particle N4 common casualpolitewritten
や — listing nouns non-exhaustively ('and, among others')
や
Meaning
- ~ and ~ (among others) — joins nouns as a partial, representative list, implying more items exist
や lists a few examples and leaves the list open: 本やノート means 'books and notebooks (and such)', not an exhaustive set. This is the key difference from と, which lists everything. や often closes with など ('…and so on') to make the open-endedness explicit. Nouns only — it doesn't join verbs or clauses.
Key sentence
机の上に本やペンがある。
There are books and pens (among other things) on the desk.
Formation
| Attaches to | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Between nouns | N や N (や N…) (＋など) | りんごやみかん / 日本や中国など |
Examples
週末は買い物や掃除をします。
On weekends I do shopping and cleaning and so on.
パーティーには田中さんや鈴木さんが来た。
Tanaka, Suzuki, and others came to the party.
冷蔵庫に卵や牛乳などがある。
There's eggs, milk, and such in the fridge.
Easily confused with
と (listing) と lists the items *exhaustively* ('A and B, and that's all'); や lists *representatively* ('A and B, among others'). 本と雑誌 = exactly those two; 本や雑誌 = those plus more. とか Both are non-exhaustive, but とか is more casual and vaguer, and can also list actions, quotes, or soften a single item; や is noun-only and a touch more neutral.
Notes
- Pairing with など (〜や〜など) is the standard way to spell out 'and so on'. Note the unrelated sentence-final や (Kansai/literary exclamation) is a different particle.
See や in real sentences
Jengo shows や the way you actually meet it: inside real Japanese sentences, so it sticks instead of staying an abstract rule.
Study it in JengoSources Compiled with reference to A Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar, A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar.