Japanese

[Silvuh]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

A time like this would be a good time to elaborate on the difference between "wa" and "ga" since a lot of people struggle to grasp the concept. I'd do it myself, but to be totally honest, I'm not 100% on the exact difference myself.

"Ga" is used to introduce a noun. "Wa" is used when the noun has already been brought up. If you were introducing your umbrella to a conversation, you might say, like,　私のかさがきのうてきだ。 My umbrella is functional. But if, like, someone asked you if your umbrella worked, you'd use "wa" because your umbrella has already been introduced as a noun.　私のかさはきのうてきだ。 sounds more like "As for my umbrella, it's functional."

Originally Posted by Afrobean

Actually there are some subtleties in other consanents, but they go mostly overlooked. Things like the fact that most Americans don't actually pronounce the T sound correctly, or little things like the difference between ぢ and じ (or how about the fact that じ is often oversimplified in a way that removes its similarity to the accented S group).

Actually, part of the definition of kanji is that the character's come from China. Not sure about where readings or meanings stand, but the characters themselves are Chinese.

Oh, really? Thanks for those clarifications. And do you think you could explain those subtleties?

Originally Posted by Afrobean

If I were you, I'd be clarifying that that particle can only be used with nouns and that adjective/adverb conjunction requires another particle (that, incidentally, slips my mind at present).

Right, yeah. I thought about mentioning that, but I forgot to. The adjective conjuction is different for い and な adjectives.
To say "My house is large and clean", you'd say （私の）家は大きくて、きれいだ。 You replace the い with くて when an い adjective comes first. "My house is clean and large" would be （私の）家はきれい... Well, darn, I forgot how to conjoin な adjectives.

Originally Posted by Afrobean

Shouldn't some kind of kanji be used for tanjoobi? That definitely looks like the word "yoobi" in there, so logically it should have that kanji there at the very least. And actually, I just put "birthday" in a google translate and it gave me "誕生日", so yeah, I'd say so.

Yeah, that's the Kanji for birthday. I didn't know that first Kanji there, though. And the previous poster used hirigana, so I thought I may as well. Same reason why I didn't use the Kanji for 好き (like).


Oh, and here's another random fun note.
も can be a particle for "also". すしが好きだ。うなぎも好きだ。 I like sushi. I also like unagi. ... Yeah, that was just one of those things I learned at the same time I learned the "～が好きです。" thing.

(Just to note, the だ at the end of the sentence I've been using is the short form present of な adjectives and nouns. これはえんぴつです。 is more formal than これはえんぴつだ。 But I believe that people often skip the だ, too, and say これはえんぴつ。　Unless it's emphasized, like, you wouldn't say これはえんぴつよ。 You'd keep the だ when using よ or　ね.)

P.S. All corrections are welcome.

[jimerax]

Originally Posted by Silvuh

"Ga" is used to introduce a noun. "Wa" is used when the noun has already been brought up. If you were introducing your umbrella to a conversation, you might say, like,　私のかさがきのうてきだ。 My umbrella is functional. But if, like, someone asked you if your umbrella worked, you'd use "wa" because your umbrella has already been introduced as a noun.　私のかさはきのうてきだ。 sounds more like "As for my umbrella, it's functional."

Actually the sentense "私の傘が機能的だ" contains the meaning of "some other things (like other umbrellas or other possessions of mine) aren't functional". If you just want to say "My umbrella is functional", using "は" is a lot more natural in almost all cases.

In another case, if you want to say "My right leg hurts.", you should use "が" like "(私の)右足が痛い". "は" is awkward in this case.