I read in a grammar book the following example sentences to illustrate: “Use が before わかる.”
(i) この漢字の意味がわかりますか。　　(“Do you understand the meaning of this kanji?”)
(ii) 日本人の言うことがよくわかりません。(“I don’t understand what Japanese people say.”)
QUESTION (1) Is there really any such rule as “Use が before わかる.” ?

A little later in the book the following example is given to illustrate: "X　か　Y　か　わかりません。　The speaker is uncertain whether it is X or Y."
南さんはいつ来ますか。いつ来る　か　わかりません。(“When will Minami come?　I don't know when he will come.”)
QUESTION (2) Does that not contradict (1) above about using 　が　before わかる ?


I usually email my Japanese friend here in English because it feels like I waste hours trying to write in Japanese when I don’t yet have the vocab or grammar to do so. (My friend replies mostly in Japanese, so at least I can practise reading.) But yesterday I foolishly and naively thought I could surely construct a simple Japanese sentence in my greeting to her. I can’t believe how wrong I was!

祐子さん、
お元気ですか。今日は、ニールとジェイが元気です。

I was trying to say: “Dear Yuko, How are you? Today, Neil and I are well.” And what I meant by that was, “Since our last correspondence, Neil and I have continued to have one health complaint after another, but I will not bore you with those! Today, we are both well.”

Yuko wrote back with the following suggestion:
今日もニールとジェーは元気です。
But to me that means, “Neil and I are also well today” – and is based on an assumption that Yuko is well, without me having waited for a reply to my question お元気ですか.

When I explained to her what I’d been trying to say, Yuko then suggested:
ニールとジェーは今日は元気です "because I feel that someone else talks about Neil and Jay from the sentence 今日は、ニールとジェーが元気です。"

QUESTION (3) I don't understand if that's because I used 　が　instead of 　は, 　or because I used 　ジェイ　instead of 　私?

This was the thinking behind how I constructed my sentence:
I’m paranoid about not making the mistake of saying “you” to Yuko, and therefore try to use her name instead. So even though in English I was thinking 私, I put my nickname ジェイ.
QUESTION (4) Which is better: ニールとジェー or ニールと私 ? Does it matter?

I thought I was using “contrastive は” in order to suggest that “today” we are well compared with the days that have passed since our last emails (in which there had been comments re minor health matters).
QUESTION (5) Yuko also used は after 今日, but I don't understand why she switched the order around and put "Neil and Jay" before "today", when I was trying to emphasise "today"...?

I used the particle が on the basis of this grammar rule (?) “ がfollows the subject of a sentence with an adjective.”　　
QUESTION (6) Again, is there such a rule? And if the topic is “today” and “元気” is an adjective、is “ニールとジェイ”　not the subject …?


Please tell me this all gets easier!

I think most of that is answered in about every beginner's textbook or grammar guide out there.

With わかる, I think "to be understood".

[Zgarbas]

You use が with わかる、yes. It's because わかる is an intransitive. It is also a pretty potential verb (which is why it does not have a potential form), which also requires が。 The reason why it got replaced by か is because when 2 particles are required sometimes one overrides the other. Similarly, it can get replaced by は、も etc in other situations. が　is not a strong particle so many times when you use it with another particle it will get cancelled out. Of course, the fact that there should be a が there is still understood. (For silly example "Went to the club, saw some girls, scored!" <- you can still understand what the missing elements from the statement are, namely the missing "I" and who he scored with)

Don't your your name instead of 私 or skipping out entirely. It's... weird. You're also trying to fit too much context into a greeting. Also, you don't say "Hello. How are you? Neil and I are both fine today" from the get go... just go with は元気です when saying "I'm fine". が元気です would be used in other occasions.

scarby dancer Wrote:I read in a grammar book the following example sentences to illustrate: “Use が before わかる.”
(i) この漢字の意味がわかりますか。　　(“Do you understand the meaning of this kanji?”)
(ii) 日本人の言うことがよくわかりません。(“I don’t understand what Japanese people say.”)
QUESTION (1) Is there really any such rule as “Use が before わかる.” ?

