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それ は しりません
Could somebody please kindly explain WHY we are using the particle WA here, and not the particle O? I thought the particle O is used with verbs in the sentence.
I thought the structure was WA as to BE something and O as to DO something. What am I missing?
Hugely grateful for any help!
HamptoncherryTo start with, は and を cannot be used together. For this situation, the person wants to discuss “that” and so the は must be used. In addition を is used as a direct object which requires an action verb such as “throw, pass, break, etc” and as best as I understand you aren’t perfoming the action of knowing to “that”, you are trying to know “that”. Abstract concepts like this can get a bit difficult to grasp but just think of it like this, to use the を particle you need to be able to physically do something to or for someone.
If This still isn’t clear let me know and I can try to explain it differently. I hope this was clear enough to make sense. I hope this helps.
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This reply was modified 10 years ago by
Michael Lowrey.
Hi Michael, thank you so much for your great reply, it is beginning to make sense to me.
Could you be so kind and explain why we use both WA and O in this sentence わたし は にほんご を おしえます
I would think that わたし は ——means I AM something, but in this case it looks like は connects me and the object I am acting upon?
Sorry for being stupid but Japanese grammar is so unlike English, German or Spanish.
HamptoncherryParticles in Japanese are always post-positions (not prepositions) – that is to say, they modify the word that comes before them, not after them. So in それ は しりません, the は is modifying the それ, not the しりません.
は marks the topic of a sentence. Don’t get confused between “topic” and “subject” as Kouichi does – the topic of a sentence is what the sentence is about, while the subject is the doer of the verb. が marks the subject. を marks the direct object of the verb – the thing that has the verb done to it.
Now, here’s the tricky bit: the topic of the sentence can pretty much be any noun or noun-phrase in that sentence, whether it’s the subject, the object, the indirect object, et cetera. most of the time, you’ll generally find that the topic is the subject, in which case, the topic particle は completely replaces the subject particle が. Exactly the same thing happens if the topic is the direct object – は replaces を. (When, say, the indirect object is the topic, then the indirect object particle に joins forces with the topic particle to get には. Don’t ask me why.)
When Michael said they can’t be used together, he meant they couldn’t go right after one another as をは (not that they couldn’t be in the same sentence).
In your second sentence, わたし is simultaneously the topic and the subject, so we use just the topic marker は. にほんご is the direct object, so we use を.
Thanks so much for the help.
I suppose when you try to explain something about a language it may sound really complicated, but if one just keeps practising he or she will obtain a “feel” for what has to be used in each case… At least this is how I console myself.
I admire you all for being able to explain these things to me!
HamptoncherryYeah, you’ll get a feel for it.
Also, the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar is quite handy. =)
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This reply was modified 10 years ago by
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