A
Japanese demonstrative prefix indicating an object that is not close to the speaker, but not far away. It opposes
kono and
ano. These three words together express the concepts of "
this ", "
that there". Compare with the
French ce,
cela, and
celui-là.
Because it is essentially a prefix, it must be followed eventually by a noun or some other nominal type. The corresponding demonstrative pronoun is sore, which is used by itself to mean "that".
Sono gakusei wa Amerika-jin desu ne.
That student is American, isn't he.
See also ko-so-a-do.