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Particle weirdness - "ga" as object?

wakarimasen

後輩
29 Dec 2004
23
1
13
Hey,

I'm brand new here, so please forgive me if I'm asking an old or dumb question. :) I tried searching but didn't find anything readily available to answer my query.

I'm just starting to learn Japanese and finding it fascinating. However I am hitting one mental roadblock, and I'd very much appreciate it if someone could help me get through it.

I know "ga" is supposed to be a marker of a sentence's subject. This makes sense in most sentences I've encountered. For example, I think I understand the way this works:

Biiru ga hoshii desu.
Literally this is "Beer is desired," right?

But, here's a really simple sentence (right out of my books) which makes no sense to me:

Nihongo ga wakarimasu. - (I) understand Japanese.

But it doesn't really make sense for Nihongo to be the sentence's subject. In English that would be "Japanese understands." Really, nihongo should be the direct object, no?

One site I found just sort of explains this phenomenon away by saying "Well, some verbs just take ga instead of wo." Is there a rule or some kind of better explanation? I'd really appreciate any insight you can offer. :)

Thank you!!
Justin
 
The case marker ga indeed always indicates the subject (except archaic use as genitive ex: seki ga hara), no problem with that.
For "biiru ga hoshii desu", in Japanese this structure is with a stative verb=adjective, and like you said it means litteraly "beer is desired".
For "nihongo ga wakarimasu", this verb is intransitive in Japanese (no object, just a subject). The basic meaning of this verb is "to be resolved", "to be made clear" : it has a passive meaning, and thus takes a subject with -ga.
NIhongo ga wakarimasu = Japanese is intelligible (for me)
 
lol - good point. However, there is still much I don't understand. ;) I'm sure the name will fit for a good long time!
 
ToMach said:
The case marker ga indeed always indicates the subject (except archaic use as genitive ex: seki ga hara), no problem with that.
For "biiru ga hoshii desu", in Japanese this structure is with a stative verb=adjective, and like you said it means litteraly "beer is desired".
For "nihongo ga wakarimasu", this verb is intransitive in Japanese (no object, just a subject). The basic meaning of this verb is "to be resolved", "to be made clear" : it has a passive meaning, and thus takes a subject with -ga.
NIhongo ga wakarimasu = Japanese is intelligible (for me)
One shift in the language I still can't get my mind around is changes for some verbs in the direction of taking "ga" as a subject marker to "wo" as direct object as there is nothing remotely similar in English. Because making it transitive it seen as more direct and less polite ? Does it ever go in the reverse ? Case in point would be potential verbs, only "ga" used to be accepted use, now I understand "wo" is also alright. Nihongo wo yomeru, etc....
 
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