Generally, you need to introduce a new idea with が, unless you’re fairly sure that your listener will understand what you’re talking about, in which case you use は. So, proper nouns, unique nouns (like 太陽 or 世界, say), generic nouns or something that’s plain from the context.

は can also indicate contrast, so if you want to say, for example “you look pretty today” to someone, if you use は you’re implying “you don’t look pretty on other days”.

They don’t have street names either, for the most part.

But basically we thought we’d missed the last train for the day, when it turned out we could have just caught a different train to the next station, where we could still catch the train we wanted. Turns out only a third of the Yokohama-line trains actually go to Yokohama Station. I’d heard the name of the station we were going to announced over the PA, but I couldn’t understand the rest of the message.

Hey, I visited Japan before I really started learning Japanese. Not entirely sure what it is you’re trying to imply. =P

I managed to get by with a phrasebook, a couple of words gleaned from anime, and charades. That said, actual knowledge of Japanese would probably have saved us the 10,000 yen we spent on a taxi on the first night…

“Hazu” has self-confidence, you use it when you’re stating your own considerations [erm... well-considered thoughts? Something like that]. So, to use it for your own plans is weird, I think. In past-tense sentences it’s fine.

The grammar dictionary’s phrasing is that it “expresses the speakers expectation, not in the sense of hoping or looking forward to something, but in the sense that the proposition expressed should be true or come true. Thus, when the speaker uses はず, he is not merely guessing but stating a proposition based on reliable information or knowledge.”

In the second sentence, the topic is わたし – I hate your car. However, わたし as a topic is often dropped from sentences because it’s fairly apparent from the context.

One of the slightly odd things about Japanese is that when you have a transitive adjective (like すき, きらい, ほしい) the thing that would be the direct object in English is also marked by が, so that’s why there’s a が in the second example.

But honestly, the は/が thing is confusing to many, and I don’t really think Koichi does a very good job of explaining it…

It’s often called this. =)

Dunno if that’s an expression or a set phrase or something, but ことが多い tends to get translated as “often”.

Your best bet would be to e-mail Koichi directly and ask him:

koichi@textfugu.com

But… don’t goooo… =’(