nihongo wo benkyou shitai

WARNING: Today’s entry has taken ages to research and compile. That said, it is not 100% complete. The aim today is to give guidelines as to when は and が should be used and why. Follow this and you will be right, most of the time. Oh yeah, there are other uses of the particle が, but here I am only concerned with when there is confusion with は.

Let me introduce…

When talking to someone (the listener) about something, it’s pretty important to first make sure that the listener understands who or what you are talking about. This is a pretty obvious statement to make, but it is important nonetheless. If the listener isn’t aware of the entity being discussed, then any actions performed by that entity lose context. For example, consider:

ロンドンに行った。

In isolation, this is a largely value-free statement. Many things and people go to London everyday. Let’s add some information:

ディブがロンドンに行った。

I’ve underlined the key bit of information in this sentence. The focus here is on who we are talking about. Now the listener knows that it is Dave that went to London. From here on in, the listener is aware of who we are talking about and so is more concerned about what that person did. So let’s find out:

ディブはレストランで昼ごはんを食ベた。

Again, I’ve underlined the key bit of information in the above sentence. The focus has now shifted onto what Dave was doing.

Notice the particle used to identify Dave changed between the two sentences? In the first we used が and in the second we used は. This highlights one difference between the two particles – a difference of emphasis. が is used to emphasize an entity, は is used to emphasize what the entity did. When we first introduce an entity into a conversation, the important bit is the identity of the entity (it was DAVE that…). After that, what Dave did is the important bit.

Questions, questions…

In fact, this attention to emphasis can be seen elsewhere. Consider the act of asking a question, specifically why you ask a question in the first place. It’s probably because you don’t know the answer. So, whatever the answer is, it is likely to be new information to you. Unsurprisingly, answers to questions use が. However, the question itself may either は or が, depending on how it is phrased. (How to structure a question sentence is a subject for another day, but if the particle comes before a question word, use は, if it comes after, use が.)

English: What kind of food did you eat?
Jenglish: [what kind of][food][eat]
日本語： どんな食べ物が食べましたか。

English: What film did you watch last night.
Jenglish: [last night][film][what][watch]
日本語： 昨夜、映画は何を見ましたか。

Topics and subjects

Of course it’s entirely possible to have は and が in the same sentence. When you see this kind of sentence, it is safe to assume that, whilst a sentence is talking about a particular issue or thing, it is discussing a specific part of. For example consider the sentence:

日本は人口が多いです。

The sentence is about Japan, but specifically about the fact that Japan has a large population. Grammatically speaking, は indicates the topic of the sentence and が marks the subject. This is a tough concept for us poor foreigners as English doesn’t really distinguish between topic and subject – often they are the same and that is just plain confusing. Maybe the following will help clear this up:

日本は人口が多いです。
日本の人口は多いです。

The first sentence states ‘As for Japan, it’s population is large’, whereas the second sentence states ‘As for Japan’s population, it’s large’. It is a subtle difference and frankly I don’t think it matters too much.

An English Sentence

Whilst talking about using both は and が in the same sentence, we should have a quick discussion about subordinate clauses. The structure of a sentence in English is pretty straightforward and consists to just two parts: a subject and a predicate. The subject is the thing being discussed and the predicate is, well, everything else. Together, a subject and a predicate form a clause. In all but the simplest of sentences, you’ll find that clauses contain sub-clauses. There are far too many types to mention, but a key one is the subordinate clause. A subordinate clause exists to add information to the main clause, but has no meaning without the main clause. Consider:

The book that Jack bought last week is very interesting.

The subordinate clause here, is ‘that Jack bought last week’. If we remove this from the main clause, the main clause still makes sense (‘The book is very interesting’). This is an example of a specific type of subordinate clause and is in fact a relative clause. In the 元気２textbook I use, it’s called “Using sentences to qualify nouns”, but “relative clause” sounds much more intelligent.

Subordinate clauses are like mini-sentences in that they can have their own verb and everything. So it’s quite possible to have multiple verbs in a single sentence. When this happens, it’s pretty important to ensure that we know exactly which verb applies to the relative clause’s subject – in our example above, this is Jack. So, what we can do is mark the relative clause’s subject with が which tells the listener that the next verb they hear relates to the subject of the relative clause. If we turn this sentence into Jenglish, we get:

English: The book that Jack bought last week is very interesting.
Jenglish: [last week][Jack][bought][book][interesting][is]
日本語： 先週ジャークさんが買った本はとても面白いです。


This blog entry could go on forever. The confusion over は and が has existed, like, forever. And even after writing this, I’m still not 100% sure of all situations. But, that’s cool as that was never the aim of this article. The aim was to get me to be about 75% right. Below is a ‘cut-out-and-keep’ summary of how to decide between these two particles. It’s taken from the fantastic “All About Particles” book by Naoko Chino. Buy it. Love it. Her list of uses seem to match my research on the web, so it probably a good list to keep.

When to use は

• to mark information already introduced to the listener.
• in question sentences, before the question word.
• to mark the topic of a sentence.
• to emphasize a topic in negative sentences.

When to use が

• to mark newly introduced information.
• to mark the subject of a relative clause.
• to mark he subject of a sentence.
• to mark the subject of an intransitive verb.
• in question sentences, after the question word.
• with verbs of existence (ある, いる etc).
• with verbs of ability (can, understand etc).
• with verbs of sensation (hear, see, taste, feel, smell etc).
• with verbs in potential form.
• in sentences conveying necessity (need…).
• in sentences conveying desire (want…).
• to mark the object of a verb or adjective of emotion.

またね。。。