は vs を in negative sentences

Japanese
#1

Hello! This is my first post in the community.

I recently started studying grammar so I am still at N5 level.

I have a question regarding using は or を in negative sentences.

I have seeing there is a trend in Bunpro’s example sentences in the lesson for negative verbs in which most of the examples use the particle は.

For example: 寿司は食べない。

I was just wondering what’s the difference of saying something like that, compared to using を instead. Like: 寿司を食べない。

I already have the idea that all these particles have other advanced alternative uses and nuances, so I was just wondering at a basic level what would be the difference between saying one or the other, if there’s any.

Thank you!

#2

As you may already know, は is known as the topic particle. In your examples, you can think of how the difference between it and を functions as follows:

寿司は食べない。On the topic of sushi/as for sushi, I don’t eat it (with an emphasis on not eating it). Maybe someone was talking about what food people don’t like to eat, so you change the topic specifically to how you don’t eat sushi.

寿司を食べない。I don’t eat sushi. This is just more of a general statement of you not tending to eat sushi.

For more information on は, as well as が (which people tend to confuse in using compared to は, I know I did for a long time!), I highly recommend this article, it breaks it down really well:

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#3

Thank you very much for your reply, I understand better know. Also thank you for sharing that resource!

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