Japanese - Grammar III - が、も、and で

In Grammar I and Grammar II you learned about some of the particles in Japanese (は、を、に、etc.) Now it's time to introduce the last of the big ones you need for basic Japanese (even intermediate and advanced.) As always, make sure you read over Grammar I and II before reading this post, since the lessons DO build on themselves.

Grammar Point I - が

が is the topic marker in Japanese. Now I know you may be thinking what the hell does that mean? and it is hard to explain. But I'll try my best, through explanations and examples, to explain what this means.

The topic of a sentence is a lot like the subject of the sentence (thus the infamous Japanese linguistics issue ― the difference between は and が.) But the name itself can be a huge giveaway to the nuance. A subject is just that. The subject. The actor (or doer) of the sentence. A topic is more egotistical you could say. The topic wants, and is, the center of attention. It is, after all, the topic of the sentence. In this sense, が puts more emphasis on the noun than は does. 

Another hint to the nuance between は and が is looking at the ways they are used. One of my Japanese friends once told me that you always use が less when talking in formal Japanese because it's a little rougher and sounds too bold. Look at these examples and see if you can get a feel for the nuance here.

かれ は だいがくせい だ よ。 = He's a college student

かれ が だいがくせい だ よ。 = He's a college student

In the two sentence above the only difference is は and が but the translation changes a little. The second sentence puts emphasis on the fact that HE is a college student (maybe in contrast to someone else.) The first sentence is a lot more natural sounding, but the second version is grammatically correct and this structure is used. When putting both of them into Google using kanji and writing them in quotation marks, the first version came up with about 192,000 hits and the second version came up with about 29,300 hits (search date 9/3/11.)

Here's another example. This uses grammar we haven't covered yet, but don't worry because the translation will give you enough information for the purpose of this example.

ねた ほう が いい よ ね = It would be better if you slept. (You should go to bed.)

Literally this sentence says "The way of sleeping is good." This is often used in comparisons, so this could also mean "Sleeping would be better (than not sleeping.)" You RARELY hear or see は used in the _______ ほう ___ いい pattern. It is almost always ほうがいい and not ほうはいい.
In fact, when I put ほうはいい into Google, it thought I had misstyped something.

ほうはいい DID get a lot of hits, but ほうがいい got seven times more hits.

What does this tell us? That が does indeed put emphasis. In the ほうがいい grammar point, you are saying that X is better than Y. It is usually used for comparisons or saying that X is the best way to go. This is a very emphatic kind of sentence and therefore が is used.

Okay okay, that was a lot of explaining. Now that you hopefully have a better feel for how が differs from は lets look at some usage examples.

きゃ～！それ が すき だ！ = Ohhh! I like that one!　(that + が + liked + is)

あれ？かれ が くる？ = Eh? Is he coming?　（he + が + come?)

Grammar II - も

So how do you say "too" (as in "I'm learning Japanese too!") For that you use the particle も！ も isn't used at the end of the sentence like "too" in English is. It is used just like all the other particles we've learned. You slap that sucker on the end of the noun it's modifying.

Here's an example.

わたし も すし が すき です！ = I like sushi too! (I also like sushi!)

かれ も だいがくせい です。 = He's a college student too. (He is also a college student.)

※ も is also used in other ways, but this is the most common. Other usages will be introduced later.

Grammar III - で

で has two important meanings I'm going to cover here. One is an instrumental meaning and the other is kind of like a preposition.

Instrumental で

One usage of で is to mark the instrumental noun of a sentence. In other words, it translates as "with" or "using." Here is an example:

はし で たべました。 = I ate with chopsticks.

パソコン で べんきょう します。 = I study with a computer.

The "tool" you use to carry out the verb is marked with で.

Prepositional で

The other important usage of で is similar to a preposition. で marks the location of the action. For example:

スーパー で かいました。 = I bought it at the super market.

とうきょう で あそびましょう！ = Let's hang out in Tokyo!