Hi, sorry totally newb question, but I'm confused about these 2 sentences in Core 2000:

私には友達がたくさんいます。
I have lots of friends.

彼には子供が六人います。
He has six children.

What does the beginning に do in these sentences; is it required for use with いる　/ います to denote possession? This never came up in Tae Kim's grammar guide...maybe I need another book..

に can be used with either いる (animate existance) or ある (inanimate existance). It is locational に, marking a location of existance. Here, a person is acting as the 'location'; this is an idiomatic usage of locational に, used to indicate possession. When this possessive locational に is used, it can optionally drop. It could drop in both of the sentence you have written above, or it could be retained.

I hope this helps

Ni signifies the place where the "aru" or "iru" 'ed thing exists, so in this case it also happens to be the topic.

I could be wrong but I think in this case I would translate that to "as for me, I have a lot of friends" or "as for him, he has six kids" ? Can anybody else weigh in

These are the literal translations:

私には友達がたくさんいます。
Many friends exist at me.

彼には子供が六人います。
Six children exist at me.

These translations are silly, but they convey the point that "Noun (animate) には ___ が　いる/ある" is a possessive structure derived from a statement about existance at some location.

パリには友達がたくさんいます。
There are many friends in Paris.

The above sentence is a true locational sentence, not the idiomatic possession usage. Compare it to the top sentence, "I have many friends."

Grammatically speaking, it's a combination of 格助詞 に and 係助詞 は. If you're not familiar with this kind of grammar, here is a quick and dirty rule:

には puts an emphasis on the word right before it.

For example, 僕には出来ない "I can't do it" may imply "Yeah, yeah. A genius like you may be able to pull that off. But I'm sure I can't!" "No, I can't. There might be a shameless guy who wouldn't mind. But I can't do that. I am not that kind of person." and so on. The degree of emphasis varies depending on how you pronounce it.

vinniram's explanation is also correct. You can analyze the grammar of a sentence with いる or ある a bit differently and reach the same meaning. In this another grammar explanation, you admit the comparison use of は, which some linguists deny but is considered very useful to explain many natural sentences in a simpler manner. Many textbooks teach comparison は, so you probably already know the meaning of は here.

If you compare two sentences 私には友達がたくさんいます and 私は友達がたくさんいます, there is an emphasis on 私 in the former sentence. Both mean I have many friends. But the former would be easier to sound rude if you get your tone wrong because it could sound as if you're saying, "I have lots of friends. And you don't." If you take a close look at the implied meaning, you'll notice that this is what the comparison use of は usually means. Of course, you can reduce the comparison sense in は with your tone of voice. If you do, the difference between the には version and は version becomes very small.

Probably what welldone101 mentioned is the same as this emphasis.

An important point is that this isn't unique to sentences with いる or ある. Because it's quite universal to a sentence with には, I tend to prefer the first explanation. But they're just explaining the same thing by different sets of grammar rules.

Thanks for the replies peeps!

@Magamo - thanks so much, your explanation is extremely clear and helpful as always. So now I'm thinking:

私は友達がたくさんいます
As for me, friends are alot (が puts the emphasis on "friends" in this sentence)

私には友達がたくさんいます
As for me, I have alot of friends (に puts the emphasis back on "me" for the main　が　statement, so now the sentence is definitely all about memeME )

One final thing, how does 私に友達がたくさんいます fit into this - is it even a correct sentence?

aphasiac Wrote:One final thing, how does 私に友達がたくさんいます fit into this - is it even a correct sentence?

Xに友達がいる is ok but may require a bit rarer context. The difference between XにYがいる and XはYがいる is a little like は vs. が. You might have heard this explanation of は and が:

Q: Did you do this?
A: I did it. (私はしました).

Q: Who did this?
A: I did it. (私がしました).

Similarly,

Q: Does he have a friend?
A: He does. (彼は友達がいます)

Q: Who has a friend?
A: He does. (彼に友達がいます)

に generally puts emphasis on the word preceding it. And this is similar to the function of が, which shifts the focus to the word before it. So it makes sense to use に when you want to use が for another word and the sentence has いる or ます, which collocate with the place marker. A more neutral answer to the question "Who has a friend" would be something along the line of 友達がいるのは彼です. But the に version is also ok. Also, 友達がいるのは彼です implies "It's he that has a friend," i.e., other people probably don't have a friend. But 彼に友達がいます is more neutral, so technically it's not a lie if there is another person who has a friend. I guess this is because shifting the focus on X is the main grammatical function of Xが and 〜はX. Granted that Xに puts emphasis on X, but its main function is still a place marker. Also, には can be used for both types of questions:

Q: Does he have a friend?
A: He does. (彼には友達がいます)

Q: Who has a friend?
A: He does. (彼には友達がいます)

Both could mean "He has a friend. But others don't" or something like that because there is emphasis on 彼 or a sense of comparison. As an answer to "Does he have a friend?," the には version may sound like the speaker is giving more information than he was asked. Then again, には and は can be very similar in nuance, so technically you're not lying even if you use には and others also have friends. It all depends on your tone and also on context. It sure sounds like cheating if the majority of people addressed in the conversation have friends and you still used には though.

