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Correct adjective use with「のは」 and 「のが」 - vileru - 2011-07-19
Is there any rules as to which adjectives may be used with 「のは」 and which may be used with 「のが」?
I'm unsure if I'm correct, but I suspect that the adjectives that may be used with 「のは」are typically used to describe things in general, whereas the adjectives that may be used with 「のが」usually describe particular things.
For example:
I can say「料理を食べるのが好きです。」because it's implied that there's a specific person or group of people who like eating. However, I cannot say 「料理を食べるのは好きです。」because the na-adjective「好き」must always describe a specific person or group of people (or living thing or group of living things).
Any help will be much appreciated.
Correct adjective use with「のは」 and 「のが」 - nadiatims - 2011-07-19
The short answer is there aren't any rules as to which adjectives may be used with 「のは」 and which may be used with 「のが」.
And you can say 「料理を食べるのは好きです。」But it will sound like you're contrasting it with something else, such as 料理をするの or something.
Basically the use of が or は will be dependant on context, rather than any specific adjective.
Correct adjective use with「のは」 and 「のが」 - vileru - 2011-07-19
@nadiatims
First, thanks for the help. However, if you don't mind, would you care to further explain the following quote? Specifically, how does the use change according to context?
nadiatims Wrote:Basically the use of が or は will be dependant on context, rather than any specific adjective.Furthermore, I've been taught that some adjectives can never be used with 「のは」and some others can never be used with 「のが」. For example 「上手」 can never be used with 「のは」. I'm assuming this has something to do with the contexts in which「上手」can be used.
According to the suspicion I mentioned earlier,「上手」cannot be used with 「のは」because 「上手」must describe a specific thing. Am I right to believe this, or am I missing something?
Correct adjective use with「のは」 and 「のが」 - Rayath - 2011-07-19
Basically there isn't any connection between のは/のが and the use of the adjective. I believe that what you've been taught isn't true. If you'll search for "のは上手" in google you'll find 11,600,000 results which proves that they can be used together.
は/が modifies only the clause that stands in front of it and when you choose which one to use you must look at that clause and according to the context choose the more suited one.
The use of が or は is a pretty complex thing and people struggle with a lot, I struggle with it myself so I can't explain it too well, but here are couple links that might help you:
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=2104
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=4230
Correct adjective use with「のは」 and 「のが」 - nadiatims - 2011-07-19
I started writing a reply, but Rayath replied before me and that pretty much explains it.
Much confusion comes from the fact that English lacks a such a broad use topic marker as Japanese は (English can use a bunch of different prepositions to do much the same thing) and subject (が) is defined via a relatively fixed word order rather than a post position as in Japanese.
Correct adjective use with「のは」 and 「のが」 - vileru - 2011-07-19
Ah! So it's just a matter of determining whether「は」or「が」is more appropriate based on the context (using the general rules mentioned in the links and elsewhere)?
The whole time I was thinking that correct adjective use depended on whether「のは」or「のが」is used or it depended on whatever was being nominalized by the「のは」or「のが」phrase (e.g. verb, na-adjective, i-adjective). But it's actually a「は」vs「が」issue, and not whatever else I thought it was.
Thanks for the help Rayath and nadiatims!