Sentences can have their subject marked with は or が (among others particles). が is the subject marker, and は is the topic marker, so は has a broader usage than が. Simple sentences usually mark the subject with は when the predicate is an i-adjective, na-adjective, or noun; and with が when the predicate is a verb. The exception to this is with exhaustive が, which specifies that the subject is what the predicate is referring to, and not anything else. In subordinate clauses, the subject is most often marked with が.
Example 1: 私が帰ったとき，妻は出かけていた。
私 is the subject of the subordinate clause 私が帰ったとき. 妻 is the subject of the main clause. The two clauses do not share the same subject. The subordinate clause has the typical usage of が and the main clause has the typical usage of は.
Example 2: 昔々あるところにおばあさんがいました。
This sentence has no subordinate clauses. The subject is not a 1st or 2nd person pronoun, predicate is a verb and not negated, and this おばあさん is just being introduced. This is the exceptional usage of が.
Example 3: 山田さんは来たが，田中さんは来なかった。
The subordinate clause 山田さんは来たが has the subject 山田, while the main clause 田中さんは来なかった has the subject 田中. They don’t share a subject, which means the particle of the subordinate clause only marks the subject of that clause. The subordinate clause is a ～が clause, so we should use は to mark the subject (the exceptional usage). The particle of the main clause is the typical usage of は.
Example 4: 太郎は本を読むとき，よくお菓子を食べる。
The subordinate clause 太郎は本を読むとき and the main clause よくお菓子を食べる both share the same subject, 太郎. は in this case marks the subject of both clauses. The sentence doesn’t fulfill the conditions of the exceptional usage of が. The fact that は is used here indicates that Tarou has already been introduced in the discourse. So this is the typical usage of は.
I posted a similar chart yesterday, but there were a lot of issues with it. Hopefully this chart is easier to understand.
Shorter guide for は vs が :
Step 1 : Just go by feel bro
Step 2 : ?
Step 3 : Pass n1
/s
One of the very first YouTube videos Cure Dolly has in their organic Japanese playlist drastically simplifies and clarifies the differences. Best to start there for anyone struggling as the insights provided on the always present logical が and sometimes present illogical は particles are second to none.
I’m imagining pausing for 3 minutes mid sentence while I run through the flow chart 😅
One of the most concise and easy-to-recall rule summaries I’ve received on this topic goes:
– **In a 「は」 clause, the information you want to express comes _after_ the 「は」 .** – **In a 「が」 clause, the information you want to express comes _before_ the 「が」.**
I was 9 years living in Japan and I started studying Japanese 27 years ago. I still get confused about those particles in many cases.
The shorthanded my JP teacher gave us was essentially, use が if the subject is new to the context/conversation, and は if the subject is already known. How accurate is this?
Don’t understand the obsession with specifically using the term “subject” throughout the guide, especially when there are plenty of cases, where the thing marked with either は or が isn’t the grammatical subject of the sentence. Not saying the overall points of the guide are wrong, but this always irks me and I see this wording all the time.
Also another simple rule: Things marked with が are containing vital information the sentence can’t live without, whereas things marked with は are very often implied by context and can be dropped with the remaining sentence still completely making sense in a conversation.
I go with whatever looks nice to my brain lmao
I just asked my wife about this and she simply said “Just use whatever feels right idk” lmao
My thoughts as I was looking at this:
>Start ↓ Does the sentence have multiple clauses? ↓ NO ↓ Is the predicate of *the last clause* a non-negated verb?
*’The last clause’? Oh, you mean the last one, like the previous one? So in the preceding sentence? Why would that have any bearing on whether to use* が *or* は *in this sentence? What if there was no previous sentence? What if the previous sentence was about a different matter entirely? This cannot be right.*
*Oh, I see, the block (Is the predicate of the last clause a non-negated verb?) is only worded that way because it is also joined to from the ‘YES’ path of ‘Does the sentence have multiple clauses?’ so ‘the last clause’ refers to the last clause of* this *sentence, which is, in this case, the only clause of this sentence.*
The chart is still confusing. If you don’t split ‘Is the predicate of the last clause a non-negated verb?’ into two blocks (one with ‘of the last clause’ and one without), I think you should at least change the word ‘last’ to ‘final’ in order to remove the ambiguity.
