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Help Why は and not が?

Vulcan879

後輩
19 Jan 2017
5
0
16
I signed up for Lang-8, and on the site wrote a sentence I hazily remembered from Pimsleur,
'にほんごがすこしわかります。' A user corrected me with 'にほんごは、すこしわかります。' I'd like to know why he changed the particle が into は.

(I'm asking here in case he can't respond.)
 
Both are correct, and it depends on the context which one should be used. は works as the contrastive marker there, so it connotes, for instance, "(I understand Japanese a little, but) I don't understand Chinese at all, I understand French very well, etc." Thus, if you just want to say "I understand Japanese a little" without any connotation for instance in your self-introduction, が is more appropriate, but if you say this after "I'm good at Spanish", は is more natural.
 
I am puzzled too. I thought the sentence has meaning conerned wtih human attributes and "が should be used. Please let me know the answer when he responds.
 
Both are correct, and it depends on the context which one should be used. は works as the contrastive marker there, so it connotes, for instance, "(I understand Japanese a little, but) I don't understand Chinese at all, I understand French very well, etc." Thus, if you just want to say "I understand Japanese a little" without any connotation for instance in your self-introduction, が is more appropriate, but if you say this after "I'm good at Spanish", は is more natural.
Happy to see your explanation!
 
Understanding the difference between は and が may prove to be one of the most difficult subjects in studying Japanese. Especially in the beginning. Here is slideshow, which i used to refer to whenever a doubt arose wavsga .
 
Understanding the difference between は and が may prove to be one of the most difficult subjects in studying Japanese

One of the most maddening things is to be watching a television show which has both text on the screen and a narrator....and the narrator's script includes the exact sentence which is on the screen, except one is は and the other is が.
 
One of the most maddening things is to be watching a television show which has both text on the screen and a narrator....and the narrator's script includes the exact sentence which is on the screen, except one is は and the other is が.
Which makes a point of Japanese themselves lacking consensus on which particle to use, every now and then.
 
Well, it's an explanation about the emphatic sentence construction in English grammar... I wouldn't trust posters who reply to Japanese learners with the site only in Japanese (and the site is in fact useless...)
 
Well, it's an explanation about the emphatic sentence construction in English grammar... I wouldn't trust posters who reply to Japanese learners with the site only in Japanese (and the site is in fact useless...)
Okay, thanks for the advice.
 
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