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は and が conundrum | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Velociraptor Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5740 days ago 31 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Japanese, Russian Studies: Afrikaans | Message 1 of 10 29 September 2009 at 9:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm having trouble with these two Japanese particles: は and が. Specifically, I can't get when to use が instead of は. I've seen several explanations, and Tae Kim offers the best explanation I've found yet, but I still can't "see" when/why to use one or the other.
I've done several exercises, but 80% of the time, I use the wrong particle. Does anyone have a more idiot-proof explanation for the use of these tricky particles? I did a search on the forum, but couldn't find anything (unless I missed it). 1 million thanks for any help! :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5614 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes  Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 2 of 10 30 September 2009 at 6:20am | IP Logged | ||
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一． emphasize 「what」: 机の上に「本が」あります。
二． emphasize 「where」: その本は「机の上に」あります。 三． interrogatives that are used in asking questions: 「だれが」行きますか。「私が」行きます。 四． interrogatives come after 「は」: 山田先生は「どなた」ですか。山田先生は「 この方」です。 五． describe natural phenomenon: 「春が」来ました。「雨が」降ります。「花 が」咲きます。 六． describe universal truths or objective properties: 地球「は」丸い。猫「は」鼠を捕えるもので す。 七． describe things that are happening in front of your eyes: あっ、バス「が」来た。子供たち「が」公園 で遊んでいます。 八． by comparison: 「お酒は」飲みますが、「たばこは」吸いま せん。「日本語は」できますが、「フランス 語は」できません。 九． the subjects are different: 「わたしが」嫁に行くとき、「母は」泣きま した。「あなたが」行けば、「わたしも」行 きます。 十． the subjects are the same: 「わたしは」水泳に行くとき、いつも弟を連 れて行く。「木村先生は」本を読むとき、い つもめがねをかけました。 十一． emphasize who/what/which: 友達がくれた本はこれです。背が高い人が来 ました。 十二． definitions or judgements: 「山田さんは」東京大学の四年生です。「Ｎ ＨＫというのは」日本放送協会のことです。 十三． the result of the comparison: 冬は東京より北京の方が寒い。夏子より純子 の方が背が高い。 十四． ability ／ desire ／ feeling: 田中さんは英語が分かる。わたしはコーヒー が飲みたい。気分が悪い。 十五． main subject「は」／ second subject「が」: 日本は山が多い。象は鼻が長い。わたしは歌 が上手です。 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Velociraptor Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5740 days ago 31 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Japanese, Russian Studies: Afrikaans | Message 3 of 10 01 October 2009 at 6:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Z.J.J, your explanation has cleared up a lot for me! Thank you very much.
I'm still a tiny bit unsure, but now less so, at least I have a better idea of how it works. I think what I'm missing is practice, and lots of it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6774 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 4 of 10 17 October 2009 at 5:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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The best thing you can do is to read lots and lots to get a feel for how particles work in real-life Japanese
sentences. The difference is really only confusing if you approach Japanese with a Spanish or English mindset with regard to sentence structure and how a subject relates to its verb. As an aside, は and が perform totally different functions. が, most importantly, indicates a noun's relationship to the verb, while は provides topical focus. A word with は often has an invisible case-marking particle like を or が attached to it, which the は "absorbs". Look for sentences where は and が can't possibly be swapped. The classic example is 私はうなぎです. This does not mean "I am an eel", it means "I'll have the eel (to eat)". Edited by Captain Haddock on 17 October 2009 at 5:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| anytram Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie France Joined 5675 days ago 85 posts - 89 votes Speaks: German*, Polish*, French, English Studies: Japanese | Message 5 of 10 21 October 2009 at 6:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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To say it in other (and short) words than my predecessors:
は is rather for the THEME and が for the subject of (only) the phrase. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gon-no-suke Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6440 days ago 156 posts - 191 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Japanese, EnglishC2 Studies: Korean, Malay, Swahili | Message 6 of 10 21 October 2009 at 11:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd like to elaborate a little on what the captain said. This explanation of Japanese particles (助詞) is partly adapted from a chapter in 日本語の作文技術 by 本田勝一 but parts of it is my personal ramblings so please don't take it as authorative material on the topic.
People often try to contrast the subject marker が with the topic marker は, but these are only the representatives of two groups of particles with different purpose. First there are the particles who show grammatical case: が | nominative | subject を | accusative | direct object に | dative | indirect object へ | allative (?) | direction で | instrumental | tool の | genitive | possessor As in all languages, when you use a specific case is something you have to learn by experience so the latin case names are just abstractions. Then there are the topic-marking particles. There are three of them, but unfortunately two use the same hiragana: は | new topic は | contrastive topic も | additional topic The first two indicates something that is only shown by using emphasis in English wich makes their usage a little difficult to grasp. Note that you can only have one nre topic in each sentence so any remining は must be contrastive. The final point in this explanation is how you combine these two classes. Usually you add the topic marker after the case marker like in 日本でも, but in some combinations the case marker is dropped. | no topic | newは | contrastiveは | additionalも subject ; | が | は | は &nb sp; | も direct objec | を | は | は &nb sp; | も／をも indirect object | に | には | には | にも direction | へ | へは | へは | へも tool &n bsp; | で | では | では | でも posessor | の | は | は &nb sp; | は The last row in this table probably warrants an example. I'll use the standard one for comparing は and が in Japanese, the elephant and his trunk: 像は鼻が長い。 The usual explanation is that the elephant is the (new) topic and the trunk is the subject of the sentence. But this gives one the impression that the topic is some strange case that is absent in indo-european languages. However, the actual case of elephant in this sentence is the genitive! Dropping the topic we get: 像の鼻が長い。 which makes perfect sense. Edit: Does anyone know hoe to format tables? & nbsp; Edited by Gon-no-suke on 21 October 2009 at 11:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6774 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 7 of 10 22 October 2009 at 5:02am | IP Logged | ||
You missed my favourite: よ | vocative | addressee (But textbooks never seem to teach the lesser-used case particles. へと is another one.) However, comparing Japanese particles to English or Latin noun cases should be a temporary crutch only, because Japanese doesn't fit into this paradigm. Particles are better understood in terms of thematic relations. For example, が is the "agent" of a transitive verb but the "recipient" of an intransitive verb and the "theme" of a stative verb. By the way, the very best book any beginning or intermediate Japanese student can read is Making Sense of Japanese by Jay Rubin. It's cheap and an easy read. Once I'd gotten through it, I understood ga vs. ha, giving and receiving verbs, and all the other weird stuff that's hard for an English speaker to wrap his head around. Edited by Captain Haddock on 22 October 2009 at 5:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gon-no-suke Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6440 days ago 156 posts - 191 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Japanese, EnglishC2 Studies: Korean, Malay, Swahili | Message 8 of 10 22 October 2009 at 11:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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It might be that Japanese particles are better explained through thematic relations, but I don't think they are better understood through them; especially if you are familiar with cases but not with thematic relations. Edited by Gon-no-suke on 23 October 2009 at 7:36am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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