が marks the subject, は marks the topic
It’s not that complicated
If you said 僕はビール you’re focusing on yourself as the topic and then saying “that thing” is a beer. In this case the unsaid thing and subject is understood to be what you want to order/drink
If you said 僕がビール you’re literally saying you are a beer because が marks the actual subject of the sentence.
This idea of emphasis on things before or after has some correlation but over complicates the mechanics of は and が
If there’s a sentence that you think this doesn’t explain then you’re likely thinking about the sentence in English terms rather than Japanese.
My flowchart:
Does the verb/i-adjective/da describe what is being marked with は/が?
No – は
Yes: Are we putting emphasis on the subject of the sentence?
Yes – が
No – は
As of anyone who correctly uses は and が knows what any of the words on this sheet mean, let alone memorized the rules. I’m not saying that i use ot correctly all the time, but i think you’re way better off just going by feel.
Nice! I see you’ve incorporated some of my suggestions 🙂
Also I think aesthetically this one looks much better.
See kids? Japanese is easy and fun.
I didn’t really have any competence in Japanese, at least outside of reading it, but I have spent way too much time thinking about は and が, and… I think this chart nails it. The “non-negated verb” question is interesting because I’d expect the question to instead be “is it a stage-level predicate?” (or to avoid jargon, “Does the sentence takes place at a time?”, for example “cheetahs are the fastest mammal” does NOT take place at a time; it’s simply ALWAYS true). However, I think asking that “non-negated verb” question just kinda works out somehow. Maybe. I can’t think of obvious counter-examples off the top of my head anyways. I’m trying to think of there’s anything that breaks the chart, but my Japanese isn’t good enough to really evaluate.
19 comments
Sentences can have their subject marked with は or が (among others particles). が is the subject marker, and は is the topic marker, so は has a broader usage than が. Simple sentences usually mark the subject with は when the predicate is an i-adjective, na-adjective, or noun; and with が when the predicate is a verb. The exception to this is with exhaustive が, which specifies that the subject is what the predicate is referring to, and not anything else. In subordinate clauses, the subject is most often marked with が.
Example 1: 私が帰ったとき，妻は出かけていた。
私 is the subject of the subordinate clause 私が帰ったとき. 妻 is the subject of the main clause. The two clauses do not share the same subject. The subordinate clause has the typical usage of が and the main clause has the typical usage of は.
Example 2: 昔々あるところにおばあさんがいました。
This sentence has no subordinate clauses. The subject is not a 1st or 2nd person pronoun, predicate is a verb and not negated, and this おばあさん is just being introduced. This is the exceptional usage of が.
Example 3: 山田さんは来たが，田中さんは来なかった。
The subordinate clause 山田さんは来たが has the subject 山田, while the main clause 田中さんは来なかった has the subject 田中. They don’t share a subject, which means the particle of the subordinate clause only marks the subject of that clause. The subordinate clause is a ～が clause, so we should use は to mark the subject (the exceptional usage). The particle of the main clause is the typical usage of は.
Example 4: 太郎は本を読むとき，よくお菓子を食べる。
The subordinate clause 太郎は本を読むとき and the main clause よくお菓子を食べる both share the same subject, 太郎. は in this case marks the subject of both clauses. The sentence doesn’t fulfill the conditions of the exceptional usage of が. The fact that は is used here indicates that Tarou has already been introduced in the discourse. So this is the typical usage of は.
Link to paper here: https://hermes-ir.lib.hit-u.ac.jp/hermes/ir/re/71055/gengo0057000250.pdf
I posted a similar chart yesterday, but there were a lot of issues with it. Hopefully this chart is easier to understand.
Shorter guide for は vs が :
Step 1 : Just go by feel bro
Step 2 : ?
