samesong Wrote:彼はひろみがよく知らない女の子と仲良くなっても平気？

(I changed her name, BTW. Couldn't think of a more common name than　ひろみ) I was having a conversation about her boyfriend, and I was trying to ask her "So you'd be fine with your boyfriend getting close with a girl that you don't know?"

To me this sounds like...
"Would he be fine with you getting close with girls you don't know?"

In a sentence like that I think whatever is before は will be interpreted as the one who will feel 平気.

Like (in general):
彼は .... と思う　　　"He thinks ...."
彼が .... と思う　　　"I think that he's ...."


I think if you get は and が right most of the time, you should just focus on why it was wrong when it was wrong instead of starting over with full analysis of は and が. It would be more helpful than reviewing stuff you already know.

I see what you mean.

So then to convey my intended meaning, the correct particle would be が、correct?

彼がひろみがよく知らない女の子と仲良くなっても平気？

playadom Wrote:これはあなたのでありませんか？ Isn't this yours?
いいえ、これは私のでありません。 No, this is not mine.
これがあなたのですか？ Is this one yours?
いいえ、これはあなたのでありません。 No, this is not mine.

I assume you meant 私 in that last one. Anyway, well, yes. I don't like rules like "use such and such in negative sentences" though because, unless what we're talking about is ない, it's not actually true. You can see there that the real reason you're using は is because, while this isn't mine, others are - and that's part of はs purpose, as a contrastive.
Edit: Correction: While I think what I said is somewhat true, more important is likely はs role in making the following part of the sentence more important. As in, the point of that sentence is that it's not yours, not that it's 'this'. Again, a lot of stuff about this is in the book talked about above, including the common use of は in the middle of effectively nowhere to cause emphasis, which ties into this. Recommended.

Oh dear, another mistake.

I seem to make typos in Japanese a lot more. Probably because I actually have to 'read' the Japanese, as opposed to English -- as soon as I see words, I have no choice but to instantly absorb the meaning.

wah double post

samesong Wrote:I see what you mean.

So then to convey my intended meaning, the correct particle would be が、correct?

彼がひろみがよく知らない女の子と仲良くなっても平気？

Yes, whether or not the whole sentence natural, I'm not sure. But I think you would have been understood.

To cut down on any confusion added by the extra が you can also use の

彼がひろみのよく知らない女の子と仲良くなっても平気？

I'm not sure how natural this sounds, but it should have been understandable.
Perhaps you could ask "ひろみ" how you could have made this sentence better?

playadom Wrote:Anyone care to shed some light on these (random) sentences?
像を食べている魚は僕のアパートにいる
像を食べている魚が僕のアパートにいる

Your fish has weird taste....

Tobberoth Wrote:

yukamina Wrote:Is this the difference?

魚が食べている。 The fish(and not anything else) is eating.

魚は食べている。 The fish is eating.

From my point of view, it's more like:
魚が食べている。 - The fish is eating.
魚は食べている。 - Other creatures do other things or this thing, but as for this fish, it is eating.

は has a feeling of comparision which isn't present in が at all. But yes, your idea that が has a feeling of... exclusion is also true. が can single things out. As in この本の中で、この本が赤い. which would mean something like "Among these books, THIS book is red."

The name of this が is 中立のが or が of "neutrality".
http://www.geocities.jp/niwasaburoo/09wa.html
You can find it in the item 5.1.3.1

It depends on context. If you wanted to present some new information, you would say 魚が食べている, but if you're already talking about a fish, or you're changing the topic of conversation to someone's fish, then 魚は sounds better to me.

が tends to mean, "this is something new that you should know", although it only works for a grammatical subject.

は tends to mean, "I'm talking about this now", and can work on pretty much anything that comes before a verb in a clause. The old-fashioned translation Xは＝"as for X, ..." does have some merit after all, I think.

Just my $0.02.

mentat_kgs Wrote:

kazelee Wrote:Even Japanese don't fully understand the subtleties. Therefore, abandon all hope...

I kid, of course.

That's true. They don't understand the grammar. Fortunaly grammar knowledge is not used while speaking, reading or listening.

Emphassis ohn Aye kiyd.

Interesting discussion by the way.

It's not a discussion -- it's a fight to the death!

No way, you are wrong! It is an enjoyable discussion, not an interesting discussion. (lol)

Please notice the sarcasm.

protip: if you don't know which to use, just drop it completely. Unless you're in a formal situation, particles aren't really necessary.

In the manga I've read, they only seem to drop particles in speech if there's no possibility of misunderstanding. They still use particles.

A useful rule of thumb is, you need to be an expert with the rules before you can break them.

