I think most of that is answered in about every beginner's textbook or grammar guide out there.

With わかる, I think "to be understood".

Last edited by Stian (2013 March 27, 4:27 am)

scarby dancer wrote:

I read in a grammar book the following example sentences to illustrate: “Use  が before わかる.”
(i)  この漢字の意味がわかりますか。　　(“Do you understand the meaning of this kanji?”)
(ii) 日本人の言うことがよくわかりません。(“I don’t understand what Japanese people say.”)
QUESTION (1)   Is there really any such rule as “Use  が before わかる.” ? 

A little later in the book the following example is given to illustrate: "X　か　Y　か　わかりません。　The speaker is uncertain whether it is X or Y."
南さんはいつ来ますか。いつ来る　か　わかりません。(“When will Minami come?　I don't know when he will come.”)
QUESTION (2)  Does that not contradict (1) above about using 　が　before わかる ?

Ok, so to start, yes, you should normally use "ga" with "wakaru".  BUT, when 'questioning' whether something is known, put the question particle "ka" after the information you're not sure about.  I hope that makes sense.  There's also the construction "~ka dou ka wakaranai" (I don't know whether ~ is the case). I hope that answers both questions.

scarby dancer wrote:

祐子さん、
お元気ですか。今日は、ニールとジェイが元気です。

I was trying to say: “Dear Yuko, How are you? Today, Neil and I are well.”  And what I meant by that was,   “Since our last correspondence, Neil and I have continued to have one health complaint after another, but I will not bore you with those! Today, we are both well.”

Yuko wrote back with the following suggestion:
今日もニールとジェーは元気です。
But to me that means, “Neil and I are also well today” – and is based on an assumption that Yuko is well, without me having waited for a reply to my question お元気ですか.

When I explained to her what I’d been trying to say, Yuko then suggested:
ニールとジェーは今日は元気です  "because I feel that someone else talks about Neil and Jay from the sentence 今日は、ニールとジェーが元気です。"

QUESTION (3)  I don't understand if that's because I used 　が　instead of 　は, 　or because I used 　ジェイ　instead of 　私?

This was the thinking behind how I constructed my sentence:
I’m paranoid about not making the mistake of saying “you” to Yuko, and therefore try to use her name instead. So even though in English I was thinking  私, I put my nickname ジェイ. 
QUESTION (4)  Which is better: ニールとジェー   or  ニールと私 ?  Does it matter?

I thought I was using “contrastive は” in order to suggest that “today” we are well compared with the days that have passed since our last emails (in which there had been comments re minor health matters). 
QUESTION (5)  Yuko also used は after 今日, but I don't understand why she switched the order around and put "Neil and Jay" before "today", when I was trying to emphasise "today"...? 

I used the particle が on the basis of this grammar rule (?) “ がfollows the subject of a sentence with an adjective.”　　
QUESTION (6)  Again, is there such a rule?  And if the topic is “today” and “元気” is an adjective、is “ニールとジェイ”　not the subject …?

First, it gets easier^^

Second question [3], Japanese is a topic oriented language.  English is a subject oriented one.
So, "ha" indicates the topic.  Most of the time, the topic can be left unsaid.  When "ga" is used, that indicates the subject. 
When "ha" is not inserted, the topic of the sentence is left up to the listener to assume.  So when you wrote: 今日は、ニールとジェーが元気です, it sounds something like "今日は、someone "ha" ニールとジェーが元気です.  So, it sounds like there's missing information in the sentence.

question [5], Japanese is an "important information last" language, whereas English is an "important information first" language, so by moving the kyou ha further towards the end, it is actually being more emphasised.  Sometimes in Japanese (spoken Japanese), you can even put the topic right at the end, after the verb, if the topic is the really important bit, or the thing you *really* want to emphasise.

Question [4], I don't think it matters too much.  I think using your nickname is more friendly, but that might be because I work with elementary school children all day :p

I hope that helped!  (And I hope I didn't get any of that wrong, feel free to correct me!)

Sometimes in Japanese it can be easier to actually write what you want to say rather than try to imply it, if that makes sense. I know it is the opposite to what we hear about using Japanese where so much of a conversation is implied, but for clarity and understanding's sake I do think it helps.

wrote:

I was trying to say: “Dear Yuko, How are you? Today, Neil and I are well.”  And what I meant by that was,   “Since our last correspondence, Neil and I have continued to have one health complaint after another, but I will not bore you with those! Today, we are both well.”

I'm not sure of your Japanese level but if you wanted to say that bit above in the quote, perhaps it better to simply say;

今日は私とニールは元気ですが、最近はちょっと風邪がありました/調子が悪かったです。

Since は is used after both 今日 and 最近 you are saying TODAY we are well, but RECENTLY we have had a cold/haven't been feeling the best.

Hope that helps.

scarby dancer wrote:

I read in a grammar book the following example sentences to illustrate: “Use  が before わかる.”
(i)  この漢字の意味がわかりますか。　　(“Do you understand the meaning of this kanji?”)
(ii) 日本人の言うことがよくわかりません。(“I don’t understand what Japanese people say.”)
QUESTION (1)   Is there really any such rule as “Use  が before わかる.” ?

I believe the author didn't mean to present “Use  が before わかる” as a general rule, but without more detailed explanations it does end up looking like one. I believe the main reason why they said that is to prevent you from using を before わかる. It's easy for the learner to fall into the trap of thinking of わかる as a transitive verb meaning "to understand" and using the nouns around it accordingly. Once you start thinking of the verb as meaning something to the effect of "to be understood" the particles start to make perfect sense, but the author probably didn't want to take the students this far away from the Standard Average European mould and chose to present the "Japanese word for 'to understand'" as some sort of grammatical exception rather than teach the real meaning of the verb.

In respect to 分かる, although it isn't entirely on topic, I found a description a while back which helped usage "make sense" looking at it from a Japanese perception, as opposed to, as you say, shoehorning. The comment related 知る with 外 and 分かる with 内, which, well, makes more sense than a lot of the grammatical descriptions I've read from various sources.

A link to said description:
http://japanese.stackexchange.com/quest … /1667#1667
scarby dancer, the above might provide a different perspective to what you may have read from a text-book grammar description, which might help provide a little more of a native perspective.