[Question] Which one is correct? を or が?

7 comments

1. This is one of the many points where the _thinking_ behind a statement made in Japanese fundamentally differs from that in English. Yes, in English something that is liked is treated as an object of a verb. But in Japanese, this is not how it is handled/thought of.

   In Japanese, the object or thing being liked is actually identified as a target of liking. Whenever you have an identification sentence, the thing being identified takes が. This also happens with communicating wants: “I want cheese” becomes チーズがほしいです. Note how チーズ is being identified as the thing being wanted with が coming right after it.

2. No. The structure of these sentences is simply different in Japanese than in English. 見える (as well as 聞こえる, which means ‘to hear’ in the sense of having sound naturally coming into your ears, as opposed to specifically listening for it) is a special case here.

   The phrase ‘Nobita can see Shizuoka’ would be ノビタには静岡が見える (or 見えている depending on context). Shizuoka is the subject here, and 見える is an intransitive verb, you could say. So the phrase in Japanese is like ‘Shizuoka is visible to Nobita.’

   ‘I can hear the sea’ would also be ‘海が聞こえる*’. The 私には is only rarely expressed here, in a specific circumstance (i.e. when you want to underline that you – can – hear the sea, whereas someone else cannot).

   These two potentialis verbs cannot ever take を, whereas others can. You can say を食べられる and が食べられる, for instance.

   *Edited because I wrote 見える instead of 聞こえる, as pointed out by another user. Also, this comment was meant as a response to the other exchange in this thread, but once again I have made a mistake and posted it as its own top comment (thank you Bacon Reader for always confusing me!) My response makes no sense out of context.

3. 好き is not a verb, it’s an adjective. If it helps, translate it as “likeable” or “preferred”. So in the sentence “Shizuka is likeable to Nobita”, Shizuka is the subject, so that’s why Shizuka is marked with が

   There is a verb 好む（このむ）which behaves grammatically like the English word “like”, so the thing you like would be the object. But it’s much less common than 好き so you should get used to creating the sentence in an adjective-centered way rather than a verb-centered way.

4. a lot of things in japanese are written in a way that parses as passive voice in english but is not

   for example, 人を見る – see person, 人が見える – can see person

   notice the difference in particle? potential verbs use が rather than を even if an english speaker might think that the を belongs

   how does the mentality work behind this? think of it as “person is visible” rather than “can see person”. by merely casting it differently in your head, it will make more sense

   a lot of things fit the XはYがZ pattern, they have a sense of “with regards to X, Y has the Z property”

   in any case, the more general answer is that every verb and construct has an expected particle or set of particles and you need to memorize that along with every new verb or pattern. look up sentence examples and emulate them

   bookmark weblio, for example: [https://ejje.weblio.jp/sentence/content/%E8%A6%8B%E3%81%88%E3%82%8B](https://ejje.weblio.jp/sentence/content/%E8%A6%8B%E3%81%88%E3%82%8B)

5. idk about the ins and outs but what i was told is that with 好き you’ll use が before it. after a while, after you’ll start reading or listening to japanese media it’ll become natural. you won’t have to think twice about it

6. It’s が好き. が doesn’t mark the “subject of the verb”, it’s the subject of the sentence. Additionally, the Japanese concepts of subject and object aren’t really the same as the English concepts. を is specifically a direct object marker- that is, when it’s used, it marks a noun that the verb is directly acting on. 好き is an adjective, not a verb- to say “Ｘが好き” literally means “X is likable/desirable”. “を好き” is ungrammatical.

7. The word “like” is a verb in English, and “like” does translate into Japanese as 好き… but 好き is not a verb. It’s an adjective. Specifically a な adjective, which is why you’ll see it listed in dictionaries as「好き(な)」

   This is a fundamental difference in the way the English language and the Japanese language understand things.

   In English, “liking” is something you actively do to an object, making it a verb.

   In Japanese, “liked” is a quality that subjects posses from your perspective. You’re not doing anything to “like” that thing, it’s just simply “liked” by you. This makes it an adjective.

   In the case of:

   > のび太は静香が好きです

   The natural translation into English would be “Nobita likes Shizuka” where Nobita is the subject and Shizuka is the object, and “likes” is the verb being done by the subject to the object, but this is not how the sentance is structured in Japanese because 好き is not a verb in Japanese.

   A more direct (but less natural) translation would be “From Nobita’s perspective, Shizuka is likable” where “Shizuka” is the subject, “is” is the verb, and “likable” is the object. “From Nobita’s perspective” is just a dependant clause which specifies the case under which “Shizuka is likable” is a true statement, it’s not part of the independant clause of the sentance.