It's all about what meaning is included from the context but not written. For example you have people ordering dinner and one person says. 私はカツカレー。This could be literally translated as "I am a katsu curry". However when we take the context into consideration, we get something like "As for me, I'll have the katsu curry". Now lets change the Japanese to explicitly state this real meaning. 私はカツカレー（にします）。The fact that we can do this means that grammatically 私はカツカレー is ok.

Now let's look at this one.

彼はひろみがよく知らない女の子と仲良くなっても平気？

"So you'd be fine with your boyfriend getting close with a girl that you don't know?"

The subject is really "you" or ひろみ, but we can't add this to the sentence without it being weird.

（ひろみには）彼はひろみがよく知らない女の子と仲良くなっても平気？

However it is ok as mentioned if が and の is used.

（ひろみには）彼がひろみのよく知らない女の子と仲良くなっても平気？

To be honest I'm not sure if it should be に or には, but other than that I think it is good. So you need to be able to add the information that is derived from the context.

With the following, I would say this:

魚は食べている - The fish, as opposed to either other fish or other things, is eating.

Possibilities;

New topic - Hey, as for this fish that you don't know about, as opposed to other things I might bring up. It is eating.
Old topic - As for the fish we were talking about, as opposed to other things we were talking about or other fish. It is eating.
Comparrison - Hey, as for the fish, as opposed to the other aquatic animals in the tank (or this can be anything that can be compared with the fish). It is eating

魚が食べている - The FISH is eating.
食べている - The fish is eating (that we have been talking about recently). Note that this is the most neutral sentence. You generally don't want to mention something that is clear from the context, otherwise you are stressing it. EG.

私は行きます。or　私が行きます。

Either way you are stressing yourself or the action. The neutral way to say it is simply 行きます。

thermal Wrote:魚は食べている - The fish, as opposed to either other fish or other things, is eating.

An unfortunate choice of words, you're probably meaning the correct thing but wording it wrong. The problem is "as opposed to", since it implies that other things than the fish are not doing the same thing, は doesn't imply that. Even if a clam in the same water tub is eating, 魚は食べている makes sense, it doesn't single out the fish. It's more like... "REGARDLESS of either other fish or other things, this fish is eating."

I think case by case it can imply that, but it doesn't always.

If there are a whole bunch of aquatic animals in a fish tank and someone said 魚は食べている I would assume that the other animals aren't eating.

To take an example from Making sense of Japanese (I don't have the book with me here so the real example may be slightly different).

今晩はおいしいものがたくさんありますね was said to the host of a party whom responded with something to the effect of "what, so you mean I am usually stingy?". The reason is because by singling out tonight, which I think is what は does, you are implying that other nights are contrary to this. Since if you simply wanted to make a neutral statement, then you wouldn't use は.

I think in the case of introducing a new topic some imply others are contrary and some don't. When referring to something that has been previously mentioned (similar to how we use "the" in English) then the contrast is with "the fish" as opposed to "a/any fish" so it doesn't imply that the clams are not eating.

Tobberoth Wrote:は and が are way more simple than people think. は is the topic marker, が is the subject marker. You really don't need to know much more than that, after that you simply need to know when Japanese people consider something a topic or a subject.

To me, this sounds like saying, "Making a million dollars is simple. You just have to start your business and do the work." It's simple, but it's not easy.

Tobberoth Wrote:魚が食べている。
魚は食べている。

Since nobody else mentioned this, I figured I'd point out that the first one can mean "a fish is eating" rather than "the fish is eating". But the second sentence must be "the fish..." because, since it's the topic, the listener is already familiar with the fish in question.

playadom Wrote:は is also used in negative sentences[correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not terribly sure of all this]

I don't really like making this a "rule" because it's not the use of a negative verb form that forces the use of は. There's an underlying reason that negative sentences tend to take は, and you need to find out what that reason is, because it applies to a lot more than just negative sentences.

playadom Wrote:これはあなたのでありませんか？ Isn't this yours?
いいえ、これは私のでありません。 No, this is not mine.
これがあなたのですか？ Is this one yours?
いいえ、これは私のでありません。 No, this is not mine.

I think the use of は in the answers (the second and fourth sentences) instead of が doesn't have to do with the answer being negative; it would still be は if it were in the affirmative, I believe. Though I think they're slightly contrived sentences because the answers would normally omit the これは anyway.

By the way, is there a reason you have でありません instead of ではありません? I'm far from advanced (or even intermediate), so I'm not familiar with a でありません construction.

Dies_Irie Wrote:protip: if you don't know which to use, just drop it completely. Unless you're in a formal situation, particles aren't really necessary.

