Who Did That?

In this Topic, we're going to meet the subject-marking particle が.

As the name suggests, it marks the grammatical 'subject' of a sentence. We'll learn what exactly this means and also take a first look at the difference between は and が, and see how they can be used together.

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が

Subject marking particle, Identification particle

が is considered to be the subject marker in Japanese. This means that it marks someone or something that is performing an action, or it identifies someone or something as having a specific feature (this is usually a feature that the listener is not aware of).

In both of these sentences, が puts focus on the thing performing an action/existing in some way (as opposed to any other thing). Because of this, が is usually said to highlight what comes before it, while は highlights what comes after it.

が always shows the 'target' of a statement, when other targets also exist. This is why が is used to describe situations that are happening either 'in the moment', or 'individually of other things'.

Because the group in this sentence is only one group out of many possible 'groups of people' that could be described, が will be used.

Caution

が is not usually used to describe something about yourself, unless you are intentionally describing yourself compared to other people. If you want to talk about yourself 'in general terms', は will sound more natural (there are exceptions).

詳細

As we've just learned, は raises a topic and a comment follows, while が tends to emphasise what comes before it. Let's look at two concrete ways this works in practice.

The Spotlight

Imagine there is a spotlight shining upon a stage. は is the scene (the topic of conversation), while が is where that light is illuminating a specific actor (the subject).

This is most obvious when asking or answering questions like 'Who?' or 'What?'.

We'll learn more about question words like 誰(だれ) 'who' later on!

Zooming In

Sometimes, we can see は and が in the same sentence. This is a very common pattern, regularly used to describe things like body parts or attributes.

Here, は tells us that we're talking about someone called Honda. Then, が zooms in to tell us specifically ‘what’ about Honda is 'tall' (高(たか)い), being his ‘stature’ (背(せ)).