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(I am not really confident about if this is the place for this so sorry if it’s not)
So I was coming from this page and although I did understand the explanation, I thought it was kind of twisted, and I think I have another explanation wich could be useful (and is kind of simpler though may not be as accuarate):
Basically, you use は when the phrase it’s one that you must say from start to finish (in english), and が when this is not necessary
for example:オレンジ は フルーツ です (oranges are fruits)
you must say this phrase complete in english because the important part is the “fruits”
but if you are saying
オレンジ が フルーツ です (oranges are fruits)if you are saying this then you probably were having a conversation about fruits, if you said in english only “oranges are” people would know you are talking about fruits because that was the topic.
so basically, you use が when it’s a phrase that in english could be said uncomplete.
again, I might be so horribly wrong that my whole family needs to be damned for three whole generations, but this explanation worked a lot better for me and I thought it could help someone.
“[...] my whole family needs to be damned for three whole generations”
Only three?
Koichi’s explanation of this topic is pretty garbage but then it’s not an easy thing to explain. Your explanation isn’t any better, I’m afraid (it might even be completely wrong but then I might just not be understanding what you mean). は has nothing to do with how the sentence can be contracted. If anything, I’ve seen more cases of a sentence being reduced to just [topic]は than to [subject]が.
Fun fact: The phrase こんにちは（今日は）is actually just a shortened form of the sentence 今日はご機嫌いかがですか。which was a common greeting way back when. Or so I’ve heard.
Yes, I believe you are misunderstanding what he’s put. But you’re also right in that it’s not a good explanation.
That said, I think it would work at a very basic level, but it ends up being much more complicated than that, which is why it’s never explained well.
I thoroughly believe this is one of those things where detailed explanations aren’t that helpful, and you really have to pick it up through osmosis. Using the above, I think, would be a fair starting point to go by, but you’ll have to expand it from there through experience.
Mind if I take a stab at explaining it? It’s so tricky to give a good explanation that the challenge of trying is sort of fun ^_^
TL;DR: There are 5 or 6 different ways that the two particles interact in Japanese, so you’re never going to get a simple answer. That’s probably why osmosis works the best- it’s easier to get a feel for the sentence structures that are commonly used. Looking at the connections between the two particles actually requires some linguistic analysis that probably even native speakers aren’t aware of. That being said, I’m going to embarrass myself by trying anyway, so if you’re interested, read on:
Defining は and が from Japanese is difficult because there is no one answer- the particles have picked up various uses over the language’s history.
The most general sense is that は describes the topic of conversation, while が describes the subject. Have you ever gone on a date with an arrogant jerk who only ever talks about themself? They can cover a variety of subjects- the sports they’re good at, the size of their muscles, the smoothness of their skin, their favorite music and why it’s the best, etc- but they’re technically talking about themself the entire time. In this sense, the arrogant jerk is the topic of the conversation, even though their are many subjects involved.
The impression that things followed by は can be omitted probably comes from the fact that a topic persists across many sentences, so it is generally known and can be implied. So if you’re having an avid conversation about the properties of oranges, you can start with “オレンジ は フルーツ です” to say that oranges are fruit, and then omit the topic and say “丸です” to say that oranges are also circles (sorry, my Japanese vocab is terrible). But generally, you are assumed to be the topic of your conversation, so if you start off saying “丸です,” someone might think that you’re calling yourself a circle.
When you want to bring up a new subject, you use が. Because new subjects can become the topic of conversation, が is often seen when you’re trying to change the topic. In Koichi’s example, this is partly what’s happening. Each time one of the two people says “I’m the real one!” they’re pulling the spotlight from the other guy and saying “we’re talking about me now; I’m the real one.”
There are many other rules that loosely play into these ideas. For example, in a complex sentence, は is used for the subject of the independent clause, while が is used for the subject of the dependent clauses. This goes along with the idea that は describes the subject which all other subjects need in order to make sense (that’s why they’re called dependent).
