[Jenthepen]

[quote=masaegu;875246]When you can drop the subject-marking particle, it is ALWAYS 「は」. You cannot drop 「が」.

I do not even know what 「ビールがありますか。」 means after having spoken Japanese for 5 decades as my native language.　

「ビールはない。」 = "There is no beer (to begin with).", "We don't serve beer.", "They don't serve beer."
「ビールがない。」 = "OMG the beer is gone! What happened?"
QUOTE]


I don't know why every Japanese text book I've ever picked up has always taught to use が

So let me get this straight.

You use は normaly just to state something isnt there, you dont have something, something isnt existing etc.

But when you use が it kinda means that something different or out of the ordanary has happened, like it is gone, or disppeared, ran away etc.