"Where is the yard?"
Translation:にわはどこですか？
22 Comments
If the question word (どこ) comes 1st you would use が but since it isnt the topic you use は
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Such a good one! After hundreds of questions I still haven't gotten my head around the whole "subject object topic" terminology. I speak two other languages fluently and can't even apply those concepts.
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I do not think to say "にわが、どこですか?"
Excuse me. I will add a bit. I do not think I usually say that. It is only a sense of native. However, I can not predict everything because I do not know what sentence is before this.
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すみません, I don't know whether they were right or not, but I think the person was trying to say "どこ(は)にわがですか?"
But I repeat, I'm just a learner still and I am only interpreting what this person thinks is right, I have no clue if it is and would not kind an answer. :))
が has mostly been used at this point for the "exists" verbs あります (inanimate) and います (animate), which have been paired with questions several times. The "exists" verbs were why it was a が particle though, not the question part. Hope this help!
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Yeah, thanks a lot. I've been using other resources for Japanese before Duolingo and got quite surprised when I saw this. I guess I wasn't paying much attention if the question has ある or いる in it.
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The audio didn't work for me on this question. Because the particle makes the same sound as the syllable before it (niwa wa ...) Are they pronouncing both wa's or blending them together like waa?
When は is used as a particle it is pronounced as 'wa'. Just a rule of the language.
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裏庭には二羽庭には二羽鶏がいる。(Uraniwa ni wa niwa, niwa ni wa niwa niwatori ga iru.) -> meaning : There are two chickens in the back yard, and two in the front yard.
It is a japanese tongue-twister
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What is the practical difference between niwa wa doko desuka and doko wa niwa desuka?
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The は particle is marking the subject of the sentence. One useful, but clumsy translation is to translate it to "as for x".
So にわ は どこ です か？becomes "As for park, where is it?" while どこ は にわ です か？would become "As for where, park is it?" which doesn't make that much sense!
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Just adding to what you said, どこはにわですか can sort of make sense, if you're looking over landscaping blueprints and you want to know which parts of it are the yard, as opposed to parts of the house or pool.
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In conversation isn't it common to leave out some of the particles? An example might be, "にわ,どこですか?" instead of "にわはどこですか？"
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ます isn't a word by itself. (Okay, well, it is, but not at all in the context you're trying to use it and it hasn't been taught in this course.) ます is an ending that gets put on the end of verbs to make them more polite. For example, the polite form of 食べる (to eat) is たべます, the polite form of のむ (to drink) is のみます, the polite form of 行く (to go) is いきます, etc.
です, in contrast, is a copula. The closest English equivalent is the verb "to be" and all its very common conjugations (am/is/are/etc.) It connects the subject of a sentence with the predicate. So in the sentence "Where is the yard?", the copula in English is the word "is". When translated to Japanese, this turns into a です at the end of the sentence.
(As an aside, sometimes です is not a copula but only exists to make the sentence more polite, like when using "~ おいしいです" ("~ is delicious"). In these cases, you are technically not required to use です, since it's just for politeness' sake. However, in this specific example, it is serving as a copula and cannot be omitted, just like you couldn't say "Where the yard?" in English.)
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If you're rich. Personally i found the first book disappointing and would not be willing to fork out £100+ for the full course when there are better and free alternatives like tae kim, maggie sensei, etc.
