I am doing the Japanese Pimsleur now, and I've noticed that very often they give sentences with multiple は's in them, like 「英語は私には難しいです。」 or 「去年は雨はたくさん降りましたね」. I remember reading in some textbook or grammar guide that a Japanese sentence should have one topic, while multiple topic markers seem to imply more than one topic. I also don't recall ever encountering such sentences "in the wild", in manga or news websites - I'm more used to seeing が or no particle whatsoever after the first は-"clause". Are these kinds of sentences normal, or would they sound weird to a native speaker?

I wouldn't be surprised if they were off, since this wouldn't be the first weird thing I noticed about Pimsleur's Japanese. The first thing that caught my attention is the gross overuse of いいえ, pretty much to the levels of English "no". Strangely enough, their "Notes on Japanese Culture and Communication" do mention that the Japanese don't really use いいえ other than for declining compliments, but the practice sentences use it left and right.

Pimsleur is formal and extremely slow speaking. Imo Pimsleur is great if you are going on holiday in 3-6 months and want to be able to speak a bit. Beyond that there are better and more up to date resources online like Japanesepod101.

Of course what I am saying probably doesn't justify the price tag, but hey I'm a pirate.

I can't remember any specific examples, but I often see multiple はs per sentence in novels and short stories. This includes authors like Natsume Souseki and Akutagawa Ryunosuke as well as modern writers, so I wouldn't worry about it. I also remember Magamo saying that it's fine in normal conversation but if he was writing a formal essay or something he would rephrase it because it's considered bad style. (Or something to that effect.)

lardycake Wrote:Pimsleur is formal and extremely slow speaking. Imo Pimsleur is great if you are going on holiday in 3-6 months and want to be able to speak a bit. Beyond that there are better and more up to date resources online like Japanesepod101.

Of course what I am saying probably doesn't justify the price tag, but hey I'm a pirate.

It's okay, money isn't an issue for me either Besides, I'm not really using it for serious study, just some ersatz conversational practice while I'm in my last semester of uni (i.e. way too busy to go and get a real language exchange partner). The gap between my passive understanding and active production is ridiculously huge, so I felt that I needed to start saying something. And the formality of the language is actually an advantage for me - I initially started learning from plain language, and have already embarassed myself by addressing older Japanese people without the ます's and です's.

Splatted Wrote:I can't remember any specific examples, but I often see multiple はs per sentence in novels and short stories. This includes authors like Natsume Souseki and Akutagawa Ryunosuke as well as modern writers, so I wouldn't worry about it. I also remember Magamo saying that it's fine in normal conversation but if he was writing a formal essay or something he would rephrase it because it's considered bad style. (Or something to that effect.)

Yeah, that's what I suspected. I know that they have native speakers involved in the creation of the course, so they probably wouldn't give anything outright ungrammatical, but I wasn't sure if that's something that would be stylistically appropriate at all times. Thanks!

は is not only used as a topic marker, but also as a contrastive marker. DOBJG's discussion of は is useful and includes multiple は's, and starts on page 516.

Right -- typically the multiple は will have the first one be the topic marker, and the other one contrastive.

Quote:「英語は私には難しいです。」 or 「去年は雨はたくさん降りましたね」.

The first sentence seems perfectly fine to me, the second sentence strikes me as a little odd unless it's some specific context where you're contrasting rain with snow, or something like that.

Seamoby Wrote:は is not only used as a topic marker, but also as a contrastive marker. DOBJG's discussion of は is useful and includes multiple は's, and starts on page 516.

Oh, that's right, they did mention using は for contrasting! The problem is that Pimsleur doesn't go very deep into explaining grammar points, so they didn't really present は's contrastive function as something separate from its topic marking function (or, now that I think about it, maybe they did, but I just wasn't paying attention). That makes sense now. Thanks!

yudantaiteki Wrote:The first sentence seems perfectly fine to me, the second sentence strikes me as a little odd unless it's some specific context where you're contrasting rain with snow, or something like that.

