#10: More than 1.5 million people have now escaped to other countries from Ukraine

I have no words for how disappointed I am in the Russian government. With everything that has happened to this world in the last two years, you would think . . . Anyway, I gave to UNICEF. Please help out if you’re in the position to do it.

ひゃくごじゅうまんにん
  150万人になった
It became 1.5 million people

  • 150万人 is in number+counter format. There are two counters: first is for 10,000 and second is for people.
  • It’s uncommon to hear a number without a counter if you’re specifying a number of something.
  • The verb なる, to become, is preceded by に when it follows a noun or な-adjective.
  • The casual past tense form of なる is created by replacing る with った.

ひと
人が150万人になった
The number of people ended up being 1.5 million people

  • 人stands for ‘person’.
  • In Japanese, most words represent both singular and plural. So, context is super important.
  • The が particle puts emphasis on the subject.
  • It conveys that the number of people is extremely large or has grown (since last count).
  • なる could then also mean “to increase” or “to expand” in the right context.

        い じょう
人が150万人以上になった
The number of people grew to more than 1.5 million

 
逃げた人が150万人以上になった
The number of people escaping is now more than 1.5 million

  • The past tense plain/casual form of a verb in front of a noun gives more details about the noun!
  • You’re answering the question: what kind of people?

くに
国に逃げた人が150万人以上になった
The number of people escaping to countries is now more than 1.5 million

  • The particle に stands for ‘in,’ ‘at,’ ‘on’ or ‘to.’
  • In the context of this sentence, ‘to’ makes the most sense.

ほかの国に逃げた人が150万人以上になった
More than 1.5 million have now escaped to other countries

  • The particle の here is used to tell us what kind of countries.
  • の goes between two nouns or between nouns and adjectives that are kind-of nouns.

ウクライナからほかの国に逃げた人が150万人以上になった
More than 1.5 million have now escaped to other countries from Ukraine

から ends the phrase. English prepositions are Japanese postpositions.

 

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