It probably just means "also" and they didn't bother to include that nuance. It's probably not all that worthwhile to agonize too much over arbitrary, out of context example sentences.

loverkanji Wrote:運命さえまだ知らない
to me it seems like it means 'unknown yet destiny' but the person who translated it wrote it as 'that you can't even see your fate yet' well if I take it out of the context of the song I guess it will be 'can't see your fate yet'

"yet unknown destiny" ("unknown yet destiny" isn't coherent English) would be まだ知らない運命

In the context of the song, this is a relative clause that is modifying いたいけな瞳 so that needs to be taken into account:
運命さえまだ知らない　いたいけな瞳

Innocent eyes that don't even know (one's, your, their) destiny/fate yet

I'm confused about さえまだ what does it mean ? まだ is yet but I'm not sure about さえ.

そのとき、俺はある大事な事実を思い出した
what is the meaning of ある in this context ?
from my understanding the meaning of the centense "at that time (or moment) I rememberted an important fact"

Taishi Wrote:

delta Wrote:通訳者も拘束時間によって料金が違います。
The rate of an interpreter depends on how long the works time is.

I think I understand this sentence well enough except for the function of も. Can anyone help?

It sounds like interpreters are one among several occupations whose pay depends on time spent working.

Ah, that's what I thought. Good.

Another quick one,

車がここにある the car is here
車はここにある a car is here / there are cars here

Am I right? or was it the other way? I am having a は／が relapse here.

loverkanji Wrote:I'm confused about さえまだ what does it mean ? まだ is yet but I'm not sure about さえ.

even

delta Wrote:車がここにある the car is here
車はここにある a car is here / there are cars here

Am I right? or was it the other way? I am having a は／が relapse here.

Trying to match up the difference between は and が using English articles is a vain effort. In certain contexts they can mimic the same role, but that's about it. The difference between 車がここにある and 車はここにある is not the same as the difference between "the car is here" and "a car is here."

All three English sentences you gave are perfectly good translations of both of the Japanese sentences, depending on the context.

delta Wrote:

Taishi Wrote:

delta Wrote:通訳者も拘束時間によって料金が違います。
The rate of an interpreter depends on how long the works time is.

I think I understand this sentence well enough except for the function of も. Can anyone help?

It sounds like interpreters are one among several occupations whose pay depends on time spent working.

Ah, that's what I thought. Good.

Another quick one,

車がここにある the car is here
車はここにある a car is here / there are cars here

Am I right? or was it the other way? I am having a は／が relapse here.

Sounds about right.

Edit: What Tzadeck is true but in this case the translations make sense, however they don't prove that you understand why it means what it means.

In 100%外国人による英会話. Does による mean "by way of; with the aid of"?

Taishi Wrote:Edit: What Tzadeck is true but in this case the translations make sense, however they don't prove that you understand why it means what it means.

Could you explain this? I'm not sure how the translations make sense.

In fact, I'd think the opposite is perhaps more often the case, right? が has a tendancy to be used with something new to the conversation just like the article 'a', and は has a tendancy to be used with information that has already been part of the conversation, which is often a use of the article 'the.' But, as I say, deep down all three translations are correct for both sentences.

What a confusion, is there anyone that can explain this in plain language like in less than 2 lines?. I think that if someone can't explain this easily is because they themselves don't understand it quite well.

delta Wrote:What a confusion, is there anyone that can explain this in plain language like in less than 2 lines?. I think that if someone can't explain this easily is because they themselves don't understand it quite well.

Or maybe it's a bit more complicated than that. You can say it in two lines if you want to, but it's not really gonna help a learner any. For example, in one line you could say "が marks the subject and は marks the topic," but since a 'topic' is not really a grammatical device used in English it's not really a useful explanation when presented so briefly.

Also, how the hell do you know whether a brief explanatoin is even possible if you don't understand the difference yourself? Sounds pretty arrogant to me. There are a million explanations on the internet--google it. One of us writing out another one here seems pretty pointless (and after all there are already threads about it on forum).

I was making a rather general statement, like "does such person exist at all?" or "is such explanation even possible", like you are saying.

I don't understand it. That's why I asked. The mood comes from being given the same explanation everywhere and my point is that I find it odd that no one has come up with a excellent, plain and easy way to explain it.

I agree. I have my explanation. Tae Kim has his own. My teacher has her own. Every native speaker has their own feelings about the difference. There are overarching principles that you can see more clearly through experience and context. It's hard for anyone to say whether a sentence is wrong with ga or wa with just sentences in isolation.

It's kind of like the difference between 能 and 会 in Chinese. There are plenty of situations where one or the other is logical, but it's context that decides which is appropriate.

Just google the differences between ga and wa, in Japanese perhaps, in google.co.jp, not the English google, and see what you get. I'm sure the more Japanese you have in your search the better information you'll come across.

