は vs が (For the 100th time)

Japanese
#1

Often when comparing these, their differences become clear, but what I often find is left out, is when you just want to say a plain sentence?

For example, using https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-grammar/ha-vs-ga-five-points-you-need-to-know/

My biggest confusion with the が vs は is that it is almost always discussed as having two separate meanings that don’t actually cover a very wide range. They are both described in ways that leave me utterly confused how to make a bland/plain statement without the two nuances.

In the article it says “If someone asks you, “Do you like fruits?” and then you say, 「オレンジは好すき」, this indicates that you like oranges, but don’t like other fruits very much; that is to say, you generally don’t like fruits. If you say, 「オレンジが好すき」, this just indicates that you like oranges more than other fruits.”

So what if I simply want to say I like oranges, I do not want to contrast it with others saying I like it more than those, nor do I want to say I don’t like any other fruit. It’s just a bland statement of “I like oranges”? And yes in that example it’s being prompted by a question then you are specifying one singular type of fruit so it’s already a bit different, but my question below remains the same.

If I want to say “I like horses” which particle is the one to use? I do not want either nuance, not to contrast, nor to identify and rule out other options.

So I know people will not be happy with this next part but I hope you can not take it as me saying these are authoritative resources but see I’m using it to describe the confusion that goes on here.

So I went ahead and asked both the Hiinative bot and Chatgpt a very simply question. The question above, how would I state a plain sentence of “I like horses” without wanting to have contrast or say I like it more than other animals, a plain equivalent to an English "I like horses.

ChatGPT: 馬が好きです (Uma ga suki desu) - I like horses. This is a neutral statement expressing your liking for horses without specifying that you dislike other animals or that horses are your favorite. In this context, が is used to identify the subject of your liking.

ai_monga (Hiinative) : When we say ‘馬が好きです’ (uma ga suki desu), the particle ‘が’ (ga) is used to mark the subject of the sentence. This sentence structure puts emphasis on the subject, implying that you specifically like horses, as opposed to other animals or things. It suggests that horses hold a special place in your preferences or interests.

Example: 馬が好きです。(Uma ga suki desu) - I like horses.

On the other hand, when we say ‘馬は好きです’ (uma wa suki desu), the particle ‘は’ (wa) is used to mark the topic of the sentence. This sentence structure puts emphasis on the topic, which is horses in this case, but it doesn’t necessarily imply exclusivity. It suggests that you have a general liking for horses, without comparing them to other animals or things.

As you can see they answered entirely flipped from one another, and they are trained off of publicly available info, which is my point, even the AI does not reach a clear conclusion from the publicly available info, they end up contradicting each other, which I think really points to the difficulty of this discussion.

I hope you can see what I am saying here, and please feel free to give me any guidance, along with answer my innate question of how to make a plain statement without either of the two nuances. Just a plain “I like horses”

#2

象は鼻が長い。 :wink:

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#3

Short answer: It’s contextual.

Medium answer: You won’t properly learn the difference by reading an explanation and (when speaking) it is a problem that plagues even advanced learners for a long time. You can expect to understand the difference when reading and listening far far far sooner though. But, again, it’s contextual so…

When speaking, if you want to say “I like oranges” you’d drop the particle in casual conversation (so use neither) and choosing to use one or the other adds a specific emphasis depending on the context. It could also be totally inconsequential, again depending on the context.

Long answer: [I’m too lazy to write one]

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#4

It is sadly tough for learners, most don’t know the answer and the ones who do often just are condescending and won’t assist. :pensive:

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#5

When you say you’d drop the particle entirely you mean literally "馬好き” or "オレンジすき”? But if you chose to use は or が in a casual situation it would most likely start giving off one of their nuances by the fact you chose to include it when its often omitted?

This might be as you alluded too a rather contextual and convoluted topic, however I am still curious to what you think. When it comes to a situation of a child in a classroom being told “write down the things you like” and in english the child writes

I like horses
I like oranges
I like rainbows etc etc

What is the equivalent in Japanese? Is the child writing 馬は好き or 馬が好き? or 私は馬が好き? Or are they phrasing it entirely differently altogether?

