Particle が

[milami88]

Hi,

I am having troubling understanding the usage of particle "ga", e.g in the following example:

ドアが閉しまります！
Doa ga shimarimasu!

Can't I say "doa wa shimarimasu" meaning something like: as for the door, it is closing.

My confusion is: ga is used to introduce something new. But the door is there, it exists, and it is about to be closed. So why use ga?

[RadioKid]

>ドアが閉しまります！ wrong
　ドアが閉まります! correct

"ドアが閉まります： DOA GA SHIMARI-MASU;The door will close"
You might think this translation is strange in use of "close" but door close by itself in Japan.

In this case, "GA" simply indicates the subject of the sentence.

"ドアは閉まりますOA WA SHIMARI-MASU; as for the door, it is gong to close(or to be closed)." sound strange because "WA" implies some comparison. Whe you say "MIGI NO DOA WA SHIMARI MASU:The right side door will be closed" will make sense.

>ga is used to introduce something new.

I cannot accept this definition. Do you have any example?

[milami88]

Originally Posted by RadioKid

>ga is used to introduce something new.

I cannot accept this definition. Do you have any example?

Yes, here:
The Particle Wa I -

The topic is, thus, “old information.” In order for something to be registered information, though, you may need to use ga が first to establish it. Essentially, information needs to be new before it can be grammatically treated as old information.

Mukashi mukashi, aru tokoro ni, ojiisan to obāsan ga sunde imashita. Ojiisan wa yama e shibakari ni, obāsan wa kawa e sentaku ni ikimashita.

This sentence is the opening to one of the most important fairy-tales of Japan, Momotarō 桃太郎. At the beginning, the reader doesn't know anything about the story. This is why the particle ga が is used to mark the subject. Once the characters are established, they are then treated as the topic in the following sentence, thus marked by wa は.

[milami88]

Or is it possible that definition is not exactly correct? I am struggling so much with wa/ga particles... :/

thank you so much for your help!!

[tdondich]

The ga particle can be used to introduce new subjects as an emphasis when introducing it to the conversation.

So, if in English you were talking about who left the toilet seat up and you are talking about two people, but finally someone says, GREG was the one who left the toilet seat up, you can see the emphasis on GREG and his name is new to the conversation.

I hope I didn't muddle that up.

[milami88]

Thank you, that was very helpful! And your Greg-example is really cool

But I don't understand why "ga" is used in the example with the door... You don't want to say "It is this door which will close"

[RadioKid]

Does "GA" introduce something new to listener ?

Yes, sometimes GA introduce new thing like "OJIISAN TO OBAASAN GA IMASHITA". But I think it is not always true.

In "Door GA SHIMARIMASU", the door is not new for the listeners.

In Microsoft WIndows, sometime it says "XXXX WA loginSHITE-IMASU." which is not natural for me. I think it should be "XXXX GA login SHITE-IMASU.".

"GA" is difficult subject to discuss on. There are many types of "GA" used in Japanese like "SORE GA WATASHI NO IITAI KOTO DESU:it is what I want to say.", "WATASHI WA ANATA GA SUKI-DESU; I like you." etc.

In the japanese dictionary, "GA" is explained very in detail.

[milami88]

Thank you so much for the example with Windows

Yeah it is difficult, I am really struggling with it. I hope that it will come naturally with time... and I'm sorry, I cannot read that many kanji to understand what is written in the dictionary. Anyway, thanks for your help.

[RadioKid]

By the picture, I just wanted to show you how they spend their dictioanry space to explain "GA".

And sorry to say, I did not read the linkyou provided yet.

[RadioKid]

In this movie, "GA" is referred as "to be used with the first appeared subject". (not always, GA can be also used another way)



But in this case of "SHOGI WA chess NO YOU-NA game DESU", WA(HA) is used with firstly referred subject "SHOGI" to explain the new word "SHOGI".

There are the cases that "GA" is used with the first appeared subject (not always) and also there are the cases that "WA/HA" is used with the first appeared subject.

Then, I do not understand why only "GA" is referred to use with the first appeared subject.

I think "GA with the first appeared subject" is easy to understand only for native English speakers for some reason I do not understand.