Why WA GA ETC?

[jinksys]

Why havent the japanese dropped the WA and maybe even the GA particle?
I understand the need for the other particles, but it seems that after listening to yoda speak his english w/ japanese word order, that the wa ga could be dropped with little change in the sentences meaning. Your thoughts?

[lomagu]

A lot of the time "wa" is dropped in conversation and the meaning doesn't change. So why is it still used? Who knows. Why do we still use "a", "an" and "the" in English? I guess it's just one of those things.

[jinksys]

in english we use A, AN and THE to specify number, or a item in a group.
For example the following sentences are not the same.

Go kill a moose.
Go kill moose.

The first means kill ONE moose.
The second means kill to my heart's content.

[amiyumi]

what does atarashii hibi mean?, does anyone know any websites that can translate romanji into japanese characters or even english?

[jinksys]

it means dont ask questions in other people's posts. Start your own post !:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@

[lomagu]

sorry jinksys, didn't mean to be curt. I just meant that in English prepositions are sometimes more important than at other times. Like, "I'm going to the store." and "I'm going to store." The second sentence sounds funny but it basically means the same as the first one.

In Japanese, they don't use words that translate into "a, an, & the" just like we don't really use words like "wa" and "ga".

"wa" and "ga" still have their uses. It's just that sometimes they're more important than other times. You should check out the 「が Vs は」 post in the Grammar section.

cheers

[MenomaMinx]

There's a book that I use to hear people raving about called something like "wa to ga" that is extraordinarily useful in explaining the differences and usages of both these particles. Unfortunately, the book is entirely in Japanese; so once you are good enough to finally read this book, you probably don't need this book anymore

Anyway, I ran a search, and I think this is the book {although not 100 per cent certain}

"wa to ga (??????)
Author: Noda Hisashi
ISBN: 4874240046
Price: 2000 yen
Publisher: Kuroshio (???????)
Review by Ben Bullock:
In Japanese.
With this book almost any intermediate or advanced learner can master the differentiation of these two particles. Lots of easy-to-read explanations, examples of correct and incorrect usage, and lots of exercises to test and reinforce your knowledge.
"

http://www.csse.monash.edu/~jwb/afaq/ho ... 40046.html

[jinksys]

lomagu wrote:
sorry jinksys, didn't mean to be curt. I just meant that in English prepositions are sometimes more important than at other times. Like, "I'm going to the store." and "I'm going to store." The second sentence sounds funny but it basically means the same as the first one.

In Japanese, they don't use words that translate into "a, an, & the" just like we don't really use words like "wa" and "ga".

"wa" and "ga" still have their uses. It's just that sometimes they're more important than other times. You should check out the 「が Vs は」 post in the Grammar section.

cheers

No need to apologize, any post is a good post.

[Harisenbon]

は　and が　serve very different and important functions in Japanese. Although they seem incomprehensible to foreigners, removing them would remove the ability of Japanese to efficiently convey meaning. Just because they are sometimes dropped in speech does not mean that they can be done without.

From the ga vs ha post,

My mother had her wallet stolen when I was at the airport.

Is very specific about the ha and ga. changing them would change the meaning of the whole sentence. Doing without them would make it incomprehensible.

[Mukade]

MenomaMinx wrote:
There's a book that I use to hear people raving about called something like "wa to ga" that is extraordinarily useful in explaining the differences and usages of both these particles. Unfortunately, the book is entirely in Japanese; so once you are good enough to finally read this book, you probably don't need this book anymore

I wouldn't say that. The book was written for a Japanese audience, and it isn't the first (nor I doubt the last) to deal with the Wa/Ga distinction. The reason is that even Japanese people can have a hard time disentangling all the subtleties of Wa and Ga.

So if the Japanese are still having trouble with it, I doubt any of us are going to master it anytime soon.

[kempokatt]

Go here, read this, it helps.

http://nihongo.3yen.com/2005-02-04/the- ... tween-and/

[jinksys]

THANKS KEMPOKATT!!!
Everyone, if you're kanji skills are great note that you can hold your mouse over the kanji/kana and a tooltip will give you an explanation.

[Spaztick]

I never really had a problem with wa and ga, the differences seemed pretty simple and clear to me: wa is used to show the subject or topic at hand, and ga shows when an action is performed that isn't directly to it.

The only real problems I had was ga vs o, but someone explained that o is used when an action is performed directly on something, not from it, by it, etc.

Watashi wa koukou gakusei - I am a high school student.
Watashi ga koukou gakusei - I high school student'ed. (Of course it doesn't make sense, you cant "high school student" anything, but it helps to show the difference I believe).

[Harisenbon]

言葉を返すですが

Spaztick wrote:
Watashi wa koukou gakusei - I am a high school student.
Watashi ga koukou gakusei - I high school student'ed. (Of course it doesn't make sense, you cant "high school student" anything, but it helps to show the difference I believe).

Actually, both (at least with the wa ga) are correct. Wa and Ga are much more difficult than you think. You forgot your verb, and koukou gakusei is weird.

わたしは　高校生です
I am a High School student

わたしが　高校生です
(In a group of people, or in response to the question "who is a koukousei?")
*I* am a High School Student.

Check out my wa vs ga post for all the ways that they're different. Even Japanese people mess them up sometimes. THey're much more complicated than you think.

[jinksys]

I thought that there wasnt a verb in that sentence, I thought that I just forgot something