日: 2026年4月18日

A caution is always needed. “Wa-ga construction” is not always applicable. This site strongly recommends you telling the difference of “Wa-ga construction” from Sentences of transitive verb predicate.

– Wa-ga construction;

[Topic] wa [Subject] ