Thanks, I feel like I'm starting to get it but still have some confusion. Why is "watashi WA nihonjin desu" the standard way to say it rather than "watashi ga nihonjin desu?" It seems more straightforward in most situations to say "I'm Japanese" instead of "As for me, I'm Japanese", so why is the latter preferred in Japanese?
The thing here is that while "as for..." is a perfect rendering in terms of _structure_ (this is what は actually does), Japanese is not English. What は does is introduce a topic - just as "as for..." does. But in Japanese topic/comment structure is fundamental to the language (linguists call this a topic-prominent language). English _can_ do it but it isn't the usual thing to do, so it sounds much heavier and more _stressed_ than it does in Japanese, if that makes any sense. Now there is more to the matter than this. Probably the most natural thing to say is _not_ わたしは にほんじん です but simply にほんじん です the books teach the わたしは partly because they think it is easier for English speakers (who are used to having the subject made explicit) and partly because in very formal circumstances you might add the (grammatically unnecessary) わたしは precisely because you _are_ introducing yourself with a bit of a flourish and giving a prefatory (but less "heavy" than the English equivalent) "as for me". As I often say - you can't learn a language by learning it in the abstract. In the end the only way to learn these things is to get used to how は, が, and nothing are used and the different weight and implications that each of the three has. I have talked about some more advanced aspects of this subject here: ua-cam.com/video/_nXHpkTTfGs/v-deo.html I am sorry to give a complex answer to what seems like a simple question! The thing is that by learning basic structure we are in a much better position to learn the subtleties, but we do need to grow into them a bit.
I wish you were around to read this, but as I go through your videos and clear up any misunderstandings, my appreciation for the work you've done just grows more and more. Being able to learn all these grammar points in logical, correct ways feels so much more natural and easy to understand. We really will miss you Cure Dolly
This channel is fantastic. I recommended it in my page to my audience, although my channel is aimed at Spanish-speakers. As a fun thought, when I explained this to my followers, I mentioned a particular case where 私がウナギだ does not mean I am an eel either. Let's suppose you ordered eel (私はウナギだ) but when the waiter comes with your order, he/she gets it wrong and puts the eel dish in front of your friend. You want to remind him or her that it was YOU who were supposed to get that dish, so you say すみません、私がウナギです and it is understood from context not that you are an eel, but that YOU are the one who had ordered eel. By the way, I also bought your book in Amazon and plan to read it in the next couple of days. Keep up the great work!
That's a good example - using が in its sense of telling us which of a group is/does a particular thing. Japanese is very context-dependent, which is why Google Translate struggles with it more than with most languages!
Thank you so much. I have learned previously that wa = topic and ga = subject, with no further explanation. My understanding of them has been very vague. This video finally made it click.
I am constantly amazed by the way Japanese gets taught. They continually drop a bit of information and leave people to guess the rest. No wonder people think Japanese is a difficult and confusing language! I have a series going over the language from the very basics - not just for beginners but for everyone who has been taught by the current half-baked methods - to firm up one's whole grasp of the language and discover how it really _does_ make sense! ua-cam.com/video/pSvH9vH60Ig/v-deo.html
in under four minutes flat, you demystified the most confusing element about japanese for me so far in a way that is so clear that it would be impossible to mistake.
These first 3 videos opened my eyes. I'm gonna watch all the videos and then buy the book. This should be taught to all learners, understanding how the language works is not only necessary and useful, it is nice.
Thank you so much! You may want to take a look at my new series, which attempts to explain the structure of Japanese from the ground up. It isn't just for beginners, the idea is to take a fresh look at the language "as it should have been taught from the beginning" ua-cam.com/play/PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj.html
This channel is criminally underrated. Thank you so much for this invaluable information. I am planning on getting your book soon as well for reference. Thanks again! :)
So that's why in sentences where 私は is used like in 「私はボブです。」, 私は is almost always omitted for the fact that the *context* is already laid out. Now it completely makes sense that は is called a topic particle though since topic being similar to subject, it gets overlooked causing confusion to Japanese learners. It could have been better if instead of calling は as a "topic particle", it should have been called as the "context particle". To avoid mixing topic and subject as one thing, calling it the context particle will make it distinctive as "the context", not "the subject".
キュアドリー先生, your videos have the best explanations of grammar that I have ever seen (and I have seen many, for several different languages). It is obvious that you have real expertise on the subject. What's more, you are offering this information for free! Being a cash-strapped language learner, this is incredibly helpful. Thank you so much!
This is the best channel about Japanese I've ever seen. Your videos are also making me "remember" my own language, Portuguese. It seems that every Romance language has the zero pronoun (at least Portuguese and Spanish, the languages I speak) and I had never realized it also exists in Japanese. Somehow the English grammar "contamined" my brain haha Most of the content about Japanese on the Internet is in English and from what I've noticed even if the content is in other language it is influenced by English grammar. For example, some material I've found in Portuguese almost always has explicit pronouns which aren't needed nor natural. I've been taught about the zero pronoun at school as "hidden pronoun" (I'm not sure if they are the same thing but they seem to be) Until now, I've been thinking that there is something wrong about the teaching of the が particle. Not having a specific meaning to each particle in a language that denotes the function of each noun didn't seem right to me. I've never thought that a doll could be smarter than lots of humans lol Thank you so much for your videos! Keep doing your good work!
Thank you so much! Yes English and French and German are particularly hostile to zero pronouns. Many languages have them - it isn't unique to Japanese.
Beautiful, thank you so much for explaining this. This は/が difference has given me so much trouble until now. The Japanese text books do a poor job at explaining the differences.
I feel this older video did a better job explaining it than the new one. I understand a bit better. But I am still confused on when to use ga over wa and vice versa.
Hi, First, I want to say that your videos are really great for a person like me who really wants to understand the logic of Japanese and accept it as it is rather than trying to shape it in a way that conforms to our conventional thoughts on how languages work. Other sources mostly try to do this and it makes it even more confusing as I always feel like what I understand is just a translation of it rather that what it actually is. So, thank you. Second, I have a question regarding the zero-particle ga. As I know, the "ga" particle stresses what comes before it. Also, as I know, unless it is an already-known or a common thing, every novel topic has to have the particle "ga" when it is first introduced. So, in the case of: "Watashi wa (Ø ga) Nihonjin desu" (sorry for romaji), Considering that Ø is a placeholder for "watashi", why does it take the particle "ga" (even though it is invisible)? Are we trying to stress that ME is Japanese and information that comes after is not the main thing to consider? If yes, why? Thanks.