Yeah, now I'm not so sure if I recalled the second sentence correctly. The first one was fresh in my memory, as it had appeared near the end of the lesson that I finished right before starting this thread. I do remember that there were a few sentences like this about weather, but I'm not sure what they were contrasting.

vonPeterhof, just to rehash what the others have said, you are looking at a contrastive particle. Basically, the first は both indicates the topic and contrasts other possible topics, and all the other はs just contrast against something. You usually have to guess based on context what they are contrasting against and sometimes it's not very obvious.

Regarding this sentence 「英語は私には難しいです。」 . Firstly, to understand why the particles are used as they are in this example you would need to know what was said before this. My guess is that two people were talking about languages, and which languages are hard for each person and which were easy. When one of them said 「英語は私には難しいです。」 what they actually means is "English, compared to other languages, might not be hard for other people such as yourself, but it is hard for me."

For this one, 「去年は雨はたくさん降りましたね」 I imagine the two people were talking about recent years and what the weather was like during winter. Perhaps it's snowing more this year. So this means something like "last year, as opposed to this year or other years, it rained a lot, but this year and other years there was more snow." That said, when speaking it is generally more natural to refer to months, years etc. without は.

The topic (initial position) can be contrastive or non-contrastive. It isn't necessarily both (in case that's what Login meant). Here's an eg of a non-contrastive topic:

Tell me something about 英語.
　　　　　　英語は...

@OP, I seem to recall you're interested in this stuff...

* About [Time period]は:

Non-topic time phrases seem to be one of the few exceptions to the topics-only-in-initial-position generalization, so it might be worth noting that some people distinguish whether they are functioning as sentence topics or adverbial phrases. Shibatani used the following pair to illustrate this:
今日は天気がいい。　　　 Today is such that the weather is good.
　　　　　今日は僕が料理しよう。 Today, I will cook.

He says the first one is a topic (the rest of the sentence describes a property of 今日 - "aboutness") and the second one is a time adverbial (a regular adjunct gets mild emphasis from being fronted and marked with は). The 2nd sentence isn't "about" 今日.)

Not everyone agrees on how to categorize these adverbial phrases, though. It also can depend on the preceding sentence (either of these could be contrastive topics, for eg).


* An exception to the generalization that all non-initial は-phrases are contrastive?

One type of sentence which initially appears to violate this gets explained by distinguishing sentence topics from references to topics previous mentioned in the discourse.

　　　　　　課長は昨日帰った。　　　The boss left yesterday.
　　　　　　今日は残る。　　　Today, he's going to stay.　　今日は[課長は]残る。

'今日は'　is the contrastive topic of the new sentence (and has emphasis), but we feel the conversation is still about 課長. 課長は wouldn't be in initial position b/c it's not the sentence topic. It also isn't being contrasted with anything (so would have no emphasis). It's kind of a parenthetical holdover, you might say.

This next example probably sounds contrived - it was taken from a grammar explanation:

　　　　　その犬はJohnを噛んだの？
Did that dog bite John?

　　　　 (Hmm, Johnはどうか知らないけど、) BILLはその犬はもうすでに去年噛んでいる。
(Hmm, I don't know about John, but) that dog has already bitten BILL last year.(lit)

BILLは is the clause contrastive topic. その犬は refers back to an existing discourse topic. Reversing their order (その犬はBILLは) would be ungrammatical, b/c the clause topic should be clause initial. (This occurs mostly with contrastive topicalized objects.)

その犬について教えてください.
Tell me about that dog.

その犬はBILLは... Topic contrast
X BILLはその犬は (so the answer establishes the topic here, not the question)


Consecutive は-phrases aren't necessarily recursive contrastive topic clauses (as has been suggested.) It's also been suggested that contrastive は-phrases just show a change in sentence topic. Not necessarily. The contrasted elements might not be topics (they could be the predicates, represented events, etc.)

"Topic marker" really isn't the best label, is it. は　has several functions and marks many non-topic elements.

