<sub class="descriptionSection">23-09-2024 09:14:pm // #Particle // [[Particle Summary]]</sub> ____ The が Particle is used when when wanting to identify a topic in a sentence. While は and も are used to **create** a topic, the が particle is used to introduce or create the topic. This is useful, for example to ask "Who is the student?". We need this particle, because we **don't know who the student is.** ## Why is this Particle important? Well, up until now, we've used the は and the も particle to talk about a Subject. Currently we can construct sentences like "Is Alice student?" or "Tom is also student". Now, if we'd want to introduce a Subject and we used the topic particle to ask "Who is the student?", the question would become "Is who the student?". That doesn't make sense right? This is where the が Particle comes in. ## Example An example: ```text ボブ：誰が学⽣？ Bob: Who is the one that is student? アリス：ジョンが学⽣。 Alice: John is the one who is student. ``` Bob wants to identify who, among all the possible candidates, is a student. Alice responds that John is the one. > [!NOTE] Note > In the example above, Alice could've also answered using the topic particle. This is because she **knew** that John was the Student. In the example below, you can see the difference ```text 誰が学⽣？ Who is the one that is student? 学⽣は誰？ (The) student is who? ``` The first sentence seeks to identify a specific person for "student". The second is simply talking about the student. You may be tempted to confuse the [[は - The Topic Particle|Topic Particle]] with the Identifier particle, just because you could translate them into English as shown below, so take care to not do that. ```text 私は学⽣。 I (am) student. 私が学⽣。 I (am) student. ``` > [!NOTE] Note > The Example above is only partly correct. They only seem similar, as English isn't able to provide as much context about something as Japanese is, the two particles have to both be translated like this. However, the second sentence is specifying who the 学⽣ is. The second sentence might be answering a question, "Who is the student?". Translating が as *"the one; the thing"* and the [[は - The Topic Particle|は]] Particle as *"as for; about"*. Translating it like this may help: ```text 私は学⽣。 As for me, (I am) student. 私が学⽣。 I (am) the one (that is) student. ```