Step 3 : Pass n1
/s
One of the very first YouTube videos Cure Dolly has in their organic Japanese playlist drastically simplifies and clarifies the differences. Best to start there for anyone struggling as the insights provided on the always present logical が and sometimes present illogical は particles are second to none.
I’m imagining pausing for 3 minutes mid sentence while I run through the flow chart 😅
One of the most concise and easy-to-recall rule summaries I’ve received on this topic goes:
– **In a 「は」 clause, the information you want to express comes _after_ the 「は」 .**
– **In a 「が」 clause, the information you want to express comes _before_ the 「が」.**
I was 9 years living in Japan and I started studying Japanese 27 years ago. I still get confused about those particles in many cases.
The shorthanded my JP teacher gave us was essentially, use が if the subject is new to the context/conversation, and は if the subject is already known. How accurate is this?
Don’t understand the obsession with specifically using the term “subject” throughout the guide, especially when there are plenty of cases, where the thing marked with either は or が isn’t the grammatical subject of the sentence. Not saying the overall points of the guide are wrong, but this always irks me and I see this wording all the time.
Also another simple rule: Things marked with が are containing vital information the sentence can’t live without, whereas things marked with は are very often implied by context and can be dropped with the remaining sentence still completely making sense in a conversation.
I go with whatever looks nice to my brain lmao
I just asked my wife about this and she simply said “Just use whatever feels right idk” lmao
My thoughts as I was looking at this:
>Start
↓
Does the sentence have multiple clauses?
↓
NO
↓
Is the predicate of *the last clause* a non-negated verb?
*’The last clause’? Oh, you mean the last one, like the previous one? So in the preceding sentence? Why would that have any bearing on whether to use* が *or* は *in this sentence? What if there was no previous sentence? What if the previous sentence was about a different matter entirely? This cannot be right.*
*Oh, I see, the block (Is the predicate of the last clause a non-negated verb?) is only worded that way because it is also joined to from the ‘YES’ path of ‘Does the sentence have multiple clauses?’ so ‘the last clause’ refers to the last clause of* this *sentence, which is, in this case, the only clause of this sentence.*
The chart is still confusing. If you don’t split ‘Is the predicate of the last clause a non-negated verb?’ into two blocks (one with ‘of the last clause’ and one without), I think you should at least change the word ‘last’ to ‘final’ in order to remove the ambiguity.
が marks the subject, は marks the topic
It’s not that complicated
If you said 僕はビール you’re focusing on yourself as the topic and then saying “that thing” is a beer. In this case the unsaid thing and subject is understood to be what you want to order/drink
If you said 僕がビール you’re literally saying you are a beer because が marks the actual subject of the sentence.
This idea of emphasis on things before or after has some correlation but over complicates the mechanics of は and が
If there’s a sentence that you think this doesn’t explain then you’re likely thinking about the sentence in English terms rather than Japanese.
My flowchart:
Does the verb/i-adjective/da describe what is being marked with は/が?
No – は
Yes: Are we putting emphasis on the subject of the sentence?
Yes – が
No – は
As of anyone who correctly uses は and が knows what any of the words on this sheet mean, let alone memorized the rules. I’m not saying that i use ot correctly all the time, but i think you’re way better off just going by feel.
Nice! I see you’ve incorporated some of my suggestions 🙂
Also I think aesthetically this one looks much better.
See kids? Japanese is easy and fun.
I didn’t really have any competence in Japanese, at least outside of reading it, but I have spent way too much time thinking about は and が, and… I think this chart nails it. The “non-negated verb” question is interesting because I’d expect the question to instead be “is it a stage-level predicate?” (or to avoid jargon, “Does the sentence takes place at a time?”, for example “cheetahs are the fastest mammal” does NOT take place at a time; it’s simply ALWAYS true). However, I think asking that “non-negated verb” question just kinda works out somehow. Maybe. I can’t think of obvious counter-examples off the top of my head anyways. I’m trying to think of there’s anything that breaks the chart, but my Japanese isn’t good enough to really evaluate.