Joel wrote:

Honestly, everything about his explanation of は and が is confusing, but what’s most confusing is the way he uses “subject” and “topic” interchangeably. Short story: the topic (marked by は) is what the sentence is about, while the subject (marked by が) is the doer of the verb. Often the topic and the subject are the same agent, in which case the は supplants the が.

大人　は　しお　が　大すき　です。

This doesn’t seem to jive with that, as obviously salt is not the doer in this sentence…

If I were trying to translate this as directly as possible I come up with:

As for adults, salt is really liked (by them).

I think this might be confusing because in the English sentence:

Adults really like salt. (A more natural translation)

The verb is like.

Where is in the Japanese sentence it works as an adjective.

So does that mean that it uses が because です is acting as the verb, so salt is the doer of the verb, basically by existing in the form of “is”? (If you can follow that)

You seem to be really good at answering people’s Japanese questions here.

Welcome to TextFugu!

It looks like you’ve done quite well with your own studies. ^_^

I used to practice Aikido in Ashland.

The following article may be of interest to you, if you haven’t seen it yet:
http://www.tofugu.com/2013/10/22/what-its-like-dating-a-japanese-guy/

Check out this thread for some tips on organizing Anki 2 with the early chapters of TextFugu:

http://www.textfugu.com/bb/topic/anki-2-guide-for-the-ocded

You can also use the following thread to track your progress and share your ideas/concerns when you finish a season (gain a level ^_^):

http://www.textfugu.com/bb/topic/textfugu-season-completions-for-great-motivation-of-heart

がんばって！

Welcome to the forums!

Check out this thread for some tips on organizing Anki 2 with the decks in TextFugu, if you haven’t figured it out already:

http://www.textfugu.com/bb/topic/anki-2-guide-for-the-ocded

You can also use the following thread to track your progress and share your ideas/concerns when you finish a season (gain a level ^_^):

http://www.textfugu.com/bb/topic/textfugu-season-completions-for-great-motivation-of-heart

がんばって！

MisterM2402 [Michael] wrote:

EtoEto looks like it might be good though I’m afraid the same thing will happen: you’ll say you’re working on some super-secret, mega updates but really you’ll be off starting 5 other new projects and devoting all your time to them.

From what I’ve read, I believe the goal for the new rewrite is to combine TextFugu and Etoeto into one new product and expand on what’s already on both.

What I’d like to see is a program like WaniKani with the levels of progression and everything as a replacement for Anki in studying vocab and sentences. That I think would be well worth a $150 lifetime subscription.

Dude…

You don’t really have to use Anki in order to use TextFugu, even though Koichi relies on it as the method for studying, you can study however you want.

You can make your own physical flashcards based on what he puts up on Anki or straight from the text. Or you can make lists, or whatever other methods you might choose for studying a language.

I too had a year break and came back recently. Before I left I was only on Season 3, so I’ve started again from the start and simply skipped the things I remember and concentrated on the things I was a bit foggy with.

In any case, were I you, I’d start again from the start and just focus on the grammar rules rather than slamming through vocab with Anki.

I really like WaniKani, but if you hated Anki, you’ll probably start to hate WK as well, as I imagine reviews piling up is what put you off Anki, and you’ll get the same from WK.