が is also used to add detail to a topic or to amend it. So if you’re talking to your mom about your friend John, and your mom says “which friend is that?” you would use が to say “John is the friend with the crazy afro who always wears Grateful Dead T-shirts.”
When the subject of your sentence is a question word, like “what” or “who,” you use が。There are actually a lot of ways to look at this one. Because you’re demanding an answer, you’re directing the focus of your conversation to this mystery object or person, so in a way, it’s a new topic. But also, “what” and “who” can’t really be topics because they do not persist over multiple sentences, so maybe they use が because they can only ever be subjects of a single sentence?
Not from the desk of Eihiko. Eihiko's boss took his desk away from him.The grammar dictionary describes は like this:
In contemporary Japanese, は is used, in general, to mark information which the speaker assumes to be part of the hearer’s register. In other words, when は marks X, the speaker usually assumes the hearer knows what X refers to. Thus, noun phrases which can be marked by は in ordinary circumstances are as follows:
- Common nouns whose referents have already been introduced into the discourse linguistically or extra-linguistically. For example:
昔々、一人のおじいさんが住んでいました。おじいさんはとてもやさしい人でした。 (Once upon a time, there lived an old man. The old man was a very gentle person.) - Proper nouns. For example, アメリカ or スミスさん.
- Nouns whose referents can be uniquely identified – that is, they are one-of-a-kind. For example, 太陽 (sun) or 空 (sky).
- Generic names. For example, 人 or 車.
It is noted that は never marks WH-words such as 何 or だれ, thus だれはパーティーに来ましたか is ungrammatical. This is because WH-words do not refer to a known thing and, therefore, their referents can never be in the hearer’s register.
More specifically, は marks a topic and/or a contrastive element. When は is used as a topic marker, as in XはY, X is something the rest of the sentence (i.e. Y) is about, and the focus falls on Y or part of Y (cf. が). The topic Xは normally appears at the beginning of the sentence.
It then goes on to describe は as a contrastive marker, but that’s only going to add confusion, so I won’t go into it here.
The grammar dictionary’s description of が basically just says “it marks the subject, unless it’s being replaced by は”.
Regardless of exact definitions, I do feel like I have a better understanding of them from reading this thread. So thanks for the responses. ^_^
I’ve encountered the は and が explanation problem many times throughout my studies- it seems like everyone explained it a little differently, yet none of the explanations fully solved the issue. Until I came across this explanation that ultimately made the most sense to me. It also discusses some more ‘traditional’ explanations and how they’re problematic. I highly recommend that anyone who’s had trouble with は and が (I imagine this is basically anyone learning Japanese as a second language) give it a read.
Aye, I normally just say は=topic and が=subject, but since Koichi hasn’t got the faintest idea what “topic” and “subject” mean, it’s sometimes a little risky to use that explanation here. =P
I don’t think it’s that Koichi doesn’t understand “topic” and “subject”, it’s probably more that he wants to write so that people with no knowledge of English grammatical terms can understand. I’m sure most people come across the definitions of such terms at some point in studying a language but for them to be thrust at you in the very beginning, it might put some people off. You shouldn’t really need grammatical terms to learn a language anyway – I can’t remember anyone telling me as a baby: “Now, Mister-chan, ‘the’ is the definite article while ‘a’ and ‘an’ are indefinite articles.”. Not saying they’re not useful at times, just that they’re not *necessary*.
That’s because when you were a baby, you thought like a baby. You just needed to be told “this is how it works, take my word for it” and you learnt the rules later. As adults, it’s much more helpful to understand the actual grammatical concepts, even if you don’t use the words themselves – though the words help heaps too (try grouping verbs into “transitive” and “intransitive” as concisely as just using those words themselves).
Mind you, if anyone did call baby-you “Mister-chan”, I feel a little bit sorry for you. =P
- Common nouns whose referents have already been introduced into the discourse linguistically or extra-linguistically. For example:
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