A little later in the book the following example is given to illustrate: "X　か　Y　か　わかりません。　The speaker is uncertain whether it is X or Y."
南さんはいつ来ますか。いつ来る　か　わかりません。(“When will Minami come?　I don't know when he will come.”)
QUESTION (2) Does that not contradict (1) above about using 　が　before わかる ?

Ok, so to start, yes, you should normally use "ga" with "wakaru". BUT, when 'questioning' whether something is known, put the question particle "ka" after the information you're not sure about. I hope that makes sense. There's also the construction "~ka dou ka wakaranai" (I don't know whether ~ is the case). I hope that answers both questions.

scarby dancer Wrote:祐子さん、
お元気ですか。今日は、ニールとジェイが元気です。

I was trying to say: “Dear Yuko, How are you? Today, Neil and I are well.” And what I meant by that was, “Since our last correspondence, Neil and I have continued to have one health complaint after another, but I will not bore you with those! Today, we are both well.”

Yuko wrote back with the following suggestion:
今日もニールとジェーは元気です。
But to me that means, “Neil and I are also well today” – and is based on an assumption that Yuko is well, without me having waited for a reply to my question お元気ですか.

When I explained to her what I’d been trying to say, Yuko then suggested:
ニールとジェーは今日は元気です "because I feel that someone else talks about Neil and Jay from the sentence 今日は、ニールとジェーが元気です。"

QUESTION (3) I don't understand if that's because I used 　が　instead of 　は, 　or because I used 　ジェイ　instead of 　私?

This was the thinking behind how I constructed my sentence:
I’m paranoid about not making the mistake of saying “you” to Yuko, and therefore try to use her name instead. So even though in English I was thinking 私, I put my nickname ジェイ.
QUESTION (4) Which is better: ニールとジェー or ニールと私 ? Does it matter?

I thought I was using “contrastive は” in order to suggest that “today” we are well compared with the days that have passed since our last emails (in which there had been comments re minor health matters).
QUESTION (5) Yuko also used は after 今日, but I don't understand why she switched the order around and put "Neil and Jay" before "today", when I was trying to emphasise "today"...?

I used the particle が on the basis of this grammar rule (?) “ がfollows the subject of a sentence with an adjective.”　　
QUESTION (6) Again, is there such a rule? And if the topic is “today” and “元気” is an adjective、is “ニールとジェイ”　not the subject …?

First, it gets easier^^

Second question [3], Japanese is a topic oriented language. English is a subject oriented one.
So, "ha" indicates the topic. Most of the time, the topic can be left unsaid. When "ga" is used, that indicates the subject.
When "ha" is not inserted, the topic of the sentence is left up to the listener to assume. So when you wrote: 今日は、ニールとジェーが元気です, it sounds something like "今日は、someone "ha" ニールとジェーが元気です. So, it sounds like there's missing information in the sentence.

question [5], Japanese is an "important information last" language, whereas English is an "important information first" language, so by moving the kyou ha further towards the end, it is actually being more emphasised. Sometimes in Japanese (spoken Japanese), you can even put the topic right at the end, after the verb, if the topic is the really important bit, or the thing you *really* want to emphasise.

Question [4], I don't think it matters too much. I think using your nickname is more friendly, but that might be because I work with elementary school children all day :p

I hope that helped! (And I hope I didn't get any of that wrong, feel free to correct me!)

.

Sometimes in Japanese it can be easier to actually write what you want to say rather than try to imply it, if that makes sense. I know it is the opposite to what we hear about using Japanese where so much of a conversation is implied, but for clarity and understanding's sake I do think it helps.

' Wrote:I was trying to say: “Dear Yuko, How are you? Today, Neil and I are well.” And what I meant by that was, “Since our last correspondence, Neil and I have continued to have one health complaint after another, but I will not bore you with those! Today, we are both well.”

I'm not sure of your Japanese level but if you wanted to say that bit above in the quote, perhaps it better to simply say;

今日は私とニールは元気ですが、最近はちょっと風邪がありました/調子が悪かったです。

Since は is used after both 今日 and 最近 you are saying TODAY we are well, but RECENTLY we have had a cold/haven't been feeling the best.

Hope that helps.

Stian Wrote:I think most of that is answered in about every beginner's textbook or grammar guide out there.

