In Chinese different shades of meaning as to the actions and agents are expressed by the position of the words, by addition of some other words. In simple sentences, therefore, it resembles English very much; thus, for instance, when a Chinese says: 'John likes Paul,' it is plain, like English, that he who likes Paul is John, and he who is liked is Paul. When a Chinese wishes to express the same idea in the passive voice, he would say, 'Paul by John is liked,' which is the same as 'Paul is liked by John,' Neither has Chinese any preposition like English or French, nor any post-position like Japanese, to designate the cases, except a few which resemble prepositions meaning 'from,' 'to,' and 'by,' but even these are very sparingly employed and by no means with any regularity. When a verb is used as a substantive the form is still identical; thus one identical ideograph, 'like,' may represent a verb 'to like' or a substantive 'liking.' Of course there are many terms designating one thing or one action consisting of more than one sound; such are, however, combinations of two or three distinct words, like the English word 'firearms' or 'seesaw,' and therefore none of them could properly be called one distinct polysyllabic word. In Japanese, unlike Greek, Latin, or German, there is no proper declension in nouns. In this respect it is more like English or French, but it has a method of forming the cases, so that in this respect it differs from Chinese. Our cases are formed by putting after them the so-called _ga--no--ni--wo_--thus: _Hana ga saku_ . . Flowers blossom _Hana no Kage_ . . The shade of flowers _Hana ni chikazuku_ . . Approach the flowers _Hana wo Miyo_ . . See the flowers (imperative). _Ga_ is generally omitted in writing. It is more like the Greek _Ge_, which is often suffixed to the nominative substantives. _Ni_ is equal to the English _to_ and the French _à_; but such ideas as the English _by_ or _in_, or the French _en_ or _par_, are generally expressed by it. There is another particle _wa_ for the nominative, its position is the same. _Made_ (until, jusqu'à) and _yori_ or _kara_ (from, de) are also put after the substantives. In fact, all equivalents to English or French prepositions are put after the substantive, and therefore they are more appropriate to be called the post-positions. In Chinese the idea of time is generally very vague, it is mostly left to the conjecture of the hearers or readers, as the case may be, from the context of the whole sentence. But when it is necessary to express it, it is also done by addition of some words, such as 'already' or 'once.' Thus a Chinese would say, 'John once like Paul,' meaning 'John once liked Paul,' or 'John already come,' meaning 'John has already come.' But this is very different in our language. We have regular declensions of verbs in both the active voice and the passive voice and their form is accordingly changed. Thus, for instance: