Moving things with に, へ, and から

These particles mainly deal with location. から indicates the starting point of an action, and へ and に indicate the ending point or direction of an action.

から is the same general "from" you see in english, even when it is abstract.

学校から私に家へ手紙を送る 
He will send me home a letter from school.

The English translation doesn't even have any marking on three of the nouns. Particles make things easier, at least for a language learner.

The subject was dropped in the Japanese version of this sentence. The subject can be dropped in Japanese if it's understood or not important. A lot of example sentences will have a lack of a clear pronoun, so our translations will just add a random one for the sake of making them readable. Remember that just because an example translation may say “he” instead of “she” it doesn’t mean that it is clear in Japanese.

へ translates well as "to" or "toward" in most situations, including abstract ones.

東京へ行く
Go towards Tokyo / Headed for Tokyo

In many sentences, へ and に can be interchangeable with very minimal difference in meaning. へ can sometimes sound a bit more formal or literary.

に can mark an indirect object or a location of existence.

An indirect object is something relevant to or affected by a verb, but not part of the verb's core meaning. This overlaps with へ a little, but へ cares more about motion and “towardsness”, and に cares more about the end objective.

学校に来る
Come to school.

Location of existence is also straightforward

東京に暮らす
To live in Tokyo

Be aware that there are other particles we can use to mark the location of actions. The kind of particle that is the most appropriate to use depends on the specific verb used in the sentence. While there are general rules or explanations that can help you remember these situations, the only real way to know for sure is through experience. You’ll have to remember which verb goes with which particle as it often will feel rather arbitrary.

The idea of "indirect object" used by に can show up in places that would look like direct objects in English.

研究者になる   
To become a researcher.

ここに来る   
He comes here.

In this way, に becomes a general "first option" for things that look like direct objects but cannot take を for the equivalent verb in Japanese. There are other particles that also do this job, which we will cover later. For certain meanings, you can only use a given particle, not an arbitrary one.

These particles can be used in other ways too, you should learn them as you come across them as we won't list all of them.

This is a good time to take notice that particles can attach to phrases as well, not just words. This applies to every particle we've learned so far.

私の家から来る   
It comes from my house

Here から attaches to 私の家 which can be considered a single phrase (“my house”).