を + 食べる／飲む — Eating and Drinking
The object of eating or drinking is marked with を. Note that 飲む (drink) covers not just liquids but also medicine and soup, where English uses 'take' or 'eat'.
Structure
[Food/Drink] + を + 食べる／飲む
Examples
朝ごはんにパンを食べます。
Asagohan ni pan o tabemasu.
I eat bread for breakfast.
朝ごはんに (for breakfast, に marks the occasion) + パンを (bread, object) + 食べます.
毎日薬を飲みます。
Mainichi kusuri o nomimasu.
I take medicine every day.
薬を飲む literally 'drink medicine' — Japanese uses 飲む even for pills.
晩ごはんに魚を食べました。
Bangohan ni sakana o tabemashita.
I ate fish for dinner.
晩ごはんに (for dinner, に marks the occasion) + 魚を (fish, object) + 食べました.
• Medicine rule: In Japanese you 飲む (drink) medicine, not 食べる, even for solid pills. 薬を飲む. • Meal words: 朝ごはん (morning meal), 昼ごはん (noon meal), 晩ごはん / 夕ごはん (evening meal). ごはん literally means 'cooked rice' but by extension 'meal'.
Commonly confused with
The JLPT rarely asks whether you recognise a pattern — it asks which of several similar patterns fits. These are the ones を is tested against.
vs 食べる vs 飲む
食べる is for chewing solids; 飲む covers liquids, soup (スープを飲む), and medicine/pills, so its range is wider than English 'drink'.
vs を vs は
を marks the direct object being eaten/drunk; は would instead topicalize the food to talk ABOUT it (パンは食べません = as for bread, I don't eat it).
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