I came across this practice qn in a pdf about particles, where one has to fill in the blanks with が、は、も or の.

Qn: 僕　（　）　のど　（　）　渇いたから、アイスティー　（　）　いいな。
TL: As I am thirsty, I'd like to drink iced-tea.

The answer in the book was, 僕はのどが渇いたから、アイスティーがいいな。
While mine was 僕ののどが渇いたから、アイスティーがいいな。

This gave me the idea that using の as I have did gives a different nuance to the sentence, where the translation would be..."As my throat is dry, I'd like to drink ice tea", with emphasis to "my throat". Which is why the book didn't use の as an answer.I wonder if I'm thinking too much or is my answer acceptable as well?

At the same time, would it be fine to use　は　in the 2nd blank if I were to use の in the 1st? This は and が thing is fairly confusing ><.

Would be great if the knowledgeable folk around here could help me out

LX2010 Wrote:I came across this practice qn in a pdf about particles, where one has to fill in the blanks with が、は、も or の.

Qn: 僕　（　）　のど　（　）　渇いたから、アイスティー　（　）　いいな。
TL: As I am thirsty, I'd like to drink iced-tea.

The answer in the book was, 僕はのどが渇いたから、アイスティーがいいな。
While mine was 僕ののどが渇いたから、アイスティーがいいな。

This gave me the idea that using の as I have did gives a different nuance to the sentence, where the translation would be..."As my throat is dry, I'd like to drink ice tea", with emphasis to "my throat". Which is why the book didn't use の as an answer.

I wonder if I'm thinking too much or is my answer acceptable as well? Would be nice if someone could help me out ><.

To be honest, I think it's best not to try to justify your own answer as being correct. The answer the book gave is the most natural; the one you gave is not exactly wrong (since you can connect a noun to a noun with の), but it's not how Japanese people would say it.

Basically, you're making this mistake because you're not used to the basic pattern:
Topic は subject が predicate

Alright. Thanks for the advice!

I see it as の breaking up the set phrase のどが渇いた: (僕の喉)が渇いた vs. 僕は(喉が渇いた). Your version would sound a lot less unnatural to me if I hadn't seen 喉が渇いた dozens of times before.

Vempele Wrote:I see it as の breaking up the set phrase のどが渇いた: (僕の喉)が渇いた vs. 僕は(喉が渇いた). Your version would sound a lot less unnatural to me if I hadn't seen 喉が渇いた dozens of times before.

Interesting. I see it as him imitating an English structure. You say sentences along the lines of "My throat is dry..." in English so it seems natural to say it in Japanese. But Japanese has a part of speech that English essentially doesn't have, a topic, and it is often used in places where we would use the possessive in English.

So, "As for me (topic), throat (subject), is dry (predicate)."

It occurs to me that when I said "your version", it could have been interpreted as referring to your explanation. I meant OP's use of の, even though there were more natural ways to say that - a case of Muphry's law. I agree with everything you've said.

I like this little thread. Thanks for illustrating this concept so clearly Tzadek. It's so common a transference mistake to want to use the possessive 'my' in these kinds of forms.
It might be hard to deliberately think of examples because you don't always notice them until they come up, but it might be a good idea to start a thread dedicated to transfer errors from English. I think it would be very informative and help learners avoid mistakes.

You can't just replace "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" with "a bird in my hand is worth two in the bush". It's not just "unnatural sounding", it's incorrect.

Same with this. It's a set expression, means to be thirsty. It doesn't mean "to have a dry throat", just like the above English expression doesn't mean you can never sell two birds in a bush for 10 bucks more than one in your hand.

LX2010 Wrote:The answer in the book was, 僕 は のどが渇いたから、アイスティーがいいな。
)

I guess the context is when you answer to a question "what do you want?" (otherwise omitting particle is the most 'plain' choice) for the first blank. Thus は.
On the other hand, "僕ののどが渇いたから、アイスティーがいいな" is a REALLY quirky expression. If you say it after someone have said "喉が渇いたから何か飲みましょう", it implies NOT ONLY that you will take cold tea not because your partner feels thirsty but you feel so, BUT ALSO that you are re-interpretting your partner's words and playing on them. Without the latter condition, i.e. if you simply override your partner's remark, you would just say "僕 が 喉が渇いたから" (in this case, you can't 'grammatically' interpret のど in the partner's remark as your own throat because that would be a direct reference to other people's sense).

Quote:would it be fine to use　は　in the 2nd blank

If there are some reasons to use it.
When your partner ask which to choose between hot and cold in addition to saying "I'll take hot one because we got caught in rain and wet", you can say "僕 は のど は かわいたからアイスで". The first は reflects to the question "I will ... but what about YOU?" and the second one does to the fact that your cloth is wet while your throat is not.

Stansfield123 Wrote:You can't just replace "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" with "a bird in my hand is worth two in the bush". It's not just "unnatural sounding", it's incorrect.

Actually, I'm of the opinion that it's not strictly speaking incorrect. As viharati says, I think it implies a strange situation. It certainly doesn't break any grammar rules, per se.

Stansfield123 Wrote:Same with this. It's a set expression, means to be thirsty. It doesn't mean "to have a dry throat", just like the above English expression doesn't mean you can never sell two birds in a bush for 10 bucks more than one in your hand.

It almost sounds like you're talking about のどが渇いた like it's an idiom (since you say it doesn't mean its literal interpretation), and you compare it to a ことわざ. It's not. The meaning of のどがかわいた is literal, and it's far from a proverb. You call it a set expression, but that's like calling "I'm thirsty" a set expression, which I'm not sure I would do (I would just call it an extremely common expression).

Anyway, even when something is an idiom you can often alter it in similar ways. Like, an idiom in Japanese is 話に花が咲く, and 話 is modified in all kinds of ways (for example, you can also say 世間話に花が咲いた) and the idiom still remains.