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は、が、を

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glitch452
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Posts: 7
Joined: February 12th, 2008 12:40 am

は、が、を

Postby glitch452 » April 22nd, 2008 8:23 pm

So i'm (slowly) working my way through the begginer level lessons. and i come to lesson 三十三 (33) and i've been having this problem and i thought i'd get it sorted out sooner. but it's starting to bug me. So what exactly are the differance between は、が、を.

I kinda have a rough idea but I just really want to get it sorted out clearly.

Joey
Expert on Something
Posts: 138
Joined: June 4th, 2006 1:20 am

Postby Joey » April 22nd, 2008 9:05 pm

Sorry I don't have time to give proper explanation

は:http://www.guidetojapanese.org/particles.html#part2
が:http://www.guidetojapanese.org/particles.html#part4
を:http://www.guidetojapanese.org/particles2.html#part2
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Psy
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Posts: 845
Joined: January 10th, 2007 8:33 am

Postby Psy » April 24th, 2008 2:42 am

You could dedicate 20 pages to detailing the various ins and outs about these three particles and still be imprecise. To keep it simple:

を marks the object-- the target of the sentence, something that has an action done on it. In "I eat sushi," the word "sushi" is the target, or grammatical object, of the sentence. in English the word-order determines what the object is. In Japanese, the word order doesn't matter-- only where you attach the particle を.  So be it 私はすしを食べます or すしを 私は食べます, the meaning of the sentence stays the same.

On the other end, we have the doer, or the grammatical subject of the sentence. In "I eat sushi" the subject is "I" because "I" is what's doing the action. The subject can be marked with either は or が, and distinguishing the proper usages between the two requires a bit of finesse and a different way of thinking. At lesson 33, I wouldn't worry too much about it now, just keep in mind that が places emphasis and is used only for the subject, whereas は is often contrastive can take grammatical roles other than the subject.

As with all language learning, things are seldom clear right away. It's a very gradual process.

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