が marks the _grammatical subject_ and structurally, that is the only thing it does. If there is a grammatical subject (and for a sentence to exist there must be) then it must logically be marked by が, whether it is visible or invisible. The idea that が stresses what comes before it etc. is not a property of the subject-marking particle _per se._ It has to do with the miscalled は vs が question. I say miscalled because as we know は and が are not possible substitutes for each other as logical (and non-logical) entities, but there are times when the subject and the topic happen to be the same, where we can stress the subject nature or the topic nature of this entity by choosing which particle to make visible. This is a big subject and I cover it in this two-parter: ua-cam.com/video/_nXHpkTTfGs/v-deo.html
First, this is an EXCELLENT presentation. But, I have one small reservation. At 3:14 Sensei draws a distinction between "me" as is found in "Watashi wa" and "I" as is found in the "zero pronoun." I find this to be a distinction without a difference as both "I" and "me" refer to the same entity. Wouldn't it be clearer to simply acknowledge that while the "wa" particle can ONLY mark a topic, that does not mean that the topic (as marked by "wa") and the subject (as marked by "ga") must be different entities. I agree with Sensei that there must always be a subject, and that it must be marked by the "ga" particle. But, I don't really see the need for the "zero pronoun" concept, especially as it pertains to pronouns that do not naturally exist in the Japanese language. I would rather conclude that subjects and their respective "ga" markers often do not appear in Japanese sentences simply because including them expressly would be redundant (i.e., their presence can already be logically inferred). This seems entirely consistent with the Japanese language where there appears to be a strong preference for leaving out redundant sentence elements.
I think the distinction between "me" and "I" a useful one to point out because it is one of the few places where English speakers are instinctively aware of the nominative case (as it is called in indo-European grammar) which is the exact equivalent to what が marks in Japanese. "I" = 私が and "me" = 私 + any particle other than が. Because the case-system is largely atrophied in English, English speakers can find it quite difficult to understand what が really does so I find it useful to link them to one area where they use the が-function instinctively in English (I did a whole video on this one subject because I find it so valuable: ua-cam.com/video/DHH_e0q8b7A/v-deo.html ) As for what you say about the zero pronoun, we are not really saying anything different from each other here, only suggesting different strategies for expressing it. Let us remember that grammar is not the source-code of language. It is a post-facto attempt to describe what happens when we use (a particular) language. There is no "one true description" - only models that cover all the facts adequately and models (like those of the textbooks) that don't. I find the use of the zero pronoun the best strategy for explaining how Japanese structure works to people who think in pronoun-dependent languages like English (Japanese does have pronouns but they serve no essential structural function). I have developed a whole model for explaining Japanese grammar to English speakers and the zero pronoun is one key element of that model. Of course one can model it in other ways. I model Japanese with the zero pronoun and trains ua-cam.com/video/pSvH9vH60Ig/v-deo.html You can take either away and not be wrong. But I would suggest that without either (or something to replace them) the whole thing becomes much more abstract. My aim is not only (a) accurate descriptions but also (b) easily digestible descriptions and (c) descriptions adapted to painlessly bridging the differences between Japanese and English linguistic ways of thought.
Imagining Dolly run up to people and tell them she's an eel made me snort. I spent so much time bashing my head against Genki before finding this channel, thank you so much.
The same happens in Portuguese, which uses the zero pronoun extensively: “Para mim, é enguia.” (“[As] for me, [it] is eel.”) And we can even say it like in Japanese: “Eu é enguia.” (Literally “I is eel.”)
These three videos have done so much to help me understand how to properly use は and が. I've found myself previously getting stuck trying to figure out *why* I use one or the other, when by typical definition は would often be appropriate, but incorrect. Understanding *why* this is the case makes what once gave me a little trouble into something simple and straightforward, so thank you!
Hi, I'm rather late to the party, but I often see you respond with a new link for newcomers. Is it just less efficient to start your videos from this point with the green chalkboard videos? Also, as a math major I do enjoy the zero pronoun stuff, but I can't help but wonder, is there really a point in which knowing that will really influence whether or not something in Japanese makes sense? Right now it just seems like a linguistic theory approach to explain to non-native speakers more familiar with "subject-object-verb" structure why Japanese is still grammatically correct. Is there anything wrong with just taking what really makes a Japanese sentence grammatically correct (just the verb) at face-value, and not even thinking about the zero pronoun? That's how the book I initially used put it, at least. It said the only order that really matters is that you end in a verb, and that the verb alone is enough to make a Japanese sentence grammatically correct. Anyway, thanks for these. I look forward to strengthening my understanding with your videos!
Hello there, I would have a question regarding the は/が that marks the DOER in the so called passive sentences in japanese. In the textbooks they write, the one who receives the evil act is marked with は/が Like in: 私は友達に車を使われました。 Here it means, I´m the doer who receives the the evil act from a friend. From your lesson, there should be somewhere hidden a が, so 私は 私が 友達に 車を 使われました。 So in this sentence the DOER is not mentioned? Is that how I should undestand it ? I would say it would be much easier to just teach the students in the books that "mark the receiver allways with が" and if you want to add some intonation to WHO is the one who received the evil act, put there は... To me it was confusing do add が to 私 because my teacher said, you do that only when you want to say that you offer yourself to do something for others like in 私がドアを開けます。in meaning, I go trough the trouble to go open the door so that no one other has to do it.... If I´m understand the things wrongly, please correct.
