The difference between 「は」 and 「が」
Since this is my first post, I figured I would start from the very basics. While the word “basic” has a connotation of meaning “easy” (eg Visual Basic), this is not the case for Japanese. The most basic ideas in Japanese are the hardest to grasp because the fundamental differences between English and Japanese leaves out any way to actually express the idea in English. Unless you speak a similar language like Korean *eh hem*, you’re going to have to wrestle with a concept that doesn’t even exist in your native language. One such example is the idea of particles and especially the particles 「は」 and 「が」.
What’s the difference between 「は」 and 「が」?
I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard the question, “What is the difference between the 「は」 and 「が」 particle?” This question has successfully managed to baffle countless generations of people learning Japanese. This has been followed by countless number of equally confusing (and sometimes wrong) explanations involving a great deal of mumbo-jumbo such as contrast, emphasis, subordinate clauses, and voodoo magic. However, with my genius, I was able to provide a complete explanation in one small sentence.
「は」 and 「が」 have different meanings.
I think the more appropriate question would be, “What isn’t different about 「は」 and 「が」?” You may be thinking, “But in English, they both identify the subject of the sentence.” Ahh, English. Isn’t English that language that can’t even express the very concept of 「は」 and 「が」? Well, no wonder it looks the same in that language. That’s like a green-blue color-blind person holding a green and blue sheet of paper and saying, “Hey, isn’t this the same color?”
Japanese: A language of context
Since 「は」 and 「が」 mean totally different things, the only thing we need to do in order to identify their differences is to fully understand what they actually mean and why they exist. The first thing we need to realize is that a Japanese sentence is not required to have a subject. You can just say, “Hit ball” and you’re good to go. So how do you know what the heck everybody is talking about?
Well, there are several ways and they all involve making assumptions from context. For example, if I suddenly asked you, “Ate lunch?” you assume I’m asking if you ate lunch because I’m surely not talking about anyone else. Therefore, you answer, “Ate lunch.” Then I assume you are talking about yourself since I just asked you the question and so I now know that you ate lunch. However, if we happened to be talking about Alice when I asked you the question, you will likely assume that I’m asking if Alice ate lunch because that’s who we were talking about.
Ok, so what does 「は」 mean?
If we take a language like Japanese where the subject is so heavily based on context, we need to be able to identify a couple things. While making assumptions from context will work for simple question and answer sessions, anything more complicated will soon become a mess as everybody starts to lose track of who or what they’re talking about. Therefore, we need to be able to tell the listener when we want to change the current topic to say, “Hey, I’m going to talk about this now. So don’t assume I’m still talking about the old thing.” This is especially important when you strike up a new conversation and you need to tell the listener what you’re talking about. This is what the 「は」 particle does; it introduces a different topic from the current one. For that reason, it is also referred to as the ‘topic particle’.
Lets take the previous example where I wanted to ask you if you ate. The conversation might look like the following:
Me) 食べた？ - Did you eat?
You) 食べた。 - I ate.
Now, what if I wanted to ask you if Alice ate? Then I need to use the 「は」 particle to indicate that I’m talking about Alice. Otherwise, you would just assume I’m talking about you.
Me) アリスは食べた？ - Did Alice eat?
You) 食べた。 - She ate.
Notice how once I establish Alice as the new topic, we can continue to assume that we are talking about her until someone changes the topic.
So what does 「が」 mean then?
There is one more thing we need to be able to identify in addition to the 「は」 particle. Ok, so we can identify a new topic using the 「は」 particle. But what if we don’t know what the topic is? What if I wanted to ask, “Who ate the chicken?” What I need is some kind of identifier because I don’t know who ate the chicken. If I used the 「は」 particle, the question would become, “Did who eat the chicken?” and that doesn’t make any sense because “who” is not an actual person.
This is where the 「が」 particle comes into play. It is also referred to as the subject particle but I hate that name since it means something completely different in English grammar. Instead, I move to call it the identifier particle because it identifies something unknown.
The conversation about the chicken-eater culprit might go something like this:
Me) 誰がチキンを食べた？ - Who ate the chicken?
You) アリスが食べた。 - Alice ate it.
Notice that the 「が」 particle is used twice because you need to identify who ate the chicken in the answer. You can’t say 「アリスは食べた。」 because we’re not talking about Alice. We’re trying to identify the unknown person that ate the chicken.
Conclusion
Now, that I’ve clearly explained what 「は」 and 「が」 means, I hope this will finally clear up that question that has been haunting your mind. Remember, if you are talking about something new, use 「は」. If you are trying to identify something unknown, use 「が」. Simple, huh?