That's a good formula for sounding unnatural. From what I understand, you can often drop particles, but you can't just drop them arbitrarily.

- Kef

furrykef Wrote:

Quote:魚が食べている。
魚は食べている。

Since nobody else mentioned this, I figured I'd point out that the first one can mean "a fish is eating" rather than "the fish is eating". But the second sentence must be "the fish..." because, since it's the topic, the listener is already familiar with the fish in question.

Nicely put. I wouldn't make it an absolute rule, though, but in practice, it most often works out that way.

Quote:

playadom Wrote:は is also used in negative sentences[correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not terribly sure of all this]

I don't really like making this a "rule" because it's not the use of a negative verb form that forces the use of は. There's an underlying reason that negative sentences tend to take は, and you need to find out what that reason is, because it applies to a lot more than just negative sentences.

I agree. I've seen many sentences with が＋neg. verb.

furrykef Wrote:

playadom Wrote:は is also used in negative sentences[correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not terribly sure of all this]

I don't really like making this a "rule" because it's not the use of a negative verb form that forces the use of は. There's an underlying reason that negative sentences tend to take は, and you need to find out what that reason is, because it applies to a lot more than just negative sentences.

It wasn't a rule, more of an observation.

Quote:

playadom Wrote:これはあなたのでありませんか？ Isn't this yours?
いいえ、これは私のでありません。 No, this is not mine.
これがあなたのですか？ Is this one yours?
いいえ、これは私のでありません。 No, this is not mine.

I think the use of は in the answers (the second and fourth sentences) instead of が doesn't have to do with the answer being negative; it would still be は if it were in the affirmative, I believe.

You're probably right.

Quote:By the way, is there a reason you have でありません instead of ではありません? I'm far from advanced (or even intermediate), so I'm not familiar with a でありません construction.

No reason in particular.
Random google search results:
433,000,000 - ではない
4,150,000　- ではありません
8,960,000　－　じゃありません
191,000,000　－　じゃない
328,000,000 - でありません

Quote:

Dies_Irie Wrote:protip: if you don't know which to use, just drop it completely. Unless you're in a formal situation, particles aren't really necessary.

That's a good formula for sounding unnatural. From what I understand, you can often drop particles, but you can't just drop them arbitrarily.

- Kef

Wow, I just noticed another error in my already messed up post:

I put
これはあなたのですか？
これがあなたのですか？
without their English. Let me correct:

これはあなたのですか？ Is this yours?
これがあなたのですか？ Is this one yours?

Which seems to be what furrykef was saying.

furrykef Wrote:

playadom Wrote:は is also used in negative sentences[correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not terribly sure of all this]

I don't really like making this a "rule" because it's not the use of a negative verb form that forces the use of は. There's an underlying reason that negative sentences tend to take は, and you need to find out what that reason is, because it applies to a lot more than just negative sentences.

I just think of は's use in negative sentences as an extension of it's function as a contrastive marker. I don't know how correct it is to do this, as I haven't really studied much grammar outside of the section headings in UBJG, but it makes sense to me.

furrykef Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:魚が食べている。
魚は食べている。

Since nobody else mentioned this, I figured I'd point out that the first one can mean "a fish is eating" rather than "the fish is eating". But the second sentence must be "the fish..." because, since it's the topic, the listener is already familiar with the fish in question.

I don't think it is always true that は equates to "the fish". は can be used to referrence an old topic, but it can also be used comparitively or to introduce a new topic, in which case it sometimes referes to something both parties know, but it sometimes doesn't.

魚は好きだけど、馬は好きじゃない。- Well, as for fish, I like them. When it comes to horses though, I don't.

ビールは体によくないよ。- Hey as for beer, it's bad for you.

thermal Wrote:I don't think it is always true that は equates to "the fish". は can be used to referrence an old topic, but it can also be used comparitively or to introduce a new topic, in which case it sometimes referes to something both parties know, but it sometimes doesn't.

魚は好きだけど、馬は好きじゃない。- Well, as for fish, I like them. When it comes to horses though, I don't.

Good point about the comparative here.

Thermal got here before me and is completely right, は doesn't really imply "the" any more than が does. For example: 魚はこれを食べる - As for fishes, they eat this. You can be speaking of any one fish, this fish, those fishes or any fishes, it really isn't implied.

Even in the situations where は refers to an old topic, that topic doesn't have to be "the", you could've been talking about fishes in general from the start.

And this is exactly why it's almost pointless to argue this without context.

Theoretically, here, everybody is right [sometimes] and everybody is wrong [sometimes].