I came across this sentence in the dialogue
"皆で　おかださん　は　すてきな　人　だって　話していた　んです　よ　なー"

I think that properly this sentence should be
"皆は　おかださん　が　すてきな　人　だ　と　話していた　んです　よ"

So my question is the role of partice で　in the first sentence and role of だって. Grammatically speaking isn't my sentence (the 2nd one) more correct than first one?

I don't know any Japanese Grammar, but my guess is that, if your sentence is more grammatically correct, sometimes speakers of a language don't follow the grammar exactly.

For example, in English, you use "few" to refer to quantifiable objects, but "less" for non-quantifiable objects.
(There is less air in the room, but fewer air molecules.)
However, many speakers in America use the two words interchangeably.

matrixofdynamism Wrote:I came across this sentence in the dialogue
"皆で　おかださん　は　すてきな　人　だって　話していた　んです　よ　なー"

I think that properly this sentence should be
"皆は　おかださん　が　すてきな　人　だ　と　話していた　んです　よ"

So my question is the role of partice で　in the first sentence and role of だって. Grammatically speaking isn't my sentence (the 2nd one) more correct than first one?

1. 皆で vs 皆は : 皆で means "we all did $VERB (together)" and is perfectly good grammar.

2. って : this is an informal quoting/topic particle, which doesn't mean it's any "less correct" or "bad grammar". (It's not completely interchangable with と; there's an entry on って in the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar).

Edit: Looks like someone beat me to it

I don't have a textbook near me right now, but I am positive that Datte in that sentence is a contraction/ informal for Da to

i.e

kuroda san wa asu gakko e iku tte to itan desu

Sorry about the romaji, computer is being funny right now

As pm215 said, both those sentences are grammatically valid. They don't, however, say exactly the same thing.

This is something that often happens to beginners: they encounter a sentence that uses grammar they haven't been taught yet but assume it must just be "wrong" as it looks very close to a sentence they could form with grammar they know. Grammatical incorrectness is fairly rare, so it's best to assume that if something doesn't make grammatical sense, it's probably just using grammar you're not familiar with (unless you're reading youtube comments or something like that lol).

So you mean there is a difference between saying:

おととい　と　言う。
おとといって　と　言う。

hmm.

matrixofdynamism Wrote:So you mean there is a difference between saying:

おととい　と　言う。
おとといって　と　言う。

hmm.

You wouldn't use って and と together. It would be one or the other. 一昨日と言う or 一昨日って言う. Though I also thought they were interchangeable except for formality so that is interesting.

matrixofdynamism Wrote:So you mean there is a difference between saying:

おととい　と　言う。
おとといって　と　言う。

hmm.

Yes, the latter is ungrammatical (unless it's grammar *I* don't know lol).

You mean おとといって　言う。

って takes the place of と (and frequently the rest of that sentence too).

Actually, i was referring to the other changes you made. と→って does have a different nuance (the latter is more conversational/less formal) but essentially the same meaning in this context.

Edit: should clarify. 皆は can mean "everyone is doing this action, but not necessarily together". 皆で explicitly means "everyone, as a group, is doing this action". Dropping the なー from the end definitely changes the tone of the sentence. The は／が thing i'm not so sure on, they're a difficult pair of particles to sort out. I see no reason to change it from the original sentence though: there is no rule that says you're not allowed to use は in quoted speech. To me, ”おかださん　は　すてきな　人だ” simply means he's a wonderful person, whereas ”おかださん　が　すてきな　人だ” means *おかださん* is a wonderful person, as opposed to someone else.

matrixofdynamism Wrote:I came across this sentence in the dialogue
"皆で　おかださん　は　すてきな　人　だって　話していた　んです　よ　なー"

I think that properly this sentence should be
"皆は　おかださん　が　すてきな　人　だ　と　話していた　んです　よ"

So my question is the role of partice で　in the first sentence and role of だって. Grammatically speaking isn't my sentence (the 2nd one) more correct than first one?

Plus, the second sentence should be 皆　が　おかださん　は　すてきな人だって話していたんですよな。Though I am not 100% confident.

