はAs for... (Highlights sentence topic)

Most Recent Replies (13 in total)

• 

  Jake

  denotes sentence topic

  Structure

  • Sentence topic + は
  • Pronounced ‘わ/wa’

  [topic marker・particle]

  View on Bunpro

• 

  liannallama

  Stupid は
  Why are you pronounced “わ”!?

  (venting post from girl who just spelled it as “わ” instead of “は”) Someday I will get this one right every time instead of misspelling!

• 

  mrnoone

  Hey

  You should read this amazing explanation:

• 

  liannallama

  Oh, thanks! I always love knowing the reason/history behind things.

• 

  Neldolas

  Tell me if I’m wrong, but I’ve come to understand は as just being there to “flag” the topic of a sentence, while が, even though is not always seen, is always implied to be there.

  For example, the sentence “私はアメリカ人です”, while often used to mean “I am american”, could very well mean something else, such as “As for me, I am american” (implying that other people in the room might be from somewhere else, but I am from the US). In other words, the full sentence would actually be “私は、私がアメリカ人です”, but we don’t use the 私が since it’s obvious what the subject is.

  I think the sentence that made me understand that is this one: “私はえびすだ”, which, well, in a restaurant setting, would simply mean “As for me, the shrimp” (implying that the full sentence would be “As for me, I’ll have the shrimp or I’ll take the shrimp”).

  Then again, I might be completely wrong, but I would love to know what you think? Did I grasp the differences between は and が?

• 

  matt_in_mito

  The whole は and が thing is pretty murky, but a simple way to understand the basics of it is:

  私はアメリカ人です (I am American) is a response to the question “Where are you from?”

  私がアメリカ人です (The one who is American is me) is a response to the question “Who here is American?”

  So you’re changing the focus of the sentence.

• 

  Laugerizor
• 

  mrnoone

  @Laugerizor
  Hey and welcome on the community forums!

  The correct answer is は, as you wrote.
  へいく appearing as an answer is an error, checked this sentence and it should be working now as intended.

  Sorry for the inconvienience and thanks for informing us abot the issue,
  Cheers!

• 

  Sirfracis

  Hi, I’ve just come across the description: [Unlike が, は cannot be used to describe things that you are seeing/experiencing in the moment (right now)]

  Can anyone shed more light on this at all?

• 

  HermesHoshiyama

  I just got started here, so apologies if this isn’t the right place/way to ask.

  In the example <玄関は暗い。>Would it also be correct to say <玄関は暗いです。>？Or is there a reason です is omitted?

• 

  matt_in_mito

  Hi and welcome!
  Yes both examples are fine. The latter is simply more polite - you wouldn’t use です with a friend or a family member.

• 

  Savannah

  Yes, I also would like to know what this mea...

• 

  FredKore

  This makes sense if you translate は as “As for [the topic of]…”.

  When you’re talking with your friend about puppies:
  子犬はかわいいね。-- “puppies are cute”, talking about puppies in general, as a topic
  子犬がかわいいね。-- “those puppies are cute”, talking about a specific puppy, or focusing on puppies out of all animals

  When you’re standing in front of a pet store talking about puppies in...

• 

  jacobalbano

  Hi all, been a it’s been a while since I posted. I’m a very satisfied (former) customer and I help moderate a Japanese-learning discord community, where I recommend Bunpro to pretty much everyone I meet. However, the other day one member (who had picked up Bunpro at my suggestion) posted about this blurb on the は grammar point page, which has apparently been added since my sub ended last year: