In English, the order of the words is very important. For example, the sentences "Is it?" and "It is." mean different things. In Japanese, differences are often made by adding or changing the ending of words (using the previous example, one would say them as そうですか "sou desu ka" and そうです "sou desu", respectively). A Japanese word has a stem called a "body", and additional parts (called suffixes). Changing the suffix can change the meaning or the grammar of the word.