Australia isn’t the topic of the sentence. The topic is an unstated “I” (although, without context, the topic could be someone or something else – for example, if someone said this while pointing to a kangaroo at a zoo in Tokyo, it would mean “That kangaroo came from Australia” and “that kangaroo” would be the topic).
The は denotes the topic of the sentence, which in this case is “I”, inferred via context. (*I* come from Australia.) If you wanted to be super clear, you would say:
わたしはオーストラリアから来ました
But if you’re talking about yourself you can usually omit the わたしは. So as topic is inferred, no は is needed.
Your friend can’t afford a Reddit account?
~~Just another thing seems no one has mentioned: there’s already a particle から (“from”) after オーストラリア. Each noun should have exactly one particle, so you can’t add another particle は here.~~
Edit: I was wrong. See replies below.
Others have answered the question. So I just wanted to add that if your friend wants to gain a better understanding of particles like “wa” and when to use them, I recommend this playlist:
That Youtube channel has been the single best Japanese learning resource I’ve come across, and makes a lot of the more complicated-seeming elements of the language make a lot more sense.
Another way to think of it is there’s only going to be one particle attached to a verb/noun/adjective/sentence. In this case with “Australia”, the particle “kara” is already attached, so you wouldn’t add another.
duolingo also isn’t a good tool to learn japanese, it’s decent for practising but not for learning
「私は私が」オーストラリアから来ました。
私 is the topic and technically the subject. Not オーストラリア
8 comments
Australia isn’t the topic of the sentence. The topic is an unstated “I” (although, without context, the topic could be someone or something else – for example, if someone said this while pointing to a kangaroo at a zoo in Tokyo, it would mean “That kangaroo came from Australia” and “that kangaroo” would be the topic).
The は denotes the topic of the sentence, which in this case is “I”, inferred via context. (*I* come from Australia.) If you wanted to be super clear, you would say:
わたしはオーストラリアから来ました
But if you’re talking about yourself you can usually omit the わたしは. So as topic is inferred, no は is needed.
Your friend can’t afford a Reddit account?
~~Just another thing seems no one has mentioned: there’s already a particle から (“from”) after オーストラリア. Each noun should have exactly one particle, so you can’t add another particle は here.~~
Edit: I was wrong. See replies below.
Others have answered the question. So I just wanted to add that if your friend wants to gain a better understanding of particles like “wa” and when to use them, I recommend this playlist:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSvH9vH60Ig&list=PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSvH9vH60Ig&list=PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj)
That Youtube channel has been the single best Japanese learning resource I’ve come across, and makes a lot of the more complicated-seeming elements of the language make a lot more sense.
Another way to think of it is there’s only going to be one particle attached to a verb/noun/adjective/sentence. In this case with “Australia”, the particle “kara” is already attached, so you wouldn’t add another.
duolingo also isn’t a good tool to learn japanese, it’s decent for practising but not for learning
「私は私が」オーストラリアから来ました。
私 is the topic and technically the subject. Not オーストラリア
As for me (は), I (が) came Australia (から来ました)