Thank you a lot Magamo for that long description and aphasiac for asking! This topic was covered just too briefly for me in Genki 1. (東京に住んでいます vs 東京には住んでいます as far as I remember correctly.) Basically - to sum it up - the difference on the usage of ni or niwa is how/in which way and what you want to emphasize in concrete, right?

Tori-kun Wrote:Thank you a lot Magamo for that long description and aphasiac for asking! This topic was covered just too briefly for me in Genki 1. (東京に住んでいます vs 東京には住んでいます as far as I remember correctly.) Basically - to sum it up - the difference on the usage of ni or niwa is how/in which way and what you want to emphasize in concrete, right?

I'll second that! Thanks magamo for giving such in depth explanations. Genki really doesn't cover that very well. And i, too, would like to ask a question about this.

Is it true that には is some form of saying something in a very polite way?

Off the top of my head this example: 社長には来週オーストリアを訪問されるそうです。 The president of my company will visit Austria next week.

When i know the companies president personally, talking to someone about him, would this には make it any more polite, or very formal than if i say: 社長が来週オーストリアを訪問するそうです。 The same fact but maybe less formal?

Nagareboshi, where did you read 'niwa' makes it more formal, personally, I have never come across this in any grammar book so far and if I'm not mistaken or blind, I haven't found it "A Dictionary of Particles".. A source or a link would be nice. Maybe this emphasize I was talking about could also rise/increase or even decrease the level of politeness ('niwa' vs. a single 'ni'). Just guessing

Nagareboshi Wrote:Is it true that には is some form of saying something in a very polite way?

Well, she doesn't sound very polite saying it.
Seriously though, には is just に+は, the target particle + the topic particle, for cases where the に clause is the topic of the sentence. Here's a good explanation (scroll down to "When location is the topic").

I don't think には makes your sentence politer. Also, as vonPeterhof and I said, には is a combination of に and は. So in general a sentence with には would be grammatically correct if は is dropped, though there are tricky exceptions. In this sense, Nagareboshi's example is a bit strange because 社長に訪れる doesn't make much sense in normal context.

As for the question about に vs. には by Tori-kun, it depends on how you see the grammar point. If you know how the particles に and は individually, then you can see it as a mix of them. Note that the two particles are so basic that they have lots of meanings and usages. On top of that, there are different styles of teaching these particles. So you might want to be a little careful about which meaning is used in each example you come across.

For example, the linked article by Tae Kim introduces に as a particle which marks the target of a verb. And in the linked youtube video, the blue haired girl says, "あたしには無理ぃ。" But the "target" of 無理 doesn't make much sense. (If you're having trouble parsing this example, a more textbook-ish version of the sentence would be 私にはできません or 私には無理だ.) As you can see, it's a little odd to say あたし or 私 is the "target" of 無理だ or できない because it's the person who can't do it, not the thing someone can't do.

This sentence from the anime also gives an example of tricky exceptions. I said in general a sentence with には would be grammatically correct without は. But あたしに無理ぃ with the same tone as the original sentence is strange in normal context. But somehow it's ok if it's part of a certain longer sentence with a different tone, e.g., あたしに無理ならあいつにも無理.

To illustrate the difference between に and には, 東京に住んでいます is a simple sentence where に is marking the target of the verb 住む (or you can say it's a place marker here) while 東京には住んでいます may imply, "I'm living in Tokyo but my workplace is in Kanagawa," "I'm living in Tokyo, but not in Osaka," and so on.

You might get overwhelmed by tons of usages and exceptions a basic grammar point has. But it's not that difficult. It simply means that you shouldn't use grammar rules to form your own sentence. No matter how complicated, probably you can get the gist of a given correct sentence as long as there is rich context and you have enough vocab and grammar knowledge. In this sense, general rules and whatnot are useful to understand given sentences. But applying grammar rules for output must be the last resort reserved for when your intuition doesn't work because you haven't been exposed to an enough amount of Japanese required to express an idea you have in mind. If you use grammar to express yourself, you most likely end up creating your own version of Japanese, which native speakers find funny or get confused by. That's the kind of Japanese which is grammatically correct but awfully unnatural. And often the time it makes little sense.

Thanks for all your replies magamo, really helpful stuff, much appreciated!

aphasiac Wrote:Thanks for all your replies magamo, really helpful stuff, much appreciated!

Yes, very much indeed, and sorry for the bad example. I could not come up with any better. It was along those lines what i head read about にはsomewhere else, where someone else was asking about this. As far as i remember the context of the question was along those lines of formal letter - and someone was explaining that には would make it super polite. That's why i thought asking doesn't hurt.

Also thank you to vonPeterhof for your example. I see now that it is, what it is, and what i read must have been wrong.

those days i am printing out a lot of stuff magamo is writing. It is really helpful, concentrated information you give us, thank you sooo much!! You should really write a book about all these questions, seriosly.