Establishing Word Functions with Particles

Welcome back for another installment of this Japanese language course!  When I first saw the word particle in relation to grammar, I assumed maybe I was misreading the word ‘participle’.  I found out pretty quickly though that a particle is a unique function in Japanese that really has no equivalent in English.  So we’ll spend this particular Japanese language course lesson discussing what these little things are. 

Basically, a particle is made of one or two Hiragana characters attached to the end of a word.  The significance of this is that these little characters establish what part of speech that particular word functions as in the sentence.  Using the wrong particle can utterly change the meaning of a sentence so proper usage is important to proper communication.

The 「は」 topic particle

So let’s go ahead and start with one of the most basic particles and that is (in case you couldn’t guess from the secion title) the topic particle.  To put it another way you could just as easily call it the subject particle since that’s essentially what this is.  For example the statement ”Not student.” is a legitimate sentence in Japanese but isn’t terribly descriptive.   The topic/subject particle however allows us to add more information and in this case that woudl be who in particular isn’t a student.   The topic particle is represented by  「は」.   Normally this is pronouced ‘ha’ but when being used as a particle it is changed to ‘wa’.

Example 1

ボブ：　アリスは学生？- Are you (Alice) student?
アリス：　うん、学生。- Yeah, I am.

Alright, so here we have Bob and Alice asking questions (well, just Bob really).  The  「だ」 is left out but we can still translate with the verbs  ‘are’ and ‘am’.  We know that Alice is the subject of the sentence so we don’t need any additional information.  The other reason that the  「だ」is omitted is because you can’t use it and ask a question at the same time since you can’t make a definitive statement a question at the same time.

Example 2

ボブ）　ジムは明日？- Jim is tomorrow?
アリス）　明日じゃない。- Not tomorrow.

Without context this makes no sense.  Why would jim be tomorrow?  In any given context though, as long as it somehow deals with Jim and tomorrow, then it could mean almost anything.  Could be about an exam, a doctor’s appointment, a public execution, we have no idea.

アリス）　今日は試験だ。- Today is exam.
ボブ）　ジムは？ – What about Jim?
アリス）　ジムは明日。 – Jim is tomorrow. (As for Jim, the exam is tomorrow.)

You need to understand just how vague or generic the subject can really be.  That information can come from anywhere in the conversation.  In the above example, the statement is about Jim taking an exam tomorrow even though the word exam doesn’t appear.  We need to realize how generic the topic can really be. A topic can be referring to any action or object from anywhere even including other sentences.

The 「も」 inclusive topic particle

The inclusive topic particle functions in much the same way as a regular topic particle only with the added function of introducing an additonal topic.  It would be like saying “X also Y” (not be confused with “X in my Y?” or “At first I was like “X” but then I was like “Y”).  The particle is represented with  「も」.  Let’s look at an example to see how it’s used.

Example 1

ボブ：　アリスは学生？- Are you (Alice) student?
アリス：　うん、トムも学生。- Yes, and Tom is also student.

Now, the inclusion of the second subject has to follow the logical train of thought.  For example stating that “someone is something” and “also someone else is not” doesn’t make any logical since.  If you wanted to do that you would need to insert the  「は」 particle to separate the two topics from the same association  For example:

Example 2

ボブ：　アリスは学生？- Are you (Alice) student?
アリス：　うん、でもトムは学生じゃない。- Yes, but Tom is not student.

Example 3

Or you could always have neither person as a student:
ボブ：　アリスは学生？- Are you (Alice) student?
アリス：　ううん、トムも学生じゃない。- No, and Tom is also not student.

You’re probably wondering where in the world Tom came from in all of this.  Besides being a deus ex machina of a character for illustrative purposes, he may have been simply in the area or another participant from somewhere else in the conversation.  Without context we really don’t know.  It’s a plot hole okay, don’t read too much into it.  Like why the characters at the end of the recent Friday the 13th remake didn’t just shove Jason into the woodchipper and be done with it.  Just sit there in stunned disbelief and move along.

The 「が」 identifier particle

Okay so both  「は」 and 「も」 particles are used for establishing our topics.  Sweet.  But what if we don’t have any idea what the subject is?  How would you ask – keeping with our current example – “who is the student” or “would they have had the sense to shove Jason into the woodchipper instead of dragging the body to the lake like the biggest morons ever to walk the earth? (Authors Note: <rant>Yeah, I just saw that turd of a movie.  How friggin stupid do you have to be to just assume “well nothing else has killed him so far but God knows this one worked for sure!  Oh yeah I could make little chips out of him but screw it I’m tired.  I’ll take my chances dragging the body to the lake myself”  I mean who is that stupid?!  FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUU-!!!!!” </rant>). We need some kind of identifer  since we don’t know who the student is.  If you formed a question using the topic particle, the sentence would read “Is Who the student?”.  I capitalized Who for a reason since the sentence would mean that you are literally asking about someone named “Who” being a student (similarly you would avoid using the words “”What” or “I don’t know” especially in the context of baseball) . 

Meet the 「が」 particle.  This is really the one called the “subject” particle but we’re going to refer to it as the identifier particle just so we don’t confuse it with the topic particle (since subject and topic are almost synonymous).  The other reason for renaming it is because it is used for identifying an unknown.   Lets look at some examples:

Example 1

ボブ：　誰が学生？- Who is the one that is student?
アリス：　ジムが学生。- Jim is the one who is student.

In this example we want to find out from a range of possibilities who the student is.  Alice indicates that it is Jim.  She had the option of using the topic particle to state that he is a student but not necessarily the student in question.  You’ll see:

Example 2

（１）　誰が学生？ – Who is the one that is student?
（２）　学生は誰？- (The) student is who?

Basically the first example is looking for a specific person wheras the second one is merely talking about the student.  ONe is seeking to identify an unkown the other really isn’t.  Again, 「が」 and 「は」 are not interchangeable since the question then becomes “Is Who a student?”

I realize that the two particles 「は」 and 「が」 appear almost identicle.  That’s because it’s basically impossible to translate that difference directly into English.  For example, both sentences 「私は学生」 and 「私が学生」 mean  “I am student.” (well, there’s no context so this is the closest meaning). There is more to it but a direct translation doesn’t convey all the information the Japanese puts together so succinctly.  Let’s break this down a little more and maybe that will help.  In the first sentence 「私は学生」, because 「私」 is the topic, the sentence means, “Speaking about me, I am a student”. However, in the second sentence, 「私」 is specifying who the 「学生」 is. If we want to know who the student is, the 「が」 particle tells us its 「私」.

Think of it this way.  The 「が」particle always answers a silent question. In the sentence「ジムが魚だ」, the silent question is  “Who is the fish?” or “Which person is the fish?”.  Quite possibly the question could be ”What food does Jim like?” Using another example 「これが車」, the question could be  “Which is the car?” or “What is the car?”.   The 「は」 and 「が」 particles really do serve different functions once you understand them properly.   The 「が」 particle identifies a specific unknown property of something while the 「は」 particle only used when bringing up a topic of conversation. Over time you’ll get better at figuring it out but you’ll also noitce that in longer sentences commas are usually used to separate to topics to avoid ambiguity.

Alright, so that pretty much covers it for particles.  I know it’s a lot to absorb and pretty confusing at first so I would recommend you check out some other resources that offer more depth.  If you’re looking for any additional resources, I recommend either Rocket Japanese or Nihongo Japanese Video Course. You can check out my reviews page by either clicking here or by clicking on the Reviews tab at the top of the page.