# 日本語が/は複雑ですね



## jp_fr_linguaphile

Thanks, Cheshire, for the detailed explanation of the difference in nuance.  

やっぱり、日本語が複雑ですね。

Moderator note
This thread has been branched from another JP thread.  I tentatively define the topic of this thread as は/が preference in the above sentence.


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## cheshire

英語も一緒ですよ。毎日英語で苦労してます 



> やっぱり、日本語が複雑ですね。


やっぱり、日本語は 複雑ですね。

It's really difficult to explain the difference between は and が.

は：　"speaking about..." "when we focus on..."
が:  外国語のなかで*は*、日本語*が*複雑ですね。 

この例文は、以下の構造になっているとき。

[大主語]外国語のなかでは
[大述語]日本語が複雑です
[小主語]日本語が
[小述語]複雑です

あるいは、ある問いに対する返答のときもしばしば「が」が使われる。以下のように。

日本で何市が一番広い？
いわき市*が*一番広いです。


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## jp_fr_linguaphile

I guess in my case I was thinking やっぱり（僕には）日本語が複雑です, or even possibly （外国人には）日本語が複雑です。

Oops!  We must be careful, though, for we have veered off topic.  

Thanks again for your thought-out responses.


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## cheshire

やっぱり僕には日本語*が*複雑です
 やっぱり僕には日本語*は*複雑です
やっぱり日本語は複雑です　（一般論）
やっぱり日本語が複雑です　（個人論）


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## Hiro Sasaki

jp_fr_linguaphile said:


> I guess in my case I was thinking やっぱり（僕には）日本語が複雑です, or even possibly （外国人には）日本語が複雑です。
> 
> Oops! We must be careful, though, for we have veered off topic.
> 
> Thanks again for your thought-out responses.


 
外国人には　日本語が一番複雑です。　（Among several　 or many languages),
the Japanese language is the most complicated. 

どっちが　きれいですか　？　これが　きれいです。　This is beautiful ( and the 
other is not beautiful ).  

田中が　賢（　かしこ）いです。 It is Tanaka who is clever ( not other persons ).

お母さんが　そういいました。　It is my mother who said so.( not any other 
person ).

The rule is not complicated, beacuae four year old Japanese children 
know how to say " が”　and ”は”。

The teachers should be blamed, they don't know how they should 
teach the rules about ”は”　and " が”。

Hiro Sasaki


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## AesSedai

Hiro Sasaki said:


> 外国人には　日本語が一番複雑です。　（Among several　 or many languages),
> the Japanese language is the most complicated.
> 
> どっちが　きれいですか　？　これが　きれいです。　This is beautiful ( and the
> other is not beautiful ).
> 
> 田中が　賢（　かしこ）いです。 It is Tanaka who is clever ( not other persons ).
> 
> お母さんが　そういいました。　It is my mother who said so.( not any other
> person ).
> 
> The rule is not complicated, beacuae four year old Japanese children
> know how to say " が”　and ”は”。
> 
> The teachers should be blamed, they don't know how they should
> teach the rules about ”は”　and " が”。
> 
> Hiro Sasaki



The statement that a rule is not complicated because a native four year old child knows it is untrue at best.  Native children of Portuguese, Italian, French, Spanish, German know intuitively if a word is masculine, feminine, or neutral without having once been told what the 'rule' is.  That does not make it easy to write down the rule. 
The "wa"/"ga" difficulty for most foreign students stems from the fact that most languages do not have the concept of a "sentence topic" (which is what "wa" marks). 
Sentences like "Zoo wa hana ga nagai desu." cannot be translated as such into English without sounding awkward. (?As for elephants, the trunk is long!) To make it sound idiomatic, the translation is normally rendered as "Elephants' trunks are long." or "Elephants have long trunks."  The first of these loosely translatable as "?Zoo no hana wa nagai desu.," although most Japanese would opt for the former.  The second English translation, on the other hand, cannot be rendered into Japanese at all without sounding completely unidiomatic. "*Zoo wa nagai hana ga aru!"

Thus, although there are a few rules of thumb that can be used to describe the difference in use between "wa" and "ga," it is not always easy to make it clear.  

For example, 

"Sensee ga ie ni kaettara, kooto o hangaa ni kaketa."
"Sensee ga ie ni kaeru to, kooto o hangaa ni kaketa."
"Sensee wa ie ni kaeru to, kooto o hangaa ni kaketa." 