In 私は友達に車を使われました the doer is 私 becaue 私 is the one enacting the head-verb of the sentence which is れる = receive. I have explained this in full in my video on the receptive helper verb れる・られる: ua-cam.com/video/cvV6d-RETs8/v-deo.html so as a logical sentence this is 私は (∅が) 友達に車を使われました. Note that this is the "logical が" indicating the doer (grammatical subject) of the sentence. We would not actually say it. Actually there are other occasions when we add が to 私 but your teacher is correct that it is more usually は (which does not alter the fact of the logical が being present). In the example your teacher gave this is the use of が to stress one subject from among a group of possible subjects as I explained in this video: ua-cam.com/video/9l_ZlQQU4ZE/v-deo.html So this が is really saying "I am the one who will open the door (so you don't need to do it)".
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Thank you for your reply. I have watched your video about the "so called passive" already before. Actually your answer made me more confused when I thought I understand it... No idea what you mean with "logical が" and how I´m supposed to work with your information. In your lesson you mention, that は never marks the doer, but now by the receptive grammar, it´s actually は by the doer, because the が is only some logical が, very confusing. Also the name "grammatical subject", I know the words, but don´t really understand what´s the MEANING, what is the differnece to a "normal subject"? But never mind...... you don´t need to answer to this.
@@zuutaa6142 If you are having trouble with understanding what I mean by "は never marks the doer" I would suggest that you watch my Organic Structure series from Lesson 1 to Lesson 3 where I explain everything step by step. "Grammatical subject" is a confusing term I agree. That's why I have invented the "train model" for Japanese where you can see things as parts of a train. In this model you will see that the "grammatical subject" is the A-car that has to be in every train. Take a look here to see what I mean ua-cam.com/video/pSvH9vH60Ig/v-deo.html It is vitally important to understand this because without it you really can't grasp Japanese structure, so I hope you will take the time to watch at least the first few lessons in this series.
So if wa doesn't mark the subject, but the topic, and if ga is always there, then in "Watashi wa zero ga Nihonjin desu" can we replace zero with watashi ? Is "Watashi wa watashi ga Nihonjin desu" correct ? And if not, let's imagine you're talking to someone and they tell you their name. Can you say "As for me, I'm Akira" ? so "Watashi wa ga Akira desu" ?
Yes that is correct. Zero is like a pronoun in English. So it means whatever would be "it", "he" "she" etc. in English - all of them have no defined meaning outside of context ("I" is different because it refers to a specific person - though even "I" is without a defined meaning if we don't know who is speaking). Yes you can say "watashi wa Akira desu" in reply to someone else's self-introduction.
いくつかの質問がありますけど、僕の考え方は、これです: In「私は¤が日本人です」: 1. 日本人です is enough information for a sentence, 2. ¤が is a contextual be-er of 日本人です, 3. 私は is a topic marker, albeit a redundant one here, because the contextual ¤が carries this information. My questions are: 1. How a) impolite, b) uneducated, c) informal, d) flavorless, e) tasteless is 日本人です as a valid sentence in your usual conversation? 2. Did I do good creating the first first sentence of my comment? I hope so 'cause I've been at this comment for waaaaay too long, thinking how to say that, thinking what my actual questions are, going through my thought process again and again. 長過ぎる. Like 2 hours too long. 草 Edit: 午前３時です。。。◉‿◉
Funny, I never have a problem making sense why watashi wa unagi desu means I will have eel. Maybe my native language have a similar system with the Japanese.
@@alfredschlicht2662 Thank you. My apologies for asking for sensitive information. Good luck with Japanese and please feel free to ask me whenever you have a problem.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 No, it's fine. Normally it's a perfectly fine question, but I had some past bad experience with internet security before so forgive me for being overly cautious. Thank you, will do sensei.
The ga doesn't need to be stated here. It is invisible, along with the "I" it attaches to. :) What you'd say out loud or in writing is: Watashi wa nihonjin desu. The implied meaning would be: watashi wa watashi ga nihonjin desu. I hope this helps! :)
Coming to this very late but... I wonder if 東京は 土曜日に 行きます needs two invisible pronouns? In English I would say, I'm going there on Saturday. If so, the second would have an invisible に attached.
Yes there is an invisible に here. In fact we would normally say 東京には but I was really just trying to make the point that it doesn't matter what the は marks in terms of sentence-logic because it is a non-logical particle, so I was oversimplifying a bit to concentrate on that point.
I don't think either is more natural. It's more that if we leave out the に we are placing more emphasis on the topic. Kind of like "Hey, y'know Saturday? I'm going to Tokyo". You can even say 土曜日ね、東京に行くよ, which is even more like that. It's hard to give exact English equivalents because just leaving out the に isn't as strong as that makes it sound, but it's moving it in that direction.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Thank you for the quick reply! I'm trying to think of a way to understand the reason behind "_leaving out the に = placing more emphasis on the topic_"... For 土曜日には : If I think of it as the は particle marking the Time Phrase "土曜日に" as the *topic* (_I know this is probably not possible grammatically_), then that would mean the emphasis is on 'On Saturday' (the 'when' of the sentence), As opposed to 土曜日は : where the emphasis is on Saturday itself. Does that make any sense? Sorry if this is an unrelated subject, as this might be about Combination Particles.
@@TSord Yes that's exactly right. The に makes it more like an ordinary "on Saturday..." even though it is a topic. Leaving out the に makes the fact that it is the TOPIC the prominent point - just as you say.
Please correct me if I'm off mark キュアドリー先生... --私が is obvious so, 「私は日本人です」not 「私は私が日本人です」。 --And like wise 「私はウナギです。 Rather than 「 私は(選択？/好み？)が ウナギです 。」 Hopefully I understood it. ^_^" But this one example really confuses me. 「これは○がペンです。」 What could be inserted? Since が marks the do-er/be-er, if it is a pen then what else could it be or do? I can only think of adjectives or placing a possessive particle before ペン. What am I overlooking? Anyways I hope you enjoy your trip! \(○^■^○)/~~
I am afraid I don't quite understand your question. No one would ever say 私は私が日本人です. in practice we either say wa or ga, though wa can only be usedwhere the "invisible" particle is obvious (or there isn't one), otherwise we would have to use a logical particle to avoid ambiguity. Usually this isn't a problem though. At least not for Japanese people. Non-Japanese people can find wa ambiguous in some cases (like the eel) if they haven't been correctly taught what wa actually does. As for これは（∅が）ペンです Usually as you say when a pen is ga-ing it is ga-ing an adjective, though you could say "the pen writes" or even "the pen walks" (it doesn't often happen but all languages are capable of expressing fantasy possibilities). There doesn't need to be more than one possible logical particle in every case. In fact Japanese relies on the correct logical particle being clearly deducible nearly all the time. I am not sure if this answers your question because I am not certain what the problem was, so please feel free to come back at me with a supplementary question. Thank you for your kind wishes. It is all going wonderfully so far!
