第048号 · Issue 048
The Slot Decides Before You Do
{{first_name | みんな}}さん、こんにちは ☕
先週友達が教えてくれた店は、駅から遠かった。
The shop my friend told me about last week was far from the station. Two particles, one sentence. 👀
You chose neither of them.
友達が is が because it sits inside a chunk describing 店, and topic-marking は cannot go in there. 店は is は because it is the main clause's topic, with nothing competing for the slot. 📌
Every hesitation over a sentence like that was over something already decided.
Know someone still waiting for は and が to click? Send them this. Share this issue →
The rule they hand you next is not the rule either
You know the definitions. は is the topic, が is the subject. You can recite them, you still stall at the particle, and it gets worse the longer the sentence gets, which is the opposite of how a learned rule behaves. 🚪
The rule is answering a different question from the one you are asking.
After "topic and subject" comes "は is old information, が is new." Real tendency, fine as a default, not what the specialists think the rule is. The standard Japanese reference on は and が, published in 1996, treats information status as one factor among several, alongside the reach of the subject and the force of the assertion. ⚡
The counterexamples are one line each. Name three people, then say 太郎が一番年上だ. 太郎 is already in the conversation and takes が anyway. Novels open with は on a character nobody has met.
一 言 | ☝️ Chotto ちょっと Here is the move that holds up. Ask at the clause, not at the particle. は is sentence-level: it sets up what the whole sentence is about, and its reach runs to the end. が works inside a clause. A chunk doing a job for a noun has no sentence to be about, so は has nothing to take scope over. 💡 |
Three positions where the choice was never yours
One. Inside a clause describing a noun. 連体修飾節: the chunk in front of a noun telling you which one. これは［リーさんが描いた］絵です。 In a short one の is allowed too: 私が書いた本, 私の書いた本. So the instruction is not "use が", it is "not は". 🎴
Two. Straight after a question word, and in the answer. 誰が来ましたか。→ 田中さんが来ました。 The Japan Foundation's grammar notes put it flatly: は cannot attach to a 疑問詞. A question word is the unidentified part, so it cannot be what the sentence is already about. 🎯
Three. Inside a tight adverbial clause. ～とき, ～たら, ～ば, ～ので, ～のに, ～と, ～ながら. ［アンさんが来たら］始めましょう。
危 険 | ⚠️ Abunai 危ない Do not upgrade that to "subordinate clauses take が." Loose ones go the other way. ～が, ～けれど, ～から, ～し take は without complaint, and so do ～と思う and noun clauses: 私は日本語を勉強しているが、弟は韓国語をやっている。 The line runs between tight and loose. 😅 |
The packaging is ours. Each position is documented on its own in official teaching material; nobody publishes them as a set of three. We claim the tidying, not the finding. 🤝
Two hedges. It is the thematic は that is blocked from a noun-modifying clause, and the national language institute writes 使いにくい, hard to use, rather than impossible. Contrastive は does get in, and the field uses that as a test for which は it is. Under negation it moves what is denied: 全部は食べなかった leans to "not all of it", 全部食べなかった to none. Tendency, not a scope rule. 🍵
A fourth position only looks forced: first mention, and reporting what just happened. あ、雨が降ってきた。 Strong default, but 雨は降ってきた is possible with a topic reading, so that one you can get right on purpose. The other three you cannot. 💪
This Issue's Japanese
Word
対象Ordinary and current. Roughly N3, though no official per-word list has existed since 2010
Means: what an action, a study, a feeling or a rule is pointed at. Target or scope. 📌
Use it: 調査の対象 · 子供を対象にした講座· 対象外
Reading trap: たいしょう is at least four words. 対照 is contrast, 対称 is symmetry, 対象 is the target one. We have said 対比all issue, so: 対比 and 対照 contrast, 対象 points. ⚡
Kanji 漢字
Meaning: elephant.
Grade: elementary, fifth year, and only recently. It moved up from fourth in the 2017 notification, one of twenty-one characters, in force from April 2020. Many charts still say fourth. 👀
Readings: ショウ · ゾウ. The official table lists no 訓読み at all.
Common words: 印象· 象徴· 現象· 対象
The trap is the reading: nearly every abstract compound takes ショウ. The animal is ゾウ. No rule underneath it, so anyone meeting the elephant first guesses ゾウ and is wrong almost every time.
This issue's connection: 猫が好きだ marks 猫 with が while 猫 does nothing at all. It is the 対象, what the liking points at, and what to call it has been argued for seventy years. And 象は鼻が長い, the most argued-over sentence in the language, still has no settled analysis of 象は: discourse topic, a subject with a syntactic seat of its own, or a topicalised possessive. Nobody proved Japanese has no subject; that argument was for dropping the term. 🙌
Renshuu Time 練習📝
「かっこでくくる」. Brackets, on Japanese you already wrote. About fifteen minutes.
→ Find eight sentences you have written. Journal, messages, old homework. Longer than five words each.
→ Bracket every clause that describes a noun. Actually draw the bracket.
→ Look at the subject inside each bracket. が, の, or did a は get in?
→ Then the other direction. Rewrite three so each has a main-clause は and a bracketed clause with が inside.
You will know you did it when: three of your eight hold both particles, the が is inside a bracket, and you can point at the noun that bracket describes. 🎯
If every が you own sits at the front of its sentence, you have not been building modifying clauses at all. That is the thing to work on.
✨ Yatta やった
Ran out of evening before the rewrites? Bracketing is the half that changes what you notice. 💡
The tiny win
Nobody was going to hand you a decision procedure, because the field does not have one. What you get is three positions where the particle was never yours. Three fewer hesitations per sentence, and that compounds.
One reply back
Hit reply with one sentence of yours that has a bracketed clause in it. We are collecting them for a future issue. 🍵
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Kotoba Brew Editorial Desk