Hello, I’ve been learning Japanese more intensely for a few months now. Grammar has been the hardest part of my language learning so far, not so how the sentence is structured and other grammatical things but the particles. I have seen examples that’s uses the 3 particles (especially をand は interchangeably ie I eat something or I like this I don’t like that) and from the gist of it I know they are used in different context but I am still having a hard time. Question 1- how and when do I use each particles? 2- when is the right time to use a certain particle rather than the other one?
3- does it really matter if I interchange をand は when I am speaking ?
Thank you
3 comments
These questions are too broad to be answered here thoroughly. You should get a textbook or other grammar resource and spend some time learning it, then look at lots of real life examples.
Cure Dolly YouTube channel.
If I were to condense the meanings of the three particle to their simplest functions, it would be like this:
を-Marks the object of a verb with no other emphasis.
は-topicalizes a noun, making it the “background context” for the rest of the language that follows until another noun takes a は particle.
が- highlights a noun as the focus. Usually used with either new information or when marking a noun as an answer to a question. When you have a sentence with two が marked nouns, the first が marked noun is the “main” focus, and the second が marked noun is part of the description of the first.
Note that there are other usages for these particles, but for the sake of contrasting the three we are simplifying the descriptions.
One phrase that can use all three would be a VERB-tai phrase. Here’s an example with translations that show the rough nuances.
えいが**を**みたいです。”I want to watch a movie.”
えいが**は**みたいです。”As for movies, I want to watch (it).”
えいが**が**みたいです。”It is movies that I want to watch.”