KawaJapa CureDolly I've reviewed my question and I can see why it's confusing. I'm still a bit confused, too, so I'll ditch my last approach and try to explain my thought process so that hopefully it'll clear up on both ends. ^_^" From what I understand: 1. Japanese particles are used to convey how and in which way words are related to eachother in a sentence. Which is why particles alone aren't functional (?) because they are meant connect and add nuance to ideas. And: 2. words and particles are often left out if the context is obvious the speaker and (hopefully) the listener. These in turn sparked some ideas for me. For example, at any given moment additional information could be left out for whatever reason. Which, yeah... I know already said that, but it's why I listed the examples of 私は○が日本人です、and これは○がぺんです。In both cases the respective pronouns 私[は]、or これ[は] are used to specify who or what is the noun preceding です(not quite sure if that's the best way to put it)。But yet in these examples, despite は having fulfilled it's function you still include ○が. So, this is the question I have for you. In sentences such as 私は ○が日本人です。can any additional information be added in place of ○が while also keeping 私は, and for it to make sense and not be redundant or strange like 私は私が日本人です.？Or is it just not possible in this instance? And if so were you including it for the sake of completeness, or maybe for some other reason? Thanks again for your videos, and sorry for the delay!
What i understand from Kelly's question is, in this 2 cases of examples ; ''私は日本人です'' and ''これは○がペンです''' having zero (ga) logical explanation can't be found .I find A state being the B state is most confusing too but they are actually really simple senteces so i go with the flow in those kinds of ones :) One question. what is the difference between (A ga B desu) and (A wa B desu)? ı think if i understand that i'll be able to grasp the concept fully, thanks in advance Ganbatte kudasai :D
If "A wa B desu" means "A wa A ga B desu" (as in both your examples above) then there is no difference _in terms of what is actually happening_ between that and A ga B desu. There is, however, a difference in tone or emphasis. However, if "A wa B desu" means "A wa X ga B desu" (as with Watashi wa unagi desu) then of course it means something completely different from A ga B desu. If you are asking why we would choose to say A wa B desu instead of A ga B desu in cases where they both mean the same thing, that is a more subtle question. The choice does not affect the logical meaning of the sentence (who is doing what (to what)) but it does affect the nuance and implication of the sentence. This is a little more advanced, so don't worry if you are not ready for it yet. However, I have tried to give a general answer to the question in this video: ua-cam.com/video/9l_ZlQQU4ZE/v-deo.html
I think Kelly is trying to replace the zero pronoun with something "visible", hence 私は「私が」日本人です。As you pointed out, the が marks the subject, in this context which is "I" and in Japanese that is 私. Basically he, is trying to map the English sentence "As for me, I am Japanese" to the Japanese sentence.
And in relation to you telling a student to take a frog outside, it would also be very confusing and concerning if someone just said to you “Take it out!” with zero context. XD
Sorry, but it is false to say that the が particle is present in all Japanese sentences: when the subject and the topic are same, the は particle (as well as the も particle) definitely marks the subject by replacing the が particle. Or else, we would assume that we could say e.g. "私はが日本人です", which would be grammatically wrong, it is impossible to say that. We could say "私は私が日本人です", but it does not mean the same thing as "私は日本人です": the latter means basically "As for me, I am Japanese", whereas the former means "As for me, it is I who is the Japanese" (assuming some context where we would be asked if we are really the Japanese person among other people around). So the が particle is not present in "all" Japanese sentences if the subject and the topic are the same. The zero particle's trick works only when the supposed invisible things can appear without making the sentence grammatically false nor changing sentence's meaning, especially when the topic and the subject are different (like the eel's sentence). Note that the は (and も) particle also replaces the を particle in sentences whose topic and object are the same: no "invisible を" nor "zero particle" in that case.
I get your point, but you are only changing the "psychological" meaning of the sentence, right? You aren't changing the subject nor the verb. It's like the difference between using "It's me, [name]" and "I'm [name]" in a phone call. Both of those mean the same thing, but you would use them in different contexts depending on who you are talking to. It's just a difference in nuance.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 , don't worry, sensei, they just didn't understand anything and instead of admitting to it, they turn their frustration over their own stupidity at you... Your lessons are super helpful!! I'm more inspired to learn after watching three of your first videos than I have been in a long, long while!
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 In colloquial English (at least here in US) I grew up hearing "BAD" as meaning "super good"-so I wondered if that's what MetalHeart "Really" meant. Talk about ambiguous language
Thanks, I feel like I'm starting to get it but still have some confusion. Why is "watashi WA nihonjin desu" the standard way to say it rather than "watashi ga nihonjin desu?" It seems more straightforward in most situations to say "I'm Japanese" instead of "As for me, I'm Japanese", so why is the latter preferred in Japanese?
The thing here is that while "as for..." is a perfect rendering in terms of _structure_ (this is what は actually does), Japanese is not English. What は does is introduce a topic - just as "as for..." does. But in Japanese topic/comment structure is fundamental to the language (linguists call this a topic-prominent language). English _can_ do it but it isn't the usual thing to do, so it sounds much heavier and more _stressed_ than it does in Japanese, if that makes any sense.
Now there is more to the matter than this. Probably the most natural thing to say is _not_ わたしは にほんじん です but simply にほんじん です the books teach the わたしは partly because they think it is easier for English speakers (who are used to having the subject made explicit) and partly because in very formal circumstances you might add the (grammatically unnecessary) わたしは precisely because you _are_ introducing yourself with a bit of a flourish and giving a prefatory (but less "heavy" than the English equivalent) "as for me".
As I often say - you can't learn a language by learning it in the abstract. In the end the only way to learn these things is to get used to how は, が, and nothing are used and the different weight and implications that each of the three has.
