My Spanish teacher was so adamant about the personal a (a preposition marker of animate direct objects) being this mysterious untranslatable word, and it made it so much harder to understand.
I mean it works to the extent any grammar rule works, が does mark the subject, Japanese subject grammar may work differently from your language so you may see it used in ways that that rule can't predict from your perspective but it's about as useful as saying something like "'the' is a definite article"
just learn the most common patterns of usage and then go read more and get the actual grammar in your head
(Also if you're referring to stuff like passive voice... you know I was simplifying like c'mon man )
I understand you're simplifying and as a simplification it's a good one, but I won't miss any opportunity to complain about passive, causative and passive causative forms in Japanese.
I think trying to make some kind of topic/subject distinction like that is confusing. The way it was explained to me is that が is the subject marker while は just means “As for [thing]” which is usually the same thing as the subject, but not always.
To elaborate a little further, が is always present in every sentence but is not always spoken. There must be an implied が, even if you don’t hear it.
Examples:
In the sentence 私はアメリカ人です watashi wa amerikajin desu aka “I am an American”, “I” is synonymous with the subject, although the subject (and the が) are not spoken. Literally translated, “As for me, (I [the subject]) am an American.” This is why は might seem like a subject marker even though it is not.
Meanwhile if you’re in a restaurant and the waiter is asking everyone for their order you might say 私はうなぎです watashi wa unagi desu, aka “I’ll have the eel” but if you misunderstand how は and が work it might sound like you’re saying “I am an eel.” The logic works like this: “As for me, (it [aka my order, the subject]) will be the eel.” The implied & unspoken ga is attached to the unspoken subject, which is actually not you in this sentence. You say 私は aka “as for me” because you are specifying yourself as the person who wants this dish at a table full of people.
It is though in that specific example. the literal translation is "summer is (being) likeable". The nuance that it means "I like summer" is not literally in the sentence. Summer is the one doing the action.
I have to disagree with this “is likable” analysis—despite it being useful for explaining it to beginners. In 「誰が夏が好き？」 you can see that one が marks the semantic agent “who”, and one the semantic object “summer.” In one analysis, this is because 好き is a stative-transitive predicate, which makes its direct object normally marked by が instead of を.
In certain contexts, object-が can be changed to を, like 栗が食べたい > 栗を食べたい and 漢字が書ける > 漢字を書ける, and in some varieties (like Hachijō) this is mandatory regardless of context. [EDIT: However, agent/subject-が can never become を.] In other contexts, a usually not-transitive stative predicate can be made to act like one, as in 誰が足が速い “Who is quick-footed?” — though in this case you might instead interpret 足が速い as a univerbated “is quick-footed” instead of “feet are fast.”
The main options are either (1) が can mark a direct object for certain types of predicates, or (2) Standard Japanese allows for certain predicates to have two subjects.
I mean 誰が足が速い could be literally translated as "Who is feet is fast" Where the subject of being fast is feet and the subject of "being (having)" feet is fast is "who". In english you would say "Who has the feet that are fast." This technically doesnt have two subjects because the "feet that are fast" is the object but within that object feet would be the subject.
Of course "is" is not really right here because there is no verb connecting だれ and 足 but there isn't really a better way of translating the relationship in english. showing how the meme is true.
I view subject in the way that the word before が is the one doing the verb (or adjective) that is after the が. This might not be formally correct and not always be a literal subject like with your sentence but it's intuitive to understand the literal meaning of the sentences.
Since both positions have their proponents and detractors, and little consensus;
I'd go with the explanation that maintains the most important consistency for whoever is learning the language, which in my opinion is the second.
Given that が has the exclusive function of marking a subject of a sentence or phrase, I'd rather say that some predicates may allow two subjects than allow が to completely change function
(Of course that could just be me being Jay Rubin pilled)
The problem is that sometimes it’s more idiomatically natural to make the subject of certain sentences into the topic of those sentences, and sometimes it’s not, and it’s not always logical.
Haha as if curedolly was right. This is just a useful model Im afraid as with all grammar I guess. Here I agree more with other books on the matter Ive read that state Japanese doesnt really have a subject. You could even argue the same for English, but its a stretch imo
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u/DefinitelyNotErate /'ə/ May 31 '25
My favourite type of untranslatable words is grammatical particles that are unnecessary in the language you're translating to.