What does "wa" mean?

[daBigNY]

i am learning japanese and i am finding this phrase in many odd place and was wondering what it means?

also learning japanese through pimsleur is great! i am also learning italian and russian through it. it's awesome. now i have to start learning to read and write it. does anyone have any advise on what to use to learn and/or where to start?

 

[TwistedMac]

you're seriously trying to learn 3 languages (and russian, japanese and italian no less) at the same time?

if you succeed, i'll give you a threefinger salute with full honours!

about "wa".. i'm not even gonna start.. i think elizabeth or Nangi or someone will have a good answer on that one..

about where to start on the writing..

Hiragana and Katakana are a good place to start...

There's a very old but good program called "Power Japanese" or "Power Japanese X" (it's the same thing) for all aspects of japanese on a beginners level. Not to encourage anything, but this program is known to be in rotation on most anime hubs on DC *hint hint* *wink wink*

 

[kdynamic]

wa is a particle marking the topic of a sentence (not to be confused with the subject, which is marked by 'ga')

That's the short version. I've been studying Japanese for years and I still get confused about wa. so, yeah, good luck!

 

[Buntaro]

daBigNY,

kdynamic is right, "wa" indicates that the word right in front of it is the "topic" of the sentence. There is no such grammatical term in English.

"Watashi wa benkyou shimasu." = "I study," where "watashi" is the topic of the sentence.

"Watashi wa onaka ga suita." = "I'm hungry." Here we have sentence with both a topic and a subject for the verb suita "empty". Watashi "I" is the topic and onaka "stomach" is the subject.

The word wa is often translated into English as "As for ~", so the sentence could be literally translated as, "As for me, my stomach is empty."

 

[TronDD]

And that is exactly what is wrong with Pimsleur. If it doesn't tell you what "wa" means it's not telling you anything.

You'll have similar problems learning Russian from it, too. (check out the MasterRussian.NET forums. The Penguin book is what you want for Russian.)

I recommend "Kanji and Kana A Handbook of the Japanese Writing System" by Hadamitzky and Spahn. It shows all the Kana and how they are used and where they come from. And it has the ~2000 official kanji, explanations, history, and how to use a kanji dictionary.

 

[blessed]

wohoo, good luck with Russian...a language I sometimes consider too diffitult for myself.

piece of advice... learn where the stress is placed really really well, cause if you speak to most natives and dont get that right, they will not get what you say... (this I get from personal experience)
...another piece of advise: learn how to write linked (if you dont) cause all russians do it, and boy, do they judge you on your handwriting... attempt calligraphy as well since I haven't met many people who were educated, at least for a few years, during communism (18 years +) who didnt get tought this tought to them...

good luck with japanese and Italian as well.

 

[daBigNY]

you're seriously trying to learn 3 languages (and russian, japanese and italian no less) at the same time?

if you succeed, i'll give you a threefinger salute with full honours!

the languages are different enough that they won't get confused in my mind. also i grew up trilingual so picking up other langauges are easier for me. i grew up speaking english, creole and french.

And that is exactly what is wrong with Pimsleur. If it doesn't tell you what "wa" means it's not telling you anything.

i can't say that i am not learning anything but the point of learning japanese through anything other than a classroom teacher, is to get an quick version of everything. i nevertheless supplement the lessons with reading and a dictionary to add to my vocabulary.

 

[TronDD]

It's grammar that you'll need to supplement Pimsleur with. "Wa" is a pefect example. It's grammar in word form. Good that you're looking to other sources. Pimsleur has it's effective points, too, but I would never recommend anyone use it alone.