I have talked about some more advanced aspects of this subject here: ua-cam.com/video/_nXHpkTTfGs/v-deo.html
I am sorry to give a complex answer to what seems like a simple question! The thing is that by learning basic structure we are in a much better position to learn the subtleties, but we do need to grow into them a bit.
Great, thank you.
You're welcome.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 This was a fantastic addendum that I needed. I might suggest you pin it!
@@OneDougUnderPar Thank you for the suggestion. I did that.
"You can pretend you don't know, but I wouldn't recommend it". I spit my coffee out laughing.
೭੧(❛▿❛✿)੭೨
Most jokes fly over my head
I wish you were around to read this, but as I go through your videos and clear up any misunderstandings, my appreciation for the work you've done just grows more and more. Being able to learn all these grammar points in logical, correct ways feels so much more natural and easy to understand. We really will miss you Cure Dolly
im doing this too right now, Sadge
This channel is fantastic. I recommended it in my page to my audience, although my channel is aimed at Spanish-speakers. As a fun thought, when I explained this to my followers, I mentioned a particular case where 私がウナギだ does not mean I am an eel either. Let's suppose you ordered eel (私はウナギだ) but when the waiter comes with your order, he/she gets it wrong and puts the eel dish in front of your friend. You want to remind him or her that it was YOU who were supposed to get that dish, so you say すみません、私がウナギです and it is understood from context not that you are an eel, but that YOU are the one who had ordered eel. By the way, I also bought your book in Amazon and plan to read it in the next couple of days. Keep up the great work!
That's a good example - using が in its sense of telling us which of a group is/does a particular thing. Japanese is very context-dependent, which is why Google Translate struggles with it more than with most languages!
Thank you so much. I have learned previously that wa = topic and ga = subject, with no further explanation. My understanding of them has been very vague. This video finally made it click.
I am constantly amazed by the way Japanese gets taught. They continually drop a bit of information and leave people to guess the rest. No wonder people think Japanese is a difficult and confusing language! I have a series going over the language from the very basics - not just for beginners but for everyone who has been taught by the current half-baked methods - to firm up one's whole grasp of the language and discover how it really _does_ make sense! ua-cam.com/video/pSvH9vH60Ig/v-deo.html
in under four minutes flat, you demystified the most confusing element about japanese for me so far in a way that is so clear that it would be impossible to mistake.
These first 3 videos opened my eyes. I'm gonna watch all the videos and then buy the book. This should be taught to all learners, understanding how the language works is not only necessary and useful, it is nice.
Thank you so much! You may want to take a look at my new series, which attempts to explain the structure of Japanese from the ground up. It isn't just for beginners, the idea is to take a fresh look at the language "as it should have been taught from the beginning" ua-cam.com/play/PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj.html
This channel is criminally underrated. Thank you so much for this invaluable information. I am planning on getting your book soon as well for reference. Thanks again! :)
Thank you so much!
"You can pretend you don't know but i wouldn't recommend it" i love that
It’s 2024 and I just had an epiphany regarding the Zero Ga. Everything makes so much sense now! Forever grateful 🎉
i'm glad , you existed .
So that's why in sentences where 私は is used like in 「私はボブです。」, 私は is almost always omitted for the fact that the *context* is already laid out.
Now it completely makes sense that は is called a topic particle though since topic being similar to subject, it gets overlooked causing confusion to Japanese learners.
It could have been better if instead of calling は as a "topic particle", it should have been called as the "context particle". To avoid mixing topic and subject as one thing, calling it the context particle will make it distinctive as "the context", not "the subject".
How wonderful!! You are a clever, beautiful doll!!
Thank you so much!
キュアドリー先生, your videos have the best explanations of grammar that I have ever seen (and I have seen many, for several different languages). It is obvious that you have real expertise on the subject. What's more, you are offering this information for free! Being a cash-strapped language learner, this is incredibly helpful. Thank you so much!
mind=blown
first time は vs が actually made sense to me
Thank you. With all my heart. Thank you
I am so happy to be of help. がんばってください。
"If you come into my class with a frog, I will say 'Take it out!'". Why the hell is this so funny?
This is the best channel about Japanese I've ever seen. Your videos are also making me "remember" my own language, Portuguese.
It seems that every Romance language has the zero pronoun (at least Portuguese and Spanish, the languages I speak) and I had never realized it also exists in Japanese. Somehow the English grammar "contamined" my brain haha
Most of the content about Japanese on the Internet is in English and from what I've noticed even if the content is in other language it is influenced by English grammar. For example, some material I've found in Portuguese almost always has explicit pronouns which aren't needed nor natural. I've been taught about the zero pronoun at school as "hidden pronoun" (I'm not sure if they are the same thing but they seem to be)
Until now, I've been thinking that there is something wrong about the teaching of the が particle. Not having a specific meaning to each particle in a language that denotes the function of each noun didn't seem right to me.
I've never thought that a doll could be smarter than lots of humans lol
Thank you so much for your videos! Keep doing your good work!
Thank you so much! Yes English and French and German are particularly hostile to zero pronouns. Many languages have them - it isn't unique to Japanese.
For once I think I finally understand the meaning of "wa is a topic marker, ga is a subject marker"
Yes.
Thank you, Cure Dolly!
I'm mind blown! Thank you.
Beautiful, thank you so much for explaining this. This は/が difference has given me so much trouble until now. The Japanese text books do a poor job at explaining the differences.
I feel this older video did a better job explaining it than the new one. I understand a bit better. But I am still confused on when to use ga over wa and vice versa.
Hi,
First, I want to say that your videos are really great for a person like me who really wants to understand the logic of Japanese and accept it as it is rather than trying to shape it in a way that conforms to our conventional thoughts on how languages work. Other sources mostly try to do this and it makes it even more confusing as I always feel like what I understand is just a translation of it rather that what it actually is. So, thank you.
Second, I have a question regarding the zero-particle ga.
As I know, the "ga" particle stresses what comes before it. Also, as I know, unless it is an already-known or a common thing, every novel topic has to have the particle "ga" when it is first introduced.