You are right in that many people that do understand it will often have different feelings towards it, but not everyone's definition can be too different from each other. I still wonder if it is possible to explain this easily.

http://nihonshock.com/2010/02/particles-...wa-and-ga/

This guy seems to give a pretty good go of it, over a few pages.

Personally I like longer explanations. I liked that Jay Rubin devoted about a dozen pages to the difference in "Making Sense Of Japanese," a book I recommend here constantly.

I read that book. I guess the problem is finding someone with both an explanation and one's level of stupidity. I will check that link. Thanks.

I really don't think that most valid explanations are that far off from each other. Brevity in this case does cause for fallacies and misinterpretations to be had, but it does come down to just thinking like a Japanese person, but even that is not a 100% guarantee. Ya, I agree that longer explanations are much better. Course, if you're just talking about certain instances, I think it shouldn't be that hard just to get a simple and reasonable explanation.

I'll do my best to explain the particles in this specific situation.

車がここにある
In this sentence, since this is no topic marker, it is assumed (I assume) that a car is already the topic and that in this sentence the location of that car is being explained.

車はここにある
Here the topic of cars is being introduced so (to me) it feels unlikely that the location of a specific car known previously to both the speaker and the listener is being explained. It's just a statement that "There is a car (are cars) here".

Of course given context surrounding the sentences could possibly give a different meaning, but with what's given, this is my interpretation.

imabi Wrote:I really don't think that most valid explanations are that far off from each other. Brevity in this case does cause for fallacies and misinterpretations to be had, but it does come down to just thinking like a Japanese person, but even that is not a 100% guarantee. Ya, I agree that longer explanations are much better. Course, if you're just talking about certain instances, I think it shouldn't be that hard just to get a simple and reasonable explanation.

I agree that longer explanations are good, but I think it's a good idea to supplement with shorter explanations for specific cases as well.

Taishi Wrote:車がここにある
In this sentence, since this is no topic marker, it is assumed (I assume) that a car is already the topic and that in this sentence the location of that car is being explained.

Whoa whoa, it's the opposite. If a particular car was already known to both speakers and it's location was being explained the sentence would be 車はここにある. Unless the topic of the setence （車) was already particularly clear (for example, they had already been talking directly about the car(s) in the preceding sentences), in which case the sentence would be ここにある.

As the answer to a question, what is being explained here is WHAT is here. 車 is the important part of the sentence. The sentence is emphasizing the WHAT, not the WHERE.

This also clashes with your explanation of 車はここにある, which indeed would be highlighting the WHERE if it were the answer to a question.

It feels very textbook-ish as far as examples go, but it works like this:
Where is the car?
車はここにある
What is here?
車がここにある

Tzadeck Wrote:It feels very textbook-ish as far as examples go, but it works like this:
Where is the car?
車はここにある

Not sure I agree with this. If you answer the question "Where is the car?", why would you declare the car as the topic? That should already be quite obvious.

However like Stephen Hawking said: "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.". Maybe I was under the illusion that I grasped the difference of は and が in this situation. In any case I don't really feel confident enough to comment anymore without more context to back up.

Taishi Wrote:

Tzadeck Wrote:It feels very textbook-ish as far as examples go, but it works like this:
Where is the car?
車はここにある

Not sure I agree with this. If you answer the question "Where is the car?", why would you declare the car as the topic? That should already be quite obvious.

No, Tzadeck's absolutely right here. The car is the topic under discussion so you can either use 車は or omit it entirely, but 車が would be unnatural.

車はどこ？
ここにある。

車はどこ？
車は………あそこにある！

車を捜してるんだけど…
車はここにある。

I see, back to reading about particles I guess!

Can some explain to me what is the meaning when there is:

て + くる
て + いく

Example: 撃てきったぞ this line is spoken by a man and he is referring that someone is shooting at him.
It doesn't seem like it is the 行く and 来る verbs, and also doesn't look like it has anything to do with the giving/receiving verbs.

Taishi Wrote:I'll do my best to explain the particles in this specific situation.

imabi Wrote:I really don't think that most valid explanations are that far off from each other. Brevity in this case does cause for fallacies and misinterpretations to be had, but it does come down to just thinking like a Japanese person, but even that is not a 100% guarantee. Ya, I agree that longer explanations are much better. Course, if you're just talking about certain instances, I think it shouldn't be that hard just to get a simple and reasonable explanation.

I agree that longer explanations are good, but I think it's a good idea to supplement with shorter explanations for specific cases as well.

Lol, that's exactly what I said in the last line. Just making sure you understand me.

loverkanji Wrote:Can some explain to me what is the meaning when there is:

て + くる
て + いく

Example: 撃てきったぞ this line is spoken by a man and he is referring that someone is shooting at him.
It doesn't seem like it is the 行く and 来る verbs, and also doesn't look like it has anything to do with the giving/receiving verbs.

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/gra...form#part6