@Thora Wow, this is indeed fascinating. Looks like I really should stop being a scrooge and get one of those grammar books - Tae Kim only takes you this far. Which Shibatani book were you referring to?

In the broadest sense, は just does one thing. It basically just declares to the listener/reader "what I'm about to say is topically relevant to (about) the thing I just mentioned. I'm reminding you of what I'm talking about because it's not clear." That is all it is doing, and calling it a topic marker makes perfect sense.

英語は (I'm gonna make a comment about 'english') 私には(Furthermore (as the comment hasn't been finalized yet), I'm gonna further clarify that I'm talking about 'for me')難しいです。

去年は(I'm gonna make a comment about last year)雨は('m gonna make a comment about 'rain')たくさん降りましたね

冬は寒いが、夏は暑い。
Why is it even necessary to call this "contrastive" は? it's just like: I'll make a comment about winter, it's cold, but now I'll make a comment about summer, it's hot.
In winter it's cold, but in summer it's hot. Do we call this the 'contrastive' in? No. It's an unnecessary tag.
The pattern is simply:
somethingはcomment related to something.

and the comment can contain further nested topics and comments as in the first 2 examples above or as demonstrated with brackets below:

昨日は(彼は(アメリカに行った))。

nadiatims Wrote:Why is it even necessary to call this "contrastive" は?...Do we call this the 'contrastive' in? No. It's an unnecessary tag.

Because some people find the explanation helpful. You turn every grammar thread sour because of your refusal to accept that any possibility but your own is valid -- it's not enough for you to show your own way of explaining it, you have to insert constant digs in your posts that imply your way is the best/only way.

You do this not only with grammar, but pedagogy and even non-Japanese topics. It's very annoying and it often makes me stop reading any thread you've posted in -- you're turning into a second Nestor.

Some consider multiple use of the same particle unpleasant, especially in a sentence with one clause. The most frowned of those is consecutive use of の as in 僕の友達の家の玄関の明かりが付いている.

As is the case with any other particle, some multiple はs are perfectly grammatical and very natural, and some are totally ungrammatical or confusing. There is a gray area, too. If it's the most succinct way to express yourself without any ambiguity or confusion, there is nothing wrong with multiple はs. I don't think anyone would say you should avoid wording like 英語は私には難しいです just because it's got more than one particle of the same kind.

But there are many cases that some might consider unnatural or even wrong. 去年は雨はたくさん降りましたね can be an example where it's hard to say if it's perfectly ok or not. Colloquial language is more forgiving as long as it makes sense. You can also take advantage of various things that only spoken language has such as the tone of your voice. So what may be confusing in written language can be crystal clear in an actual conversation. For example, if you stress the part 雨は by raising the pitch and slowing down a little, it's perfectly clear what you mean as long as there is enough context. In some context, this wording may be the most effective way to express your idea. But if you say it monotonously, it's kind of wacky because you have two ideas 去年はたくさん降った and 雨はたくさん降った clashing with each other as if they're trying to get into one clause simultaneously.

Written language also has its own unique features spoken language can't take advantage of. And some of them can mimic certain features of spoken language. If you want to mimic the emphasis on 雨は, you may use 圏点 in vertical writing or some other symbols. This may be the most straightforward and practical way in, say, first person narrative writing. You can change the font or character size if a more informal style is acceptable. If these are not allowed but you want to convey the same meaning, you can simply reword it as 去年は雨ならたくさん降りましたね.

Grammar can be a very useful tool to analyze why certain multiple はs are acceptable and others are not. If you're willing to study hardcore and go beyond what's normally taught in Japanese classes for nonnative speakers, a much wider range of language can be systematically explained. The thing is that learning such advanced stuff doesn't help improve your proficiency or fluency in the slightest unless you already have a great command of the language. It's very interesting, for sure. But it's not practical as a learning tool. It's not meant for language learners in the first place.