So, in the case of:
"Watashi wa (Ø ga) Nihonjin desu" (sorry for romaji),
Considering that Ø is a placeholder for "watashi", why does it take the particle "ga" (even though it is invisible)? Are we trying to stress that ME is Japanese and information that comes after is not the main thing to consider? If yes, why?
Thanks.
が marks the _grammatical subject_ and structurally, that is the only thing it does. If there is a grammatical subject (and for a sentence to exist there must be) then it must logically be marked by が, whether it is visible or invisible.
The idea that が stresses what comes before it etc. is not a property of the subject-marking particle _per se._ It has to do with the miscalled は vs が question. I say miscalled because as we know は and が are not possible substitutes for each other as logical (and non-logical) entities, but there are times when the subject and the topic happen to be the same, where we can stress the subject nature or the topic nature of this entity by choosing which particle to make visible. This is a big subject and I cover it in this two-parter: ua-cam.com/video/_nXHpkTTfGs/v-deo.html
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49
I will check it. Thank you very much.
First, this is an EXCELLENT presentation. But, I have one small reservation. At 3:14 Sensei draws a distinction between "me" as is found in "Watashi wa" and "I" as is found in the "zero pronoun." I find this to be a distinction without a difference as both "I" and "me" refer to the same entity. Wouldn't it be clearer to simply acknowledge that while the "wa" particle can ONLY mark a topic, that does not mean that the topic (as marked by "wa") and the subject (as marked by "ga") must be different entities. I agree with Sensei that there must always be a subject, and that it must be marked by the "ga" particle. But, I don't really see the need for the "zero pronoun" concept, especially as it pertains to pronouns that do not naturally exist in the Japanese language. I would rather conclude that subjects and their respective "ga" markers often do not appear in Japanese sentences simply because including them expressly would be redundant (i.e., their presence can already be logically inferred). This seems entirely consistent with the Japanese language where there appears to be a strong preference for leaving out redundant sentence elements.
I think the distinction between "me" and "I" a useful one to point out because it is one of the few places where English speakers are instinctively aware of the nominative case (as it is called in indo-European grammar) which is the exact equivalent to what が marks in Japanese. "I" = 私が and "me" = 私 + any particle other than が. Because the case-system is largely atrophied in English, English speakers can find it quite difficult to understand what が really does so I find it useful to link them to one area where they use the が-function instinctively in English (I did a whole video on this one subject because I find it so valuable: ua-cam.com/video/DHH_e0q8b7A/v-deo.html )
As for what you say about the zero pronoun, we are not really saying anything different from each other here, only suggesting different strategies for expressing it. Let us remember that grammar is not the source-code of language. It is a post-facto attempt to describe what happens when we use (a particular) language. There is no "one true description" - only models that cover all the facts adequately and models (like those of the textbooks) that don't.
I find the use of the zero pronoun the best strategy for explaining how Japanese structure works to people who think in pronoun-dependent languages like English (Japanese does have pronouns but they serve no essential structural function). I have developed a whole model for explaining Japanese grammar to English speakers and the zero pronoun is one key element of that model. Of course one can model it in other ways.
I model Japanese with the zero pronoun and trains ua-cam.com/video/pSvH9vH60Ig/v-deo.html
You can take either away and not be wrong. But I would suggest that without either (or something to replace them) the whole thing becomes much more abstract. My aim is not only (a) accurate descriptions but also (b) easily digestible descriptions and (c) descriptions adapted to painlessly bridging the differences between Japanese and English linguistic ways of thought.
Imagining Dolly run up to people and tell them she's an eel made me snort.
I spent so much time bashing my head against Genki before finding this channel, thank you so much.
i'm somewhat sure that school teachers telling their students to take it out is punishable by law. especially if the students are underage
I think there may be some misunderstanding here.
if i run up to you in the street and say 「私はウナギです」hahahahahahaha
Do I understand this could be written as: watashi wa, watashi ga nihojin desu?
Logically it could. In natural Japanese it could not.
Organic Japanese with Cure Dolly thank you. I understand. 😁
The same happens in Portuguese, which uses the zero pronoun extensively:
“Para mim, é enguia.” (“[As] for me, [it] is eel.”)
And we can even say it like in Japanese:
“Eu é enguia.” (Literally “I is eel.”)
These three videos have done so much to help me understand how to properly use は and が. I've found myself previously getting stuck trying to figure out *why* I use one or the other, when by typical definition は would often be appropriate, but incorrect. Understanding *why* this is the case makes what once gave me a little trouble into something simple and straightforward, so thank you!
Hi, I'm rather late to the party, but I often see you respond with a new link for newcomers. Is it just less efficient to start your videos from this point with the green chalkboard videos?
Also, as a math major I do enjoy the zero pronoun stuff, but I can't help but wonder, is there really a point in which knowing that will really influence whether or not something in Japanese makes sense? Right now it just seems like a linguistic theory approach to explain to non-native speakers more familiar with "subject-object-verb" structure why Japanese is still grammatically correct. Is there anything wrong with just taking what really makes a Japanese sentence grammatically correct (just the verb) at face-value, and not even thinking about the zero pronoun? That's how the book I initially used put it, at least. It said the only order that really matters is that you end in a verb, and that the verb alone is enough to make a Japanese sentence grammatically correct.
Anyway, thanks for these. I look forward to strengthening my understanding with your videos!
Hello there, I would have a question regarding the は/が that marks the DOER in the so called passive sentences in japanese. In the textbooks they write, the one who receives the evil act is marked with は/が
Like in:
私は友達に車を使われました。
Here it means, I´m the doer who receives the the evil act from a friend.
From your lesson, there should be somewhere hidden a が, so
私は 私が 友達に 車を 使われました。
So in this sentence the DOER is not mentioned?
Is that how I should undestand it ?
I would say it would be much easier to just teach the students in the books that "mark the receiver allways with が" and if you want to add some intonation to WHO is the one who received the evil act, put there は...
To me it was confusing do add が to 私 because my teacher said, you do that only when you want to say that you offer yourself to do something for others like in 私がドアを開けます。in meaning, I go trough the trouble to go open the door so that no one other has to do it....
If I´m understand the things wrongly, please correct.