#6

I don’t think Japanese has a simple “plain” equivalent as there’s in english. Given the nature of them, は will be considered “plain” in some circumstances, and が will be considered “plain” in some other circumstances. Japanese sentences in a vaccuum don’t work very well compared to english.

#7

If anyone is reading this later on, this is the answer I got from a native speaker

“馬が好きです→自分が馬のことが好き
例）私は馬が好きです
馬は好きです→馬が好きなもの
例）馬は人参が好きです”

Seems they seem to side with が for this case and that は would be more focused on the horse liking some other “thing” not on our liking of the horse or at least that’s what I gather from it.

Side note, but to me this sort of goes along with Cure Dolly’s idea of the invisible zero-ga and that with 馬は好きです the invisible が has to mark the subject, which is being left out, like the carrots, within the example provided by the native speaker.

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#8

It is a problem that plagues even natives for a long time.

Fixed that for you!

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#9

I think you misunderstand. I don’t think that is a secret that is being gatekept. I think it is a mystery that many have seen solved from certain angles, but twist it in the light and the whole pattern changes. It’s both inanely simple and wildly complex.

Do you see は or が？

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#10

The subject of the sentence is I. So 好き takes が.
Vesicularは馬が好きだ。
Also, my Japanese teacher in collage said answers to questions are が instead of は

Ex, 誰か青森県に行ったことがありますか？[has anyone been to Aomori？]
妹が行きました
Even though “my little sister went” would usally take は

I think of は and が as Japanese’s ‘a’ and ‘the’
Why “I went to the library” and “I’m meeting friends at a cafe after work”? Why “most US plugs work in Japanese outlits” and “I’m from the US”
I have answers, but better than thinking of a rule is lots of practice till you get a ‘feel’ for it.

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#11

The answer the native gave is because there is no context. Obviously they’re not wrong but it is an incomplete answer. Regarding what a child would write, it’d be 何々が好き. If the topic is alrready 何々 then simply saying 好き is enough.

As you asked about Japanese children, here is an explanation for native kids. You’ll see it is just as vague as anything else you’ll find (but enough to understand things generally):

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This answer neglects certain nuances but obviously overall is a good one. You’ll also notice it basically says “You already know the difference”. In general natives cannot explain the usage well but can easily tell you if it is iffy. I’ve spoken at length about the actual grammatical function of both with kokugo teachers. The topic is controversial even amongst native linguists. Anyway, the point I was originally making was it’s fine to get the gist first and work out the details later.

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#12

The subject of the sentence is 馬, actually. The topic is marked by は. Or, it’s a double subject sentence. It depends on your analysis. (OP, perhaps you can see why there is not a simple answer to your question now)

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#13

Maybe it is also connecting it back to the zero-ga. A situation where in the examples I provided in the article of the oranges, it’s being prompted already, subject is already clear, or the direction of it being to the person (what is liked by the person) so when you then answer it can be either は or が

But when you have no precursor, it’s that zero-ga that is missing. Which is why the Japanese person interpreted 馬は好きです as needing something in between marked by が like a carrot. But in the Orange sentence, were already asked if we like fruit so that zero-ga is clearly us オレンジは（0 が）すきです and now since both particles are able to be used, we now have a distinction of nuance. This is pretty much what you mentioned in your post about having no context.

Much like how she provides the 私はウナギです example in her lessons, obviously in this you aren’t claiming to be an うなぎ instead you are saying your order will be that of うなぎ and the が invisible marked subject is obvious, it doesn’t need to be stated.

Also I appreciate you taking the time to help me, It really helps.

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#14

From what I gather from that, is it’s discussing how both 私は行く and 私が行く are on a very literal basis stating the same claim. However when you read them there is a clear difference, obviously this statement is intended to a Japanese child who would get the difference but not know why necessarily, and I suppose I am not at such a low level that I cant get that too, I do sort of. So it seems 私は行く is not just about what I am doing but innately that I am doing it, regardless of whatever others are doing (Well I mean, I’m going, I don’t know about anyone else, but me, I am." But 私が行く is more just a statement of what will occur, I will in fact be going. It emphasizes the fact that I am going as opposed to others around me.

