Can anyone help me understand the difference between how to use the particles wa and ga in a sentence? I understand that wa marks a topic, but what exactly does that mean? What is a topic exactly?
From looking at several different articles, I understand that ga marks the subject of the sentence, and wa marks what the listener and speaker already know, and the context, but that last part about wa confuses me too.
I guess I just need help understanding the wa particle, if anything. Can anyone explain the wa particle in a different way that makes sense? How did you come to understand how to use the particle wa?
First, は comes after the topic, not before. Particles always come after the thing they are marking.
So 私は学生です means I am a student.
Second, が simply marks the subject, there is no emphasis.
I can’t remember where I got this explanation (possibly CureDolly) but I think its more helpful to think in terms of は vs も and が vs を, rather than は vs が.
This way, は and も can be thought of as the exclusive and inclusive markers. So
私は学生です - I alone am a student, you are not
私も学生です - I am also a student, we are both students
が and を are the subject and object markers. I think a better example would be
私がりんごを食べます
The purpose of が and を is simply to tell tell you that you are eating the apple, the apple is not eating you.
That’s interesting, because I too read that が can be used to put emphasis…
I think it was in TextFugu. It said that は emphasizes what comes after it (even though it marks the topic before it) while が emphasizes what’s before it (and marks the subject before it).
It does. は is used to convey new information like being a student. 私 (Me) isnt what’s new. If someone asks ”Who here is a student” you respond with 私が which shines light on that it’s me! Both particles are used to convey new information the difference is between what the subject and topic is being shined light on.
If you were to switch out が with は it would emphasis the action of eating of eating an apple, obviously you’re still eating the apple even with は. If you want to answer “whos eating an apple?” you’d say が
The topic is what the sentence is about.
The subject is the doer of the verb.
Frequently these are the same agent in a sentence - for example, “Alice threw the ball to Bob”, Alice is both topic and subject - which is why there’s some overlap between は and が, but grammatically speaking, they’re different things. What the topic is becomes more important when you’ve got more than one sentence: “Alice threw the ball to Bob. She missed.” - Alice remains the topic in the second sentence, but because she was invoked in the first sentence, we don’t need to directly reference Alice again, and instead we can call back to the first sentence by substituting the pronoun “she”.
It’s the same in Japanese, except you generally omit the pronoun.
Another thing I’d like to add to the conversation that I found useful to remember is that there are similarities in English. (It relates to the “adding new information” part being discussed, but I like the following simplicity).
By that I mean, in many contexts it behaves with a similar subtlety to using “a” vs “the”.
私は音楽家だ。 I am a musician.
私が作曲者だ。 I am the composer.
Don’t use this as a “rule” though, since it’s pretty fragile for trying to make direct translations for more complicated phrases. However, I found it helpful for wrapping my head around the general concept.
One issue is that there is not one single rule for Wa and Ga that works in every situation.
As you read and listen to more and more Japanese, you will sort of get a feel for which situations use Ga and which use Wa.
Many of my friends who are learning English and don’t have definite/indefinite articles in their native language struggle so much with when to use “a” vs “the” even though it seems so obvious to native speakers when to use one over the other. When I try to explain to them it doesn’t seem to do much good. But the ones who consume a lot of media or hear a lot of native conversations seem to eventually get it. But as a native speaker, when we use a phrase like “the remote” we aren’t consciously thinking “It’s a specific remote, a remote that you and I both know about, so I need to say THE remote.” We just say it without thinking.
There are actually a lot of parallels between wa/ga and a/the although they are definitely not the same thing. Japanese children pick up Wa and Ga naturally just by listening. As you listen to more and more Japanese sentences your knowledge of Wa and Ga will just naturally increase. I learned my second language as an adult almost entirely by listening, so I am a big believer in the power of listening! But it can be frustrating to deal with the ambiguity as you are learning.