In 私は友達に車を使われました the doer is 私 becaue 私 is the one enacting the head-verb of the sentence which is れる = receive. I have explained this in full in my video on the receptive helper verb れる・られる: ua-cam.com/video/cvV6d-RETs8/v-deo.html so as a logical sentence this is 私は (∅が) 友達に車を使われました. Note that this is the "logical が" indicating the doer (grammatical subject) of the sentence. We would not actually say it.
Actually there are other occasions when we add が to 私 but your teacher is correct that it is more usually は (which does not alter the fact of the logical が being present). In the example your teacher gave this is the use of が to stress one subject from among a group of possible subjects as I explained in this video: ua-cam.com/video/9l_ZlQQU4ZE/v-deo.html So this が is really saying "I am the one who will open the door (so you don't need to do it)".
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Thank you for your reply.
I have watched your video about the "so called passive" already before.
Actually your answer made me more confused when I thought I understand it...
No idea what you mean with "logical が" and how I´m supposed to work with your information. In your lesson you mention, that は never marks the doer, but now by the receptive grammar, it´s actually は by the doer, because the が is only some logical が, very confusing.
Also the name "grammatical subject", I know the words, but don´t really understand what´s the MEANING, what is the differnece to a "normal subject"?
But never mind...... you don´t need to answer to this.
@@zuutaa6142 If you are having trouble with understanding what I mean by "は never marks the doer" I would suggest that you watch my Organic Structure series from Lesson 1 to Lesson 3 where I explain everything step by step. "Grammatical subject" is a confusing term I agree. That's why I have invented the "train model" for Japanese where you can see things as parts of a train. In this model you will see that the "grammatical subject" is the A-car that has to be in every train. Take a look here to see what I mean ua-cam.com/video/pSvH9vH60Ig/v-deo.html
It is vitally important to understand this because without it you really can't grasp Japanese structure, so I hope you will take the time to watch at least the first few lessons in this series.
Thanks cute dolly, makes 5000% sense to my senses.
ありがとうございました
So if wa doesn't mark the subject, but the topic, and if ga is always there, then in "Watashi wa zero ga Nihonjin desu" can we replace zero with watashi ? Is "Watashi wa watashi ga Nihonjin desu" correct ?
And if not, let's imagine you're talking to someone and they tell you their name. Can you say "As for me, I'm Akira" ? so "Watashi wa ga Akira desu" ?
Yes that is correct. Zero is like a pronoun in English. So it means whatever would be "it", "he" "she" etc. in English - all of them have no defined meaning outside of context ("I" is different because it refers to a specific person - though even "I" is without a defined meaning if we don't know who is speaking).
Yes you can say "watashi wa Akira desu" in reply to someone else's self-introduction.
いくつかの質問がありますけど、僕の考え方は、これです:
In「私は¤が日本人です」:
1. 日本人です is enough information for a sentence,
2. ¤が is a contextual be-er of 日本人です,
3. 私は is a topic marker, albeit a redundant one here, because the contextual ¤が carries this information.
My questions are:
1. How a) impolite, b) uneducated, c) informal, d) flavorless, e) tasteless is 日本人です as a valid sentence in your usual conversation?
2. Did I do good creating the first first sentence of my comment? I hope so 'cause I've been at this comment for waaaaay too long, thinking how to say that, thinking what my actual questions are, going through my thought process again and again.
長過ぎる. Like 2 hours too long. 草
Edit: 午前３時です。。。◉‿◉
Funny, I never have a problem making sense why watashi wa unagi desu means I will have eel. Maybe my native language have a similar system with the Japanese.
That's interesting! What is your native language?
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 I'm sorry sensei I can't share that information, but it's an Asian language.
@@alfredschlicht2662 Thank you. My apologies for asking for sensitive information. Good luck with Japanese and please feel free to ask me whenever you have a problem.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 No, it's fine. Normally it's a perfectly fine question, but I had some past bad experience with internet security before so forgive me for being overly cautious.
Thank you, will do sensei.
Watashi wa ga Nihonjin desu = As for me, I am being Japanese? or simply I am Japanese? Please somebody respond.
The ga doesn't need to be stated here. It is invisible, along with the "I" it attaches to. :)
What you'd say out loud or in writing is: Watashi wa nihonjin desu.
The implied meaning would be: watashi wa watashi ga nihonjin desu.
I hope this helps! :)
done
Coming to this very late but... I wonder if 東京は 土曜日に 行きます needs two invisible pronouns? In English I would say, I'm going there on Saturday. If so, the second would have an invisible に attached.
Yes there is an invisible に here. In fact we would normally say 東京には but I was really just trying to make the point that it doesn't matter what the は marks in terms of sentence-logic because it is a non-logical particle, so I was oversimplifying a bit to concentrate on that point.
I don't think either is more natural. It's more that if we leave out the に we are placing more emphasis on the topic. Kind of like "Hey, y'know Saturday? I'm going to Tokyo". You can even say 土曜日ね、東京に行くよ, which is even more like that. It's hard to give exact English equivalents because just leaving out the に isn't as strong as that makes it sound, but it's moving it in that direction.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Thank you for the quick reply!
I'm trying to think of a way to understand the reason behind "_leaving out the に = placing more emphasis on the topic_"...
For 土曜日には :
If I think of it as the は particle marking the Time Phrase "土曜日に" as the *topic* (_I know this is probably not possible grammatically_), then that would mean the emphasis is on 'On Saturday' (the 'when' of the sentence),
As opposed to 土曜日は :
where the emphasis is on Saturday itself.
Does that make any sense? Sorry if this is an unrelated subject, as this might be about Combination Particles.
@@TSord Yes that's exactly right. The に makes it more like an ordinary "on Saturday..." even though it is a topic. Leaving out the に makes the fact that it is the TOPIC the prominent point - just as you say.
わかりました。ありがとうございました！
Great!
ありがとう！
Please correct me if I'm off mark キュアドリー先生...
--私が is obvious so,
「私は日本人です」not
「私は私が日本人です」。
--And like wise
「私はウナギです。
Rather than
「 私は(選択？/好み？)が
ウナギです 。」
Hopefully I understood it. ^_^" But this one example really confuses me.
