家と数字 – Fluent Japanese Speaker reviews Duolingo Japanese Course #6 – Home 1, Intro 3, Counting
Welcome to post 6 for my Duolingo Japanese course review as an advanced Japanese learner.
You can check out my last post here of this series. If you want to read about my entire experience then check out my first post.
INDEX
What is Covered in the Home 1, Intro 3, and Counting lessons
The Home 1 Lesson introduces two new concepts.
First, the verbs ある and いる – These two verbs in Japanese mean, there is or can refer to existing, being somewhere and so on. ある is used for inanimate objects and いる is for mostly living things.
https://japaneseuniverse.com/2024/02/18/pac-man-in-japaneseconcepts-behind-development-to-global-icon/
The lesson also introduces how to talk about specific numbers of things in Japanese. Finally, the course goes over the vocabulary of things around the house.
Introduction 3 adds two other topics. The Sentence-Ending Particles, or little endings added to sentences. First, ね is used to check the listener’s thoughts about what you are talking about. よ is used to make it clear that you are making a statement about something, or to show your intentions. This one is a little harder to explain.
These so-called, Sentence-Ending Particles may seem to lack meaning, but they help to make the intention of the speaker known in conversation. In Japanese, if you were to just say, ご飯を食べる, I am going to eat, this would sound like you are just making a statement. The listener would be thinking, so what? If you say ごはんを食べるよ, depending on the context, say if you are waiting for whoever you are with to sit down to the table, it could mean I am not going to wait for you, I want to eat. On the other hand if you said ごはんを食べるね, this could mean that are checking if it is ok to start eating. Kind of like, I am going to start eating now unless you have any objections.
Finally, the Counting lesson presents more numbers for counting things.
Explaining the difference between が and は
Alright, so this is not something that I would expect Duolingo to go into detail on in this lesson or at all in the Japanese Duolingo course. I can imagine though that some people would be wondering why Duolingo marked them wrong when they used は instead of が. Look at the two examples below
x テーブルは七つあります
o テーブルが七つあります
Both of these sentences are actually correct and mean the same thing, there are seven tables. However, if you picked the first one, Duolingo would mark you wrong. In short, the reason is that you say が when talking about new information, and you say は when talking about old information. So, if you just walk up to someone in the street and say テーブルが七つありますよ, They may think you are trying to sell them some tables or something. If you say テーブルは七つありますよ, it would be odd. It sounds like you were already having a conversation with them and they would be thinking, I didn’t ask you anything about tables? On the other hand if your friend is wondering how many tables you have in your room, you could respond and say テーブルは七つありますよ.
This difference between は and が is a common question Japanese learners have. It is also a complex one. You don’t really need to have a clear-cut explanation for when to use either one. Often it does not matter. But if you are interesting you can read more about the difference between は and が.
My journey through Duolingo as someone who already knows Japanese will continue. In the meantime, I have written a whole other post on using Duolingo for Japanese.