Your textbook may not be the best source of natural sentences in the world. But you can't have a perfect textbook either. If you want it to always be perfectly idiomatic and give general explanations, it should be larger than the Bible and Koran combined; you may have to read through a couple humongous tomes to undersand detailed explanations of even the shortest idiomatic sentences.

Teaching material is always a compromise. As long as you know it's not perfect, you should be fine. They're useful, but you don't blindly believe them. At the end of the day, if you want to be really good at language, the ultimate goal is reaching the level where you can believe in your intuition. When something in your textbook contradicts what you think is right, you know you are right. When someone corrects your grammar, whether he's right or not, he is rude or pedantic. That's the goal. The only way to get there is to use the language more.

yudantaiteki Wrote:

nadiatims Wrote:Why is it even necessary to call this "contrastive" は?...Do we call this the 'contrastive' in? No. It's an unnecessary tag.

Because some people find the explanation helpful. You turn every grammar thread sour because of your refusal to accept that any possibility but your own is valid -- it's not enough for you to show your own way of explaining it, you have to insert constant digs in your posts that imply your way is the best/only way.

You do this not only with grammar, but pedagogy and even non-Japanese topics. It's very annoying and it often makes me stop reading any thread you've posted in -- you're turning into a second Nestor.

To be fair, at least nadiatims' opinions are based on personal experience, whereas nest0r just hand waved to a library of linked articles and google books. Indeed, my own experience confirms that the web of terms describing "wa" and "ga" is sometimes more confusing than helpful for learners. However, as you said, they're helpful for many learners as well. Nonetheless, I agree the dismissive attitude is offputting, unnecessary, and best avoided.

To be honest, I often appreciate Nadiatims' posts as they tend to go for the simplest possible explanation. From the limited grammar I have been through so far I have already seen a few examples where it seems like there is an unneeded number of tags for types of patterns that I think could be loosely summed up as a single unit (I am in particular thinking about the explanation of some 5 ways to think of の I got from my teacher, whereas I only saw them as 2 different ways to think of it).

I don't mind Nadatims' basic explanations -- I often disagree with them, but I think having multiple explanations can be valuable for learners. (By a "second nestor" I really just meant someone that makes me stop reading a thread)

What I hate, though, is his insulting and dismissive attitude to all other explanations and methods but his own. Rather than just saying "Here's another way to explain it" or "I prefer explaining it without using a 'contrastive' meaning", he has to make sure you know that everyone else is wrong. It's the same when discussing pedagogy -- I always try to qualify my recommendations by saying what worked for me, or what problems I noticed in my students, colleagues, or myself. But when Nadiatims posts about pedagogy, it's all about he's right and everyone else is wrong. No one else even has the slightest valid theory -- if you're not in lockstep with Nadatims, you're wrong, end of story.

it's not my intention to insult anyone, but I also don't feel any need to hold back my opinion. If I think something is unnecessary/illogical I'll say it, and explain why. Last time I checked this place isn't the UN.

I also don't care that someone disagrees with me. I'm interested in why they do, but I'm not offended by it. So, I don't see all the need for political correctness.

And that's a shame. I like discussing grammar, but not when closed-minded, insulting people are participating. I guess I'll just have to continue avoiding any discussion thread you post to; I've honestly considered leaving the boards entirely once or twice after certain threads, but maybe if I just avoid the discussions entirely I won't feel that way.

(EDIT: I do find it odd to hear this "I'll say what I want and it's your fault if you get upset" attitude strange coming from someone who lives in Japan, of all places.)

yudantaiteki Wrote:And that's a shame. I like discussing grammar, but not when closed-minded, insulting people are participating. I guess I'll just have to continue avoiding any discussion thread you post to; I've honestly considered leaving the boards entirely once or twice after certain threads, but maybe if I just avoid the discussions entirely I won't feel that way.

You could also just ignore nadiatims' rants and still participate. I appreciate your contributions and learn a lot from them, so please don't leave the board. You're one of a few people here who actually go about linguistics and language acquisition in systematic way, and I think your explanations or even just short comments help many of us.