をand が 🤦🏽‍♀️

4 comments

1. It is interchangeable.

   Potential forms in Japanese can either have a nominative-object, using “〜が” or an accusative-object, using “〜を”. In practice they are interchangeable but some papers are written about how accusative objects have narrower scope with negation.

   Note that this does not apply to “できる” , the irregular potential form of “する” which always uses a nominative object.

   Another case where is occurs is the desirative form, “漢字が書きたい” and “漢字を書きたい” both occur and mean the same thing, though the former is ambiguous and can also mean “The Chinese character wants to write.” but that’s of course not a very likely interpretation.

   Other than using “〜が” instead of the normal “〜を” for objects, these nominative objects behave the same way grammatically as objects do, not as subjects so for instance, despite being marked with “〜が” they’re still not the locus of say subject honorrification.

2. One rule is that transitive verbs take を, and intransitive verbs take が.

3. The way I think about it is this:

   Start with 日本人が漢字を書く.

   The particle “が” always marks whatever is doing the verb of the clause. In this case, the verb is “書く”, meaning “to write”, and the one doing the verb is “日本人”. The Japanese person is doing the verb “to write”, so 日本人 gets marked with が.

   Next, the potential form of verbs is a helper verb that attaches to another verb to create a new verb meaning “to be verb-able”.

   So 書ける is a verb meaning “to be writable”.

   In that case, what is doing the new verb “to be writable”?

   漢字 is doing the new verb “to be writable”, not the Japanese person, so 漢字 gets marked with が.

4. 書ける is the potential form of 書く, to write. The potential (grammatically) uses が to show the particular action is able to be done. Exceptions would be particles like に, へ, and で.

   ここに書ける。- You are able to write on this.

   これで書ける。- You are able to write with this.

   ここで書ける。- You are able to write here.

   あそこへ・に行ける。- You are able to go over there.

   In other words, を (in a technically-correct-grammar sort of way) is replaced with が.

   トムさんは漢字が書ける。- Tom is able to write kanji.

   BUT, in colloquial spoken Japanese, が can be reverted back to を in those kinds of sentences.

   トムさんは漢字を書ける。- Tom is able to write kanji.

   書けば is a conditional form of 書く. It is free from this が rule.

   トムさんが漢字を書けば、日本語の先生は喜んでいる。- If Tom writes kanji, his Japanese teacher will be happy.

   書ければ is the potential of 書ける, and would preserve the former rule.

   トムさんが漢字が書ければ、日本語の先生は喜ぶと思います。- If Tom is able to write kanji, I think his Japanese teacher will be pleased.