-
Japanese “Wa” (は) and “Ga” (が)
Two weeks ago I talked about Japanese particles and how the Japanese particle “ga” (が) (subject marker) started appearing in my Pimsleur lessons when I was expecting “wa” (は) (topic marker), and how it sounded new to me. But actually, last week my daughter and I were driving around and I played lesson one in the car for us to listen to together, and I was reminded that “ga” (が) was used then. This got me thinking more about the wa/ga situation. I am still fuzzy on when to use “wa” (は) and when to use “ga” (が), but in addition to the guidelines I mentioned in my Japanese particle…
-
Japanese Particles
Since I started my current language learning schedule in September of last year, I’ve used immersion methods both in my various listening lessons and in my Duolingo app, without referring to any kind of grammatical guides. But this week while I was listening to my level one Japanese lessons in Pimsleur, I heard something new that I had to investigate. Up until now, “wa” (は), has been used as a main word marker. In my lessons it was described as a word that translates to “as for,” so “watashi wa” (わたしは) would mean “as for me” or “I am.” Why わ and は sound the same but have different hiragana…
