When are you supposed to use は or が

[Genius]

this question has plagued me forever or at least for the past few days. how do you defrentiate when you are supposed to use "ha" or "ga"? i learned the "ha" but i didn't really cover the "ga". i know in japan people there seem to use ga quite a bit so im guessing it would be a pretty important thing to learn. im reading this tutorial on glenn's profile, the teach yourself japanese and it says nomitive marker, non-topic=ga; topic=ha.

when i was in japan and i smiled at some girls i got a sugoi ne. ha ga shiroi. but if you follow what it says above aren't my teeth the topic so shouldn't it be ha ha shiroi? althogh that sounds funny wouldn't that also be correct?

do japanese brush their teeth regularly? :? i noticed the quite a few of them had bad oral hygiene. is dentistry still in its beggining stages? i did notice some girls who had nice smile because they had straight, white teeth.

[Dan B]

Genius,

The post below should help answer your question about は and が . Someone brought this up just a few days ago. Here you go:

http://www.jref.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9661

Regards,

Dan

[Genius]

*bangs head on desk*

:? much better. now the inside of my head doesn't hurt anymore. :D is there anybody out there who can speak proper japanese like a person from japan. (applies to people who's first language was english) i just want to know if it's possible to learn how to speak correctly.

my head hurts again

*bang**bang**bang**bang* :-) much better

[Elizabeth]

*bangs head on desk*

:? much better. now the inside of my head doesn't hurt anymore. :D is there anybody out there who can speak proper japanese like a person from japan. (applies to people who's first language was english) i just want to know if it's possible to learn how to speak correctly.

my head hurts again

*bang**bang**bang**bang* :-) much better
Of course we have Japanese helpers out there somewhere. Was there nothing from them in the thread Dan put up to actually answer your question ?

You can also work to improve your chances of being noticed by actually posting in the Learning Japanese forum as opposed to this nominally one set aside for Japanese Language only messages. :bluush:

Although even I can tell that 'Ha ga (subject, not topic marker) sugoi' is correct for referring to your conversation partner's teeth. 'Ha wa sugoi/shiroi' ne would read more like 'Teeth (in general) are awesome/white' aren't they ? :D

[vinsento]

Hi all, I'm new to Jref.

To the above posters question here is a great link I found, enjoy:

http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/~ts/japanese/topicfocus.html

hope it helps.

[mdchachi]

It's possible but difficult to lose your accent.