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Talking about a location as the topic of a sentence?

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oharris1133318
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Posts: 2
Joined: January 2nd, 2014 8:05 pm

Talking about a location as the topic of a sentence?

Postby oharris1133318 » January 7th, 2014 6:36 pm

こんちわ,

My question regards talking about a location as the topic of a sentence.

For example, "Where you are, what time is it?" or "What time is it where you are?".

I think the structure would be "(Their name) ga iru wa nanji ka?"

However my main concerns and questions are:

- Which parts would be wa or ga? As well as, why it would be.

- What do I use to say the "Where you are" section.

- Does it sound too formal or foreign?

- Which words would be kanji and which would be in kana? As well as, the kanji which would be used in the sentence.

Thanks for reading!

charliegchen8215
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Posts: 21
Joined: March 27th, 2013 12:22 pm

Re: Talking about a location as the topic of a sentence?

Postby charliegchen8215 » January 8th, 2014 10:40 am

As in time zones?

The most natural way to say it is simply.
そこは今何時ですか。

If you really want to be specific, you can say
あなたのいる場所では今何時ですか。
but Japanese tend to be brief so the former is used more often.

replace anata with a person's name whenever possible.

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community.japanese
Expert on Something
Posts: 2704
Joined: November 16th, 2012 8:54 am

Re: Talking about a location as the topic of a sentence?

Postby community.japanese » January 10th, 2014 6:21 am

oharris1133318-san, charliegchen8215-san,
kon'nichiwa!
Thank you for the perfect reply and help, charliegchen8215-san! :D

Please feel free to ask further questions, oharris1133318-san!
The usage of wa and ga is not straightforward, but charliegchen8215-san gave you
the perfect answers and you can see the particle here is "wa".

Natsuko (奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

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