Particle question (が)

I don’t think garbled English is that useful, but when introducing a new grammar point I can see the value in pointing out the literal translation. So for 好き I would explain that it isn’t a verb as in English, and for the first example sentence would include the point “literally this translates to ‘As for me, coffee is liked’”, for those who find it helpful. But once the grammatical difference is grasped, what’s important is the meaning.

Language cannot always be mapped word for word.

In fact, thinking about the ‘drink-wanted’ point - do you really find that any more helpful than ‘want to drink’? Because I really don’t. But I do find it helpful to know that the たい modifier is technically an adjective, because then it helps me to understand/remember that it conjugates like an い-adjective.

So for me, understanding the grammatical comparisons is more important than garbled translations. Being able to see which words directly relate between the English and Japanese is useful though.

Yeah drink-wanted makes perfect sense to me, as weird as that sounds.

Well then, fair enough!

For me, understanding that “English helper verb ‘want to ~’ corresponds to an adjectival modification of the verb in Japanese” is much more helpful (excuse my poor knowledge of grammatical terms).

I want to know that, for example, コーヒー is giving you coffee, and that 飲み is giving you drink, and that たい is giving you the concept of ‘want to’, but so long as I can make those comparisons with ‘I want to drink coffee’ then that’s fine with me.

But I would still advise against getting too bogged down in literal translations once you understand a piece of grammar. At some point you need to be making the instant connection between “I like coffee” and コーヒーが好き". I really think once you get the concept there’s no need to continue using the literal translation. It becomes a barrier to meaning.

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I understand. I have a random question - do you know what the Genki font is called? Pretty much every Japanese font I see online looks terrible (Twitter and Discord especially) but Genki’s font looks really nice.

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Now that I don’t know, sorry!

Edit: unless there’s anything here?

Btw, did my response re: your actual question about が help at all? I wasn’t sure whether you were still unclear…

が isnt only used to mark new information. It’s also used to mark a subject (the clip in this case), when used in response to a question.

Half-read the thread. Just wanted to point out that “literal translations” from Japanese to English don’t exist really, mainly because particles don’t exist in English. So a seriously literal translation of, say…
私は寿司を食べた
…would be like:
“I (particle that marks the topic) sushi (particle that marks the object) ate.”

Personally, I find it more useful to learn the particles and just understand what は and を mean when I hear them instead of trying to find an English equivalent to make an English sentence out of it. But that’s just me.

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See my reply on another topic.

Okay the question thing I did not know.

To be honest, if someone really asked, “What happened to the clip?” the response would most certainly not include the subject because it is understood by the context. So in essence, a better example could have honestly been made.

EDIT: @jprspereira posted the link I thought I had initially linked to. Please see his post below.

I heard Misa’s video was pretty good too. Not sure as I haven’t watched it.

If you try to define が so literally, it will just get confusing once you encounter が used as a conjunction, a way to soften a statement, or a colloquial sentence-ending form used to mean like, か(question) to よ (assertive statement), because it’s all about context.

Unrelated, here is an excerpt from “A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar”

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Name of the book?

ah, I wrote it above the picture

“A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar”

There are two others (intermediate, advanced) , but I would recommend this book to literally everyone who studies Japanese. It goes into details and explains things like no other material or textbook.

Does it use romaji throughout? Not a fan of that

The first book uses romaji, the intermediate and advanced do not (they use furigana and “not so much furigana”, respectively). All examples include both the Japanese (no furigana) and romaji in the Basic book.

This is a book meant for anyone, including complete beginners.

I highly recommend this book. The entries, examples, and depth of explanation are unlike anything on the internet or in normal textbooks.

Like, you’ll read about の for example and think “oh yeah I knew that” and then it will continue on and on AND ON about things you had no clue about regarding の and how it works/can be used. Not to mention it always has “related terms” so you can cross reference similar functioning items.

Not to mention the appendixes and beginning notes alone are worth the price of the book.

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That’s the one I meant to link to! Thank you for posting this. I just assumed that was the one without double checking.

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