Please accept my apologies if you thought I was wasting forum members' time or if it was inappropriate to ask such basic questions. I think beginner’s textbooks pretty much teach, “お元気ですか。「私は」元気です。” for use in conversation and/or polite chit-chat at the beginning of letters. I can see now I should have stuck with that! Although I did try to apply specific grammar points that I’ve studied, clearly I have failed to understand them properly – and am yet to learn about intransitive verbs, potential forms, etc. For me, one drawback about self-studying from grammar books is the lack of opportunity to ask questions/have discussions with someone knowledgeable about real-life situations.

As was pointed out, and I can see it now, I was

Zgarbas Wrote:“trying to fit too much context into a greeting”

Arupan Wrote:“should really avoid [nuances] for the time-being”

and

SendaiDan Wrote:“actually write what you want to say rather than try to imply it”

I found these comments, along with ktcgx's and everyone’s grammatical explanations, extremely helpful. Thanks, everyone – I really appreciate your time, knowledge-sharing, and encouragement.

scarby dancer Wrote:I read in a grammar book the following example sentences to illustrate: “Use が before わかる.”
(i) この漢字の意味がわかりますか。　　(“Do you understand the meaning of this kanji?”)
(ii) 日本人の言うことがよくわかりません。(“I don’t understand what Japanese people say.”)
QUESTION (1) Is there really any such rule as “Use が before わかる.” ?

I believe the author didn't mean to present “Use が before わかる” as a general rule, but without more detailed explanations it does end up looking like one. I believe the main reason why they said that is to prevent you from using を before わかる. It's easy for the learner to fall into the trap of thinking of わかる as a transitive verb meaning "to understand" and using the nouns around it accordingly. Once you start thinking of the verb as meaning something to the effect of "to be understood" the particles start to make perfect sense, but the author probably didn't want to take the students this far away from the Standard Average European mould and chose to present the "Japanese word for 'to understand'" as some sort of grammatical exception rather than teach the real meaning of the verb.

On the other hand, using を with わかる is fairly common among native speakers even if it's not prescriptively correct. I really don't like the "be understood" explanation because I feel like it's trying to shoehorn Western grammatical categories into the Japanese words and particles, but a lot of people like that way of thinking about it.

In respect to 分かる, although it isn't entirely on topic, I found a description a while back which helped usage "make sense" looking at it from a Japanese perception, as opposed to, as you say, shoehorning. The comment related 知る with 外 and 分かる with 内, which, well, makes more sense than a lot of the grammatical descriptions I've read from various sources.

A link to said description:
http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questi.../1667#1667
scarby dancer, the above might provide a different perspective to what you may have read from a text-book grammar description, which might help provide a little more of a native perspective.

yudantaiteki Wrote:On the other hand, using を with わかる is fairly common among native speakers even if it's not prescriptively correct.

Interesting. You're the second person I've heard this from [although I don't remember who the first person was; for all I know it could have been you, in another thread a year or two ago ], but I've yet to encounter this usage "in the wild". Of course, this could just be explained by my exposure to real life unscripted informal Japanese being extremely low, with even that being pretty much limited to the written word (comment threads, forums and the like).

yudantaiteki Wrote:I really don't like the "be understood" explanation because I feel like it's trying to shoehorn Western grammatical categories into the Japanese words and particles, but a lot of people like that way of thinking about it.

Yeah, I agree that it's an imperfect analogy, even without taking the aforementioned prescriptively incorrect usage into account. It may well set up the beginning learner for other traps, like thinking of わかる as a passive form and then getting confused upon learning about how the actual passive verb forms work in Japanese. But it did help me understand how the word functions in relation to other words - after I got used to analysing わかる as "to be understood" (or perhaps "to be understandable"? "to be clear"?) discovering a form like お前にもわかる for the first time didn't confuse me as much as it could have.

After all, these kinds of mismatches in most commonly used transitive and intransitive words can be found even between far less dissimilar languages - like the French manquer (an active intransitive equivalent to "to be missed") or the German gefallen and the Russian нравиться (ditto for "to be liked"). I think presenting manquer as the French word for "to be missed" would be more helpful for the learner than saying something like "manquer is the French word for 'to miss'. Oh, and there's a rule that 'with the verb manquer the subject takes on the form of an object, and vice versa'". “Use が before わかる” looks more like that latter explanation to me.