denotes sentence topic
Structure
- Sentence topic + は
- Pronounced ‘わ/wa’
[topic marker・particle]
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Stupid は
Why are you pronounced “わ”!?
(venting post from girl who just spelled it as “わ” instead of “は”) Someday I will get this one right every time instead of misspelling!
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Hey 
You should read this amazing explanation:
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Oh, thanks! I always love knowing the reason/history behind things.
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Tell me if I’m wrong, but I’ve come to understand は as just being there to “flag” the topic of a sentence, while が, even though is not always seen, is always implied to be there.
For example, the sentence “私はアメリカ人です”, while often used to mean “I am american”, could very well mean something else, such as “As for me, I am american” (implying that other people in the room might be from somewhere else, but I am from the US). In other words, the full sentence would actually be “私は、私がアメリカ人です”, but we don’t use the 私が since it’s obvious what the subject is.
I think the sentence that made me understand that is this one: “私はえびすだ”, which, well, in a restaurant setting, would simply mean “As for me, the shrimp” (implying that the full sentence would be “As for me, I’ll have the shrimp or I’ll take the shrimp”).
Then again, I might be completely wrong, but I would love to know what you think? Did I grasp the differences between は and が?
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The whole は and が thing is pretty murky, but a simple way to understand the basics of it is:
私はアメリカ人です (I am American) is a response to the question “Where are you from?”
私がアメリカ人です (The one who is American is me) is a response to the question “Who here is American?”
So you’re changing the focus of the sentence.
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Whats going on here? The answer “ha” is not accepted, instead bunpro proposes the solution “heiku”. But when pressing the “play” button it reads “ha”.
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@Laugerizor
Hey and welcome on the community forums! 
The correct answer is は, as you wrote.
へいく appearing as an answer is an error, checked this sentence and it should be working now as intended.
Sorry for the inconvienience and thanks for informing us abot the issue,
Cheers!
Hi, I’ve just come across the description: [Unlike が, は cannot be used to describe things that you are seeing/experiencing in the moment (right now)]
Can anyone shed more light on this at all?
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I just got started here, so apologies if this isn’t the right place/way to ask.
In the example <玄関は暗い。>Would it also be correct to say <玄関は暗いです。>？Or is there a reason です is omitted?
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Hi and welcome!
Yes both examples are fine. The latter is simply more polite - you wouldn’t use です with a friend or a family member.
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Yes, I also would like to know what this means. I have absolutely no idea what it’s talking about. I’m not a complete newbie at Japanese — I’ve passed the N5 and N4 — but I’ve never come across this concept before.
Also, it would be nice to have a textual explanation of what it means by “non-logical particle”, instead of just linking to an 8-minute video.
This makes sense if you translate は as “As for [the topic of]…”.
When you’re talking with your friend about puppies:
子犬はかわいいね。-- “puppies are cute”, talking about puppies in general, as a topic
子犬がかわいいね。-- “those puppies are cute”, talking about a specific puppy, or focusing on puppies out of all animals
When you’re standing in front of a pet store talking about puppies in the window:
子犬がかわいいね。-- “those puppies are cute”, seeing them right now
子犬はかわいいね。-- sounds like you’re changing the topic to something else
Hi all, been a it’s been a while since I posted. I’m a very satisfied (former) customer and I help moderate a Japanese-learning discord community, where I recommend Bunpro to pretty much everyone I meet. However, the other day one member (who had picked up Bunpro at my suggestion) posted about this blurb on the は grammar point page, which has apparently been added since my sub ended last year:
My first instinct was “well that’s completely wrong※”, but after some consideration I think I understand what this is going for; however I do think it’s poorly explained and could lead to confusion (in fact, did lead to confusion for the member who brought this to my attention). It’s not clear to me what “part of a larger experience” or “broad event” are meant to mean, and I think the example sentences do a poor job of illustrating why は does or doesn’t work.
Additionally, while the very next block explains the contrastive function of は, there’s no mention that 今はテスト would be totally fine as a contrastive sentence (for example, 今はテスト中だから、電話できない) or when the scope of 今 is larger than “this very moment” (for example in this tweet 今 presumably refers to the days or weeks around 期末試験). With the way the page is laid out right now, it’s not evident that the content of the two red blocks could have anything to do with each other. To me, it reads as “here’s one fact”, “here’s another fact”.
I think it would be more helpful to explain this “in the moment” restriction with a sentence pair like this:
(Additionally, it may be good to expand the page for が to explain that it is the particle to use when making statements about transient states, and link to that page from within the explanations on this one.)
Thank you for your attention 
I was originally going to put this in the feedback form but it got kind of long so I decided to post it here instead.
※
I stand by this initial reaction, for what it’s worth; with no context I immediately read 今はテスト as setting up a contrast like “I’m busy (studying for) tests right now (so I can’t go to karaoke)” for example. Just another case where something might not be intrinsically incorrect, just incorrect for a certain intended meaning.
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