What I find interesting is that it stated, 私は行く that you can interpret this as emphasizing the 行く when I would have though it emphasizes you, compared to others. But instead it emphasizes your action of going, compared to the action/inaction of others?

I would have thought its
私は行く - I am going (compared to others who aren’t)
私が行く - I am the one who is going (no one else is)

But it seems more like は is saying, my action is what is different, its not about me, its about the action of いく being different from other actions around me. and が is about it being ME who is doing the action, I suppose this lends credence to the は emphasizes what’s after, が what came before.

I’ll also be honest I don’t entirely understand even now how は is an adverbial particle, as my understanding of an adverb is it is supposed to describe how the verb is taking place or provide further detail to it, but I don’t think that makes much sense here as plenty of sentences lack a verb in general, but I guess you can say だ is である and stuff like that? And even so I fail to really see how the は is affecting the verb even if there is one in a way similar to はっきり or something. The case marking particles make a lot of sense, adverbial particle は makes little sense to me.

The resource you provided is super helpful, and I will definitely be saving it, thank you a ton for helping me out.

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#15

Yeah, that understanding is exactly what I’d say is going in that explanation. I think you’ve got a reasonable understanding of the essential idea already.

The case for using は in that kind of sentence would generally be for contrast. E.g., 銀座本店は美味しいけど(この店は美味しいかどうかわからない) would be one such use. As you can see the context is important. A plain statement of fact would use が or no particle or drop the subject entirely in most cases.

So with the horse thing, either it is as you say 馬は(何々が)好き or it is (I don’t know about everything else but)馬は好き. Again, there could be many contextual things affecting this.

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#16

(placeholder text - I’ll give a detailed answer to this part later but am too busy probably for the rest of today to answer! Sorry for only replying to half for the moment)

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#17

This is just my general recommendation for grasping the fundamental nature of both particles: Watch the first three videos in this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj The presentation format is super weird, I know, but this woman has an incredibly deep grasp of Japanese grammar and teaches it in a way that, at least to me, feels way more “true/fundamental” than any random grammar articles I’ve found online. The entire playlist is amazingly useful, and it starts by explaining が, because it’s the central feature of Japanese grammar, and then immediately after it explains は, and how they relate to each other.

Spoiler alert: が is present in every sentence, although in some sentences it’s implied rather than explicitly stated.

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#18

Yeah, answers to questions take が because は is for bringing up new topics. If you answer a question you’re still on the topic of the question, so using は would make it sound like you were ignoring the question and starting to talk about something else.

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#19

CursedKitsune will probably give you a way better answer than mine, so I’ll reply to this bit only.

Basically, as you say in the above quoted paragraph, は mainly focuses on what comes after it, while が focuses on what comes before it. However, where I think you’re getting confused is when は is used for contrast. For example, if you say:

馬が好きです。

This by itself is just a general statement. However, if you switch が with は in that sentence, now you’re creating a contrast between simply liking horses (with the use of が) and liking ONLY horses (with the use of は). That’s because typically you use が before the adjective 好き, but now you’re creating contrast by replacing が with は.

This is why you never want to say 今日は美しい！to a Japanese woman, because it implies that only TODAY she looks beautiful (but not on other days).

Honestly it’ll be easier for you to simply memorize when you typically use が and then remember that switching it with は creates this contrast that posses this extra meaning/context. At least until you get a better feel for it.

Anyway, this is a very complex topic and I’m no linguist, so I can only give you my suggestion. Sometimes it’s better to understand things intuitively, as you do with your native language, than to try to pick every single detail apart. Trust me, you’ll eventually get a better feel for it as you keep learning. I’m with CursedKitune in that it’s better to let it wash over you for now (sort of speak).

Take care!

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#20

Ha! Check this out. I forgot about this video, but it’s simple and to the point:

Also, for the lols:

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