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When I get corrections on lang-8, they sometimes correct a sentence to have 2 “は” in it. I don’t see how a sentence can have 2 topic particles, here is the most recent correction they did as an example:
今はここは冬なので、今日はとても寒いです。
Is it really declaring both of these words the topic or is the second は being used differently.
As well as being the topic marker, は is also a contrastive marker – that is, it marks two things being contrasted with each other. For example, “summer is hot, but winter is cold” would be 夏は暑いですが、冬は寒いです – it’s contrasting summer, which is hot, with winter, which is cold.
However, your sentence is a because sentence, not a but. I guess you can kind of see it as contrasting today with now, but to me it seems kinda weird. Surely the first は should be a が…
I’m referring to having two は particles in one clause. The example you gave “夏は暑いですが、冬は寒いです” is one sentence but 2 separate clauses.
What I was referring to is:
今はここは冬なので、今日はとても寒いです。 where the “今はここは冬” is a single clause having two particles. Is it possible that these 2 are contrasting and if so, how so?Ah, I didn’t see that – my mistake. Yeah, that looks wrong. It should probably be 今、ここは or 今はここで depending on whether you wanted the emphasis to be on “now” or “here”.
I don’t really know quite how Lang-8 works – are they native speakers? If they are, it feels a bit silly for me to be going “pah, what do they know?”… Do you have a link for this sentence?
Lang-8 is where you practice writing your Japanese and get corrected by native speakers of that language. here’s the link to the post I’m talking about – lang-8.com/snow/journals/1217893
If you don’t understand, just ask them to clarify :)
I occasionally do that but the reason I do it occasionally is very often, if not always, they explain the clarification very well but in Japanese. Most of them can’t speak English very well and I only know enough words to pass the JLPT 5 test so I can’t understand the clarification — it’s one of the pitfalls on lang-8
Ask them to clarify and post the clarification here? Because I really don’t get why 今はここは is correct. Another user further down the page has suggested こちらは今冬で which also works, and doesn’t have two はs (thought I do wonder about こちら in this context).
I do, incidentally, agree with using なので in place of でしかし =P
During my very first post on lang-8, it was the first question I asked, here’s her response to the question from a lot further back along with the link
Sentence in question: 今日の天気は外はとても暑いですのに家の中は涼しいです。
Her response to why there are 2 “は” in this sentence and clause – “今日の天気は外はとても暑いです”
「今日の天気は」で一度区切るため2回使っても良いです。
「今日の天気は」「外はとても暑いのに家の中は涼しいです」
Ｅrikaさんの添削のように「、」を付ければ分かりやすかったかな。。。My best guess is this. I’m not entirely certain, to be honest – like you, I’ve only done N5. It seems to me what they’re saying is that the first は kind of implies a separate clause in which the second は is acting as a contrastive marker rather than the topic marker. Something like “on the subject of today’s weather: the outside (as opposed to inside) is very hot, but inside the house (as opposed to outside) is nice and cool.”
「今日の天気は」 may be used once for the purpose of separating into two.
「今日の天気は」「外はとても暑いのに家の中は涼しいです」 < — this is the sentence split into two pieces
It’s like Erika-san’s correction, if you add a comma, you can understand it more easily, perhaps.Edit: The same applies to the sentence in the first post as well, I guess, though I’m still not clear on why “here” is being contrasted with “today” since the joining word is “because” not “but”. Maybe I’m just trying to make my English grammar work in Japanese…
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This reply was modified 13 years ago by
Joel.
“Here” is not being contrasted with “today”. It’s being contrasted with other places that aren’t “here”.
I’m so confused now, a second topic particle is a contrasting particle to a topic not necessarily described by the first particle. How do you know “Here” isn’t being used with “Today” – is it context?
Thanks in advance ;)
I don’t really see any way it would make sense for “here” to be contrasted with “today” in that sentence.
The contrast doesn’t have to be explictly identified. は can have contrast even in a simple sentence like “テニスはしない”. “I don’t play tennis (but I do play other sports like football and hockey)”. It’s a nuance thing. In this case it’s emphasising that the speaker doesn’t play tennis, but probably does play other things.
Most people who have corrected me have a decent standard of English (some being REALLY good at it). If you ask them in English for a clarification, they usually respond in English. Or if, in your main post, you write an “English translation” beside your Japanese (i.e. what you WANTED the sentences to mean), they’ll be more likely to try and use English (and they’ll have a better idea of where you went wrong, too).
I wasn’t so lucky as to get the correctors with good English, however I did get the ones with very good Japanese (as noted by other correctors). So far the people who stop by and correct my entries aren’t that good at English. Also for your other mention about writing the sentences in English, I already do that. I’m really just stumped, I could go on and say I’ll learn this later when I get more advanced (and can have a grammatical discussion in Japanese with the correctors) or do some more digging and possibly further confuse me.
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This reply was modified 13 years ago by
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