「これは○がペンです。」
What could be inserted? Since が marks the do-er/be-er, if it is a pen then what else could it be or do? I can only think of adjectives or placing a possessive particle before ペン. What am I overlooking? Anyways I hope you enjoy your trip!
\(○^■^○)/~~
I am afraid I don't quite understand your question. No one would ever say 私は私が日本人です. in practice we either say wa or ga, though wa can only be usedwhere the "invisible" particle is obvious (or there isn't one), otherwise we would have to use a logical particle to avoid ambiguity. Usually this isn't a problem though. At least not for Japanese people. Non-Japanese people can find wa ambiguous in some cases (like the eel) if they haven't been correctly taught what wa actually does.
As for これは（∅が）ペンです
Usually as you say when a pen is ga-ing it is ga-ing an adjective, though you could say "the pen writes" or even "the pen walks" (it doesn't often happen but all languages are capable of expressing fantasy possibilities). There doesn't need to be more than one possible logical particle in every case. In fact Japanese relies on the correct logical particle being clearly deducible nearly all the time.
I am not sure if this answers your question because I am not certain what the problem was, so please feel free to come back at me with a supplementary question.
Thank you for your kind wishes. It is all going wonderfully so far!
KawaJapa CureDolly
I've reviewed my question and I can see why it's confusing. I'm still a bit confused, too, so I'll ditch my last approach and try to explain my thought process so that hopefully it'll clear up on both ends. ^_^"
From what I understand:
1. Japanese particles are used to convey how and in which way words are related to eachother in a sentence. Which is why particles alone aren't functional (?) because they are meant connect and add nuance to ideas. And:
2. words and particles are often left out if the context is obvious the speaker and (hopefully) the listener.
These in turn sparked some ideas for me. For example, at any given moment additional information could be left out for whatever reason. Which, yeah... I know already said that, but it's why I listed the examples of 私は○が日本人です、and これは○がぺんです。In both cases the respective pronouns 私[は]、or これ[は] are used to specify who or what is the noun preceding です(not quite sure if that's the best way to put it)。But yet in these examples, despite は having fulfilled it's function you still include ○が.
So, this is the question I have for you. In sentences such as
私は ○が日本人です。can any additional information be added in place of ○が while also keeping 私は, and for it to make sense and not be redundant or strange like
私は私が日本人です.？Or is it just not possible in this instance? And if so were you including it for the sake of completeness, or maybe for some other reason?
Thanks again for your videos, and sorry for the delay!
What i understand from Kelly's question is, in this 2 cases of examples ; ''私は日本人です'' and ''これは○がペンです''' having zero (ga) logical explanation can't be found .I find A state being the B state is most confusing too but they are actually really simple senteces so i go with the flow in those kinds of ones :)
One question. what is the difference between (A ga B desu) and (A wa B desu)? ı think if i understand that i'll be able to grasp the concept fully, thanks in advance Ganbatte kudasai :D
If "A wa B desu" means "A wa A ga B desu" (as in both your examples above) then there is no difference _in terms of what is actually happening_ between that and A ga B desu. There is, however, a difference in tone or emphasis.
However, if "A wa B desu" means "A wa X ga B desu" (as with Watashi wa unagi desu) then of course it means something completely different from A ga B desu.
If you are asking why we would choose to say A wa B desu instead of A ga B desu in cases where they both mean the same thing, that is a more subtle question. The choice does not affect the logical meaning of the sentence (who is doing what (to what)) but it does affect the nuance and implication of the sentence. This is a little more advanced, so don't worry if you are not ready for it yet.
However, I have tried to give a general answer to the question in this video:
ua-cam.com/video/9l_ZlQQU4ZE/v-deo.html
I think Kelly is trying to replace the zero pronoun with something "visible", hence 私は「私が」日本人です。As you pointed out, the が marks the subject, in this context which is "I" and in Japanese that is 私. Basically he, is trying to map the English sentence "As for me, I am Japanese" to the Japanese sentence.
And in relation to you telling a student to take a frog outside, it would also be very confusing and concerning if someone just said to you “Take it out!” with zero context. XD
If "it" is undefined by verbal or other context then it has no meaning.
The girl talking in this is video looks like a creepy doll talking like a robot
Doll: correct. Robot: correct. Creepy: incorrect. Grade: 7/10.
Class dismissed...
Shsdjshds you really are amazing
Sorry, but it is false to say that the が particle is present in all Japanese sentences: when the subject and the topic are same, the は particle (as well as the も particle) definitely marks the subject by replacing the が particle. Or else, we would assume that we could say e.g. "私はが日本人です", which would be grammatically wrong, it is impossible to say that.
We could say "私は私が日本人です", but it does not mean the same thing as "私は日本人です": the latter means basically "As for me, I am Japanese", whereas the former means "As for me, it is I who is the Japanese" (assuming some context where we would be asked if we are really the Japanese person among other people around).
So the が particle is not present in "all" Japanese sentences if the subject and the topic are the same. The zero particle's trick works only when the supposed invisible things can appear without making the sentence grammatically false nor changing sentence's meaning, especially when the topic and the subject are different (like the eel's sentence).
Note that the は (and も) particle also replaces the を particle in sentences whose topic and object are the same: no "invisible を" nor "zero particle" in that case.
I get your point, but you are only changing the "psychological" meaning of the sentence, right? You aren't changing the subject nor the verb. It's like the difference between using "It's me, [name]" and "I'm [name]" in a phone call. Both of those mean the same thing, but you would use them in different contexts depending on who you are talking to. It's just a difference in nuance.
wow this is Really BAD.
Aw shucks. I don't know I'd go so far as BAD, but it ain't bad, is it?
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 , don't worry, sensei, they just didn't understand anything and instead of admitting to it, they turn their frustration over their own stupidity at you... Your lessons are super helpful!! I'm more inspired to learn after watching three of your first videos than I have been in a long, long while!
@@pinkdipi Thank you!
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 In colloquial English (at least here in US) I grew up hearing "BAD" as meaning "super good"-so I wondered if that's what MetalHeart "Really" meant. Talk about ambiguous language
@@billcunningham9256 I was kind of playing with the two meanings in my first response (not actually sure which was intended).