No, the は/が of the original is better.

thistime Wrote:Though I also thought they were interchangeable except for formality so that is interesting.

The main thing I had in mind is that you can use って as an informal topic marker: 漢字っておもしろいですよ。 と doesn't work here (the formal equivalent would be は or (という)のは or similar depending on the sentence).

Also, you can drop the 言った after the quotative って: ジェーンは踊らないって。 Again, not possible with と.
[source: DBJG].

で is one of the most confusing particle for me so in order to understand it better I try to simplify it, so it became my "action" particle. It stems mostly from the difference between で and に the latter being more about the place, former about the action that will take in that place. In this case (皆で) its a combination of both means (ペンで) and action thus "action done by everyone (including me)" which in turn roughly translates to what Zigmonty wrote.

Anyway this is how I go about it.

pm215 Wrote:Also, you can drop the 言った after the quotative って: ジェーンは踊らないって。 Again, not possible with と.
[source: DBJG].

何だと！

The で here is not the particle で, it's the -te form of だ. Whether that helps you understand it I don't know, but it fits with the usual meaning of -te forms as completed actions or realized states (i.e. "everyone" is actual, meaning we talked in a group)

Well, I just asked my husband and he said both are equally okay. Though, like most people, he can't really explain the grammar of his own language he just knows what sounds right or wrong.

perfect, thanks guys.

thistime Wrote:Well, I just asked my husband and he said both are equally okay. Though, like most people, he can't really explain the grammar of his own language he just knows what sounds right or wrong.

I asked my wife out of curiosity- she basically confirmed PM215- 皆で is "we were..." and 皆は is "everyone was...:

.

pm215 Wrote:Also, you can drop the 言った after the quotative って: ジェーンは踊らないって。 [Again, not possible with と.
[source: DBJG].

This is not true.

merlin.codex Wrote:Am I the only one who thinks that both examples don't sound natural? Prove me wrong if that's the case.

「皆でおかださんはすてきな人だって話していたんですよなー」 → 「皆でおかださんがすてきな人だって話していたんですよなー」

「皆はおかださんがすてきな人だと話していたんですよ」 → 「皆がおかださんがすてきな人だと話していたんですよ」

I don't know how I can "prove" you wrong, partly because you didn't give any reasons. The second one definitely should be は and not が. Typically が associates the noun only with the following predicate, whereas here, 皆 is also the subject of 話す (and thus the topic of the whole sentence).

The first one can go either way, I think. A usual rule is that が instead of は is used in subordinate or relative clauses, but this isn't really either -- it's a quotation.

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yudantaiteki Wrote:Typically が associates the noun only with the following predicate, whereas here, 皆 is also the subject of 話す (and thus the topic of the whole sentence).

I think either が　or は　are fine for both. (And they can be the same.) 話す　is the only predicate for 皆. okada is the subject of だ　in the quote. Perhaps you're thinking of a topic extending over 2 separate clauses? [vs main and embedded clause]

The meaning will change slightly, though. zigmonty already mentioned that おかださんが　could have an exclusive focus meaning on okada. 皆が　could be focus (Who was talking about okada?) or possibly generic everyone.

[edit: About focus が, unless it's apparent from context, intonation or the sentence type, I don't know of a way to be certain when a が marked NP has focus or a neutral sense. zigmonty had described it as a possible interpretation, so I changed "would" to "could". If が　were actually included in speech here, I believe it would have that emphasis b/c が　is typically left out otherwise.]

Yes, i don't think either is wrong (can't be certain however), but they do say slightly different things. Does everyone always speak with enough precision to make the difference clear all the time? No, same as any language.

The original sentence makes perfect sense to me and changing it doesn't improve it. At best it sounds unnatural, at worst you're saying something different (where i'd have to concoct a strange situation to make it make sense). Now, if you want to discuss other sentences, then you need to specify what it is you are trying to say.

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Just in case I wasn't clear. I was responding to the question of whether 皆はおかださんがor皆がおかださんは is better when I said that my husband said that both are equally okay not about the first sentence that the OP copied from the textbook.