は and が are both subject particles, but は is more of a grammatical subject and が is more of a topic marker. The subject verb part of the sentence is "the people speak". What do they speak? The が indicates the answer to that question.

I found this:

http://www.japanese-language.aiyori.org/article1.html

For anyone who has learned Spanish, は and が look a lot like the differences between "por" and "para." Depending on the situation, you would choose one over the other.

It looks like we are in situation 4, where both participles are used in the same sentence. It says:

“a は b が …” is a very common Japanese sentence structure. ‘a’ is the topic. ‘b’ is something related to ‘a’. (and the verb comes at the end of the sentence)

It does say that “a が b は …” works but is less common. At the time of me posting this, Duolingo does accept this formation, but suggests the other as "another correct solution"

So, basically the potential form is also functionally passive.

I find it helpful to think of the potential Japanese form as the suffix “-able“, so in this sentence: “As for Maria and John, Japanese is speakable”, this way you can clearly see that Japanese is the subject.

As a note: if the base form “話す/話します (hanasu/hanashimasu)” were used, then “Japanese” would be the object and “を“ would be used, e.g.: “マリアとジョンは日本語を話します”.

が is the subject marker and をis the object marker which seems to be saying that the Japanese language is able to speak Maria and John. Obviously there's something going on but im not sure what.

I think also, it shoud be を.

0-100 in a lesson or 2.

話せます is Potential form ("I can.") while 話します is Present Indicative form ("I do.") Basically the first one is saying "I can speak." While the second is saying "I speak." ^^

I think 話します means "to speak" while 話せます means "to be able to speak".

I have the same problem. 話 is not in the list here, so it's impossible for me to finish T_T

I'm running into the same thing. It's giving the correct answer as "マリアとジョンが日本語は話せます。", but the "は話せます" portion of the sentence is not available for selection. It rejects the use of the hiragana for "hanaseimasu" as incorrect by saying I've used the wrong word even though that's how the entire lesson had us learning it. Anyone at Duolingo tracking this?

I can't finish this one as well. Expected answer is not offered.

話 as expected of the alliteration of はな is simply the kanji form of to speak, or talk. We don't apply normal ひらがな if the form of kanji can be used instead.

that missing character is a kanji that stands for hana. they use the kirigana, not the kanji

ジョ is pronounced "Jyo/Jo" while ジヨ is "Jiyo" (so for "John", the smaller one is correct). The same goes for any consonant+i character paired with ャュョ／ゃゅょ, so look out for them.

You just have to type "jo" or "jyo" (or ja = じゃ, sho = しょ, nyu = ニュ & so on) for it to automatically input the smaller form.

“はなせる“ is the potential form of “はなす”, meaning “can speak, speak-able”. “はなせます” is just the polite form of “はなせる”.

話す／はなす

There should be an option on the bottom of the screen that says "Use Word Bank" to switch to multiple choice options. Also you could look up online how to set up your computer/phone to type in Japanese using roumaji. You do not need a Japanese keyboard to do so.

I was wondering this myself, why aren't there honorifics? Though I will say this, your 'John' is in hiragana instead of katakana. It should be ”マリアさんとジョンさん…” Maybe it's not letting it go because of that?

I thought I had the same issue, but if you scour your answer you will most likely find a slight error. Look out for the small ョ in ジョン. I have had it auto correct to ジヨン multiple times. (I'm assuming your using a keyboard not the word bubbles)