私は先生と食べます
I don’t understand this sentence. Why is とafter 先生 in this sentence, rather than after私は?
私はと先生 = me and sensei
私は先生と= me with sensei
Am I thinking about this wrong, or is this just confusing japanese?
Please help.
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Think of it as three different grammar points:
As for me
With my teacher
Eat/will eat
“I will eat with my teacher.”
It’s unlikely to be, “I eat (generally/regularly) with my teacher,” so even without context it’s highly likely to mean only one thing.
You stick と after the noun to mean ‘with X’. If you put it between two or more nouns then it creates an ‘exhaustive list’.
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To transliterate: I (as for me)Teacher (with) eat.
More literally: I Teacher with eat.
More naturally: I eat with Teacher.
Most Natural: I eat with my Teacher.
You might be thinking:
A と B = A and B
But that’s not 1-for-1 translation.
The particles are always describing the thing before it. So it’s really “with A, B”.
私は先生と食べます = I eat with teacher (as for me, I eat with teacher)
私と先生は食べます = I and teacher eat (as for teacher and me, we eat)
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Japanese particles are post-positional, unlike English’s prepositional words. So, you can easily break sentences down like this:
- [私は] [先生と] [ランチを] 食べます。 → “[As for me], (I) eat [lunch] [with Sensei].”
- [今日は] [寒いから] [コートを] 着ます。 → “[Today], [because it’s cold] (I) will wear [a coat].”
- [誰が] [アメリカから] 来ましたか。 → “[Who] came [from America]?”
- [[友だちの] 家に] 行きました。 → “(I) went [to a [friend’s] house].”
Notice how every single particle is immediately followed directly by a ’ ] ’ closing bracket.
Also, I used ( ) in the English translations whenever something is being left implied in the original Japanese. Japanese lets us omit various parts of speech if it’s convenient to do so, but trying to reflect that accurately in English would leave us with some very strange English 
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