JAPANESE ADJECTIVE PARTICLE が

The Japanese language uses many particles to link nouns, verbs, subjects and others between them. Let’s have a look at the adjective particle が.

Make sure to check out lesson on Japanese Adjectives, that’ll definitely be useful before, or even after, studying this one.

INTRODUCTION TO ADJECTIVES

There are two different kinds of adjectives, い (ii) adjectives and な (na) adjectives. Adjectives can be directly attached to nouns or subjects, like this:

The Japanese い (ii) adjectives can be used with 2 structures:

The な (na) adjectives can also be used with 2 structures:

USING THE ADJECTIVE PARTICLE が

が is considered the adjective particle because of the way it directly links the subject of the phrase or sentence to its predicate. 

Taking the same examples from above, we can separate the adjective and the noun it is modifying to create a complete phrase or sentence.

These examples don’t have a topic, but we can include one if we want to:

This sentence can be more literally translated into, “As for my mother, her house is clean.”

We could easily say 母の家がきれい as well, it just slightly changes the nuance and the focus. 

The takeaway here is that が creates a link between the word it is suffixed to and the adjective that follows it.

Let’s say we are looking at the sentence and try to determine what is “きれい (kirei)”, what is being described as beautiful.

We know it is 家 because it is followed by particle が. Even though 母(はは) is the topic of the sentence, the mother is not what is being described as きれい.

Furthermore, since が identifies what is being linked to the adjective, it does not need to directly precede that adjective.

This example demonstrates the linking power particle が has to the adjective.

Even though the subject 場所(ばしょ, basho) is separated from the adjective by other information, it is unmistakable that what ふさわしい (appropriate, suitable) is 場所, because that is where the が is placed.

We also know that パーティー is not the predicate because it is marked with the direction particle に.

FOCUS ON ADJECTIVE 好き (TO LIKE)

Here’s a very common structure with the な adjective: 好き(すき, suki), “to like”.  

Just like the first examples, 好き can modify nouns directly:

Subject and predicate phrases using 好き can be constructed as well. But, unlike in English, “to like” in Japanese is an adjective.

If translating from English to Japanese, it can feel intuitive to use the object particle を, thinking about “like” as a verb.

However, since 好き is an adjective, we use the adjective particle!

It is important to remember that the が indicates what “is liked”, not the thing that “does the liking”. 

It can be a little confusing because in a sentence like:

が marks the thing does the verb. With adjectives it’s a little different. 

In the following example, が serves the function of identifying what is liked, not what does the act of liking (which is instead 私, I). 

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