you are talking to someone it is still considered 他動詞 because there is an indirect object.

Though some days I fall on the other side of the fence, and think that we make too much of the difference and the grammar is actually much more similar than we give it credit for.

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