Of these three sentences, in only two the person hanging the coat and the person returning home are the same.  In the other, an unnamed person (which is probably understood from context) is hanging the coat as the teacher returns home.


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## Captain Haddock

I would split the difference and say that it's tough to get は and が correct all the time until you have a good intuitive understanding of the language _and_ have been well taught. Hiro is right, though; most teachers don't give an adequate explanation at all, and they should be blamed for that.

It's a bit like articles in European languages. They can be summed up with a few basic rules, but teachers (especially English teachers) are terrible at teaching them, and among the Japanese I know who study languages, extremely few have any idea how "a" and "the" work — something a four-year-old native speaker knows cold.



> "Sensee ga ie ni kaettara, kooto o hangaa ni kaketa."
> "Sensee ga ie ni kaeru to, kooto o hangaa ni kaketa."
> "Sensee wa ie ni kaeru to, kooto o hangaa ni kaketa."
> 
> Of these three sentences, in only two the person hanging the coat and the person returning home are the same.



The first and last sentences? That is a tough example without context.


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## AesSedai

Yup... First and last.  I can't precisely explain why, but somehow the "to" in the second sentence breaks the "reach" of 'ga' in "Sensee ga ie ni kaeru to" and the person hanging the coat has to be someone else.  The 'wa' allows "Sensee" to be the topic of the whole sentence and thus hang the coat as well.  The first sentence has a different structure and the subject of the first clause doubles as the subject for the second clause. 

By the way, I don't disagree that teachers are often bad at explaining the difference between 'wa' and 'ga'; however, determining how easy a rule is based on whether or not a native child knows it is oversimplification at its best.


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## Captain Haddock

AesSedai said:


> Yup... First and last.  I can't precisely explain why, but somehow the "to" in the second sentence breaks the "reach" of 'ga' in "Sensee ga ie ni kaeru to" and the person hanging the coat has to be someone else.



That was my intuition — "tara" seems to connect the two clauses more and allow a single subject.

I like the classic example of someone ordering at a restaurant: 「私は魚です。」


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## jp_fr_linguaphile

My personal opinion is that the basic differences in usage between wa and ga should be taught, but a complete dissection of their usages is unnecessary and even possibly confusing.  I am of course biased by the way in which I learn languages.  I prefer to get down the minimum in grammar and then let my intuition for it develop as I am exposed to more of the language.  Many scholars of second language acquistion theory say that knowing the rules doesn't necessarily ensure that the rule will be applied correctly.  Even though children definitely have the advantage when it comes to learning grammatical rules intuitively, adults are able to through enough exposure.  For me, this is preferable to learning all the detailed rules.


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## Captain Haddock

Intuition is essential (IMHO), but it still only gets _most_ people so far; and then their skills and mistakes fossilize without receiving detailed explanations of difficult grammar points. Having those things explained, however, gives you a new and improved mental framework for developing new intuition.

This might vary depending on a person's unique abilities, but the vast majority of English learners I've met make the same mistakes over and over, in spite of being exposed to correct language hundreds of times a day. Their intuition is _wrong_, and they're hearing everything through that filter. I'm sure the same goes for many Japanese learners.


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## cheshire

> やっぱり、日本語が複雑ですね。


と訂正しましたが、文脈によっては正しい場合もあります。




> キリン：熊さん*は*ラテン語、ギリシャ語、日本語、フランス語と学ばれたそうですが、そのなかで何語*が*一番難しかったですか？
> 
> 熊：やっぱり、日本語*が*一番難しかったですね。構造*は*簡単なんですが、敬語の使い分け*が*難しいんですよ。それにしても、ラテン語やギリシャ語*は*教材*が*圧倒的に少ないですね。フランス語*は*その点恵まれてますよ。


 
熊さんは: speaking of...
何語が: Of all the options you have, what* IS* particularly...
この「が」の用法は、複数の事物のなかでとりわけある事物をひとつ選んで話題にするとすれば、何「が」、というニュアンス。
構造は:　speaking of...
敬語の使い分けが: 「何語が」の「が」と同じ用法です。
ギリシア語は: speaking of...
教材が:　「何語が」の「が」と同じ。
フランス語は: speaking of...


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