PrettyKitty Wrote:I'm doing a quote marked search.

3,260,000 for "でありません"
333,000,000 for でありません

84,900,000 for "ではありません"
251,000,000 for ではありません

Where do you set what language to prefer? I wouldn't think that would affect the hits, just what order they are presented in.

Ah, this seems to make more sense. I was wondering why でありません was getting so many hits. It's not exactly that common.

For that matter, we should all start speaking like でござる　or　であります.

I have alot of problems in this department too.

bodhisamaya Wrote:All About Particles: A Handbook of Japanese Function Words by Naoko Chino

Not thorough but has helped me alot

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/4...ition=used

Thanks!

There book was also digitalized by the people here in the forum.

Mcjon01 Wrote:Would my explanation that "a/an" is used in the general case of a noun (i.e., to refer to a single instance of the concept of cat), and that "the" is used in the specific case (i.e., to refer to a specific, known cat) be deficient? Because it's all my native brain can come up with. I like to think that any deficiencies come from the fact that I'm not a grammarian, and thus am unfamiliar with how to formulate clear grammar rules, but then again, I have a huge ego.

I know this is a few days old and not the main point of this thread, but I thought it was interesting. I agree with what you said, and believe that your rule holds 95% of the time, but there are exceptions. When you order a salad and want to add the dressing yourself (and why was it "a" salad and "the" dressing? I wasn't refering to any particular dressing like ranch or thouasand island), you ask for it "on the side" even though you don't actually care which specific side its on (left or right). Yet saying "on a side" would be wrong. But when I go to I-Hop I ask for my Rooty-Tooty Fresh and Fruity with "a side of white toast." This time using "the" would be wrong.

If someone asked you how you got home from the airport, "I took the bus" would be a correct answer, but "I took the cab" would be wrong. You could potentially argue what you are *actually* refering to is a specific bus route instead of the individual vehicle, but that's not what you said. Plus, you can say "I take the bus everywhere I go," which would presumably span multiple non-specific routes.

I think phrases like "took the bus" work because we assume "you took a bus which you take often or is assumed to be a specific bus which everyone would take under the same circumstances." Like a sense of familiarity and/or common knowledge. Like we tend to say "Where's the bathroom?" rather than "Where's a bathroom?"

"I took the bus." -- I rode on a bus on a common bus route that most people in this area would know if they used the bus system. "The bus which travels along this bus route."

"I took a bus." -- I rode on the bus that happened to be going the direction I was intending to go. I may or may not be unfamiliar with this bus.

"I'll order a salad." or "I'll order the salad." Either works. "The" sounds like you've decided on salad after thinking about it for a bit, or that the salad in question is something you order often. The reason you would say "a salad" in your own example was because you're giving a random example, and "the dressing" is dressing which we all assume comes with salad as part of common knowledge. It's "on the side" because we all know about dressings being put on sides. Or else it's just such a common phrase that the use of "the" is automatic.

I think "the," when not referring to a specific case, is something that is assumed to be common knowledge or have an assumed familiarity to the speaker.

That's what I think anyway.

It's interesting that something everyone uses everyday without thinking about it can be so complicated to explain.

samesong Wrote:After some googling I came across this site (it's in Japanese, though)

http://www.pantomime.org/nihongo-tusin/note.html

Sorry to bring this back from beyond. I'm finally at a level where I can read this page. I have to say, it really put は and が into perspective for me. Whether or not I can use them effectively is an entirely different matter, however.

I think it's very interesting how different views on grammar can still make sense.

In the first example sentence, one could just as easily say that obaasan and ojiisan are the subjects and that ha is used later to differentiate, "one did this, one did that", which is how I learned the particles.

I guess, as long as it's consistent, to each his own.

I believe it's because none of it's really true, but all of it's functionally true. It's the five blind men describing the elephant.

Better than how my Korean professor described the Korean equivalent of wa/ga:
Subject & Bigger-Subject

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/particles.html

tae kim for iwn.