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February 10th, 2005 at 8:19 pm
You explained it so much better than any of the Japanese classes I have taken (3 different teachers) or my dad.
April 2nd, 2005 at 1:42 am
nice first post, but gaaah! im not up on my katakana nor kanji yet, so was struggling to get the words in the simple sentances. could you have maybe explained the kanji, used a simple japanese name, and broken the sentence into parts, with spaces, for us simple foke; its like trying to understand soimething simple, explained in relatively complex terms, which will help us understand these complex terms :(
April 2nd, 2005 at 1:08 pm
Did you know that all the readings and meaning can be seen by holding the mouse over the word? Maybe that will help.
April 9th, 2005 at 10:42 pm
yep, thanks, i had to look in ie as firefox was screwing up, which eventually took firefox out completely :( good work, thanks again.
July 25th, 2005 at 11:14 am
I can honestly say i have a better understanding of Wa and Ga because of your post really, great work, and thanks.
August 17th, 2005 at 12:05 am
i kind of get what you are trying to say but can you also explain why in statements, sometimes, the が particle is used instead of the は particle, when obviously in both instances the context is clear and the subject is known. for example,
かせが 強いです。but instead of が particle, why not use the は particle instead like the sentence below?
かせは 強いです。
thanks for the work anyway.
August 17th, 2005 at 10:39 am
Because you’re not talking about wind in general, you want to specify that that specific wind is strong.
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:38 am
I can not see the katakana / kanji and my browser did not ask me to install. Why? What am I doing wrong?
Andrew
http://www.PriceComparison.com
September 2nd, 2005 at 2:53 pm
Depends on your browser and OS. This page might be handy.
http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/browsers.html
March 30th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Thanks for the post! Up until now the best advice I’d heard on は and が was from my high school Japanese teacher, who just assured us that ‘oh, someday you’ll pick it up.’
Incidentally, I agree that the terms ‘topic marker’ and ’subject marker’ are more confusing than helpful. While the words ’subject’ and ‘topic’ may be clearly distinct in their usage as grammatical terms, the fact that they’re nearly interchangeable in everyday conversation has always been quite confusing to me (as in, ‘I introduced a new topic of conversation’ vs. ‘I introduced a new subject of conversation’).
October 3rd, 2006 at 11:16 am
i thought you made some great points and you halfway cleared up the issue. i would like to see you explain “ga” from a statement point of view rather than a question. for instance, its very difficult for me, as an english speaker, to grasp why it is
sushi GA suki da
(noun) ga particle (adjective)
but
tenki wa ii da
(noun) wa particle (adjective)
October 3rd, 2006 at 5:56 pm
Again, it’s the difference between identifying something and talking about something.
“sushi ga suki da” is identifying what you like. It answers the question, “What do you like?”.
“sushi wa suki da” is talking about sushi and that you like it.
“tenki GA ii” would also identify what is good. For instance, if somebody asked you, “What is good about today?” you can identify the weather as being the thing that is good.
But most of the time, we just want to talk about the weather, therefore it is usually the topic: “tenki wa ii”.
Also, you can’t attach “da” to “ii” because it’s an i-adjective.
February 7th, 2007 at 9:29 am
You know I’ve been seeking a clear explanation for this question for literally 2 years. I have received answers like “GA adds emphasis” and “GA is the subject particle” and “GA describes what comes before it,” and none of them have helped me. It is honestly the hardest aspect of Japanese thus far, and that includes kanji. This entry has caused me to be able to understand why I’m supposed to use GA in certain situations, and maybe now my Japanese grammar will sound less broken and zombie-like.
May 29th, 2007 at 1:53 am
This was such a great explanation. I’m heading off to Japan in a little more than a week, and this was one issue I was really insecure about. Now I think I got it, after 2 years of study. Thanks so much!!
June 11th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
Thanks! Great site and great advice!!
June 26th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
(Phew! I finally finished typing it!)
HERE’S MY EXPLANATION:
http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/431/picture1wc4.png
December 8th, 2007 at 5:36 am
OK, I think I understand this now. It seems to me that things marked with は act sort of outside the sentence. I like to think of a sentence kind of like a function of the following form:
verb([subject], [direct object], [other things that interact with the verb in some way])
In Japanese of course, the subject and some other parameters are optional. Then comes は, which doesn’t really fit into this “function”, but rather sets a context around the function that makes its meaning clearer. Does this analogy seem to correctly convey the idea?
December 8th, 2007 at 6:03 am
Yes, は sets the context. Think about a ball that represents your current topic. Every time you use は, you move the ball to another topic. Until you want to move the ball to another topic, you can continue talking about the current topic without having to directly mention it anywhere in the sentence.