Ga, Wa??? Chyotto Okashi

[fgoya]

Hi guys!

FIst of all, sorry my band english

I was studing the begining lesson 11. There have a exemplo:

Nihon GA Suki desu ka?

And, in the begining lesson 12 have this:

Amerika Ryori WA Suki desu ka?

To me, both exemplo is the same. So , Why the use WA and GA? And not only GA??

Thanks guys!

[dlai]

I think the emphasis is different, or at least that's what I was told.

In the first sentance, the subject is Japan, while the 2nd sentance the subject is yourself.

The first one is saying, Japan is likeable (by me)

The 2nd one is saying, I (I is implied) like American food.

[Bueller_007]

Hi guys!

FIst of all, sorry my band english

I was studing the begining lesson 11. There have a exemplo:

Nihon GA Suki desu ka?

And, in the begining lesson 12 have this:

Amerika Ryori WA Suki desu ka?

To me, both exemplo is the same. So , Why the use WA and GA? And not only GA??

Thanks guys!

I haven't listened to these lessons, so I can't say, but it often depends on context.

If you introduce a subject for the first time, you often use "ga".
If you are talking about an already-introduced subject, you often use "wa".

In this manner, it's similar to the difference between "a" and "the" in English.

[JohnCBriggs]

I am no expert on this, but I have studied enough Japanese to know this is a difficult area. This can also be a gray area where these isn't always a right or wrong answer.

One issue often discuss in Japanese text books is the concept of "topic" versus "subject". This is very different from English. One way I have heard this discribed is a topic can be introduced with は　
Nihon WA suki desu ka.
I think in this case, you (anata) is the subject (implied) but Japan (Nihon) is the topic.
Then in following sentences the topic can be dropped.
Hai suki desu.
Kirei to anzen desu.
In both cases the topic is Japan (Nihon).

Hope this helps.
John

[Belton]

I agree with Briggs-san. This is a difficult area. I've read whole essays about it! Sometimes I think I have understood and then... I'm unsure again.

I think most textbooks give a limited usage that is enough for the user to communicate without confusing them with fine detail.

Making Sense of Japanese (What the textbooks don't tell you) by Jay Rubin (Kodansha International) has an interesting article about wa and ga. (However the book is more useful to intermediate learners rather than beginners)

To extremely paraphrase him. - ->

ga marks the subject (subject as a grammatical idea)
ga places emphasis (focus) on the subject

wa marks the topic (what is being talked about. no true equivalent in English.)
wa places emphasis (focus) on what comes next -- what we say about the topic.

He illustrates this with 3 sentences that are answers to 3 questions

ikimashita -- I went
watashi wa ikimashita -- me?, I went
watashi ga ikimashita -- I went

as answers to
dou shimashita ka -- what did you do?
soshite, yamamura san wa? dou shimashita ka? -- now Mr Yamamura, what did you do?
dare ga ikimashita ka? -- who went?

with question words it's always ga. nani ga dare ga etc. and ga is used in the answer.



I looked at BL11 and BL12, I don't know why they used the "xx wa suki desu ka?" construction. I think at this stage the "X-san wa yy ga suki desu ka?" would be more common and more useful.

My understanding of the difference would be.

1. ("person being asked" WA (often omitted)) Nihon GA Suki desu ka?
Do you like Japan?
(watashi wa nihon ga) suki desu.
I like Japan.

The topic is you (and your tastes)
if we were to continue the conversation with the understood but omitted topic the conversation is about the person (anata wa, watashi wa).


2. Amerika Ryori WA Suki desu ka?
Is American food likeable?
hai, (america ryori wa) suki desu.
yes it is likeable.

The topic is American food (and what it is like).
if we continue, again omitting the topic (and not introducing new topics), the conversation is about American food. (america ryori wa) (is it spicey? kirai desu ka? shoppai desu ka? Is it salty?)
and the answers are about American food, the omitted topic is amerika ryori wa NOT watashi wa. So the statement is being given as an absolute state rather than my own particular view about it.

In the example conversation BL12 the topic is changed for each question.
In BL11 the topic stays the same (peter-san) and his tastes are questioned.

In real terms however the effect is the same and is best translated as Do you like X? To be honest I don't think they intended to explore the difference of wa and ga.



There is a further point I've read (paraphrased from Teach Yourself Japanese) that ga is used when some situation is perceived spontaneously by the five senses.
taro-san wa hansumu desu. -- you have long known that taro is handsome.
taro-san ga hansumu desu ne! -- you have suddenly realised this because he is in a good light for instance.

sukina, kiraina, iyana are generally concerned with spontaneous expression of like or dislike and therefore mostly take ga instead of wa.

and finally... like a lot of particles wa and ga have other uses as well.

[JohnCBriggs]

Beltonさん,
Thank you for the detailed explanation.
ジョン

[Bueller_007]

I agree with Briggs-san. This is a difficult area. I've read whole essays about it! Sometimes I think I have understood and then... I'm unsure again.

A good explanation, but I think a little too advanced for someone still struggling with beginners lessons, and it doesn't really answer the poster's question.

So I just listened to the two podcasts in question.

Remember that が places stress on the subject, and its use in a question implies that it is the ONE THING that the person asking really wants to know. は, on the other hand, places stress on what follows it. So it seems to me that the difference in usage is as follows.

Lesson 12 (which uses は):
In Lesson 12, the person asking the questions wants to know what kinds of food the speaker likes. You like American food? Indian food? Italian food? It's about general preferences, and in her mind, since no one food is more important than any other, は is used (because when using は the stress lies on 好き rather than the subject).

Lesson 11 (which uses が):
Her interest is solely about ONE THING. Japan and its food. She has no intention of asking him about Indian food, Chinese food, whatever. The stress is on the subject, so she uses が.


If she were to use が in the questions in Lesson 12, it would probably seem like these questions were just coming to mind one-by-one, instead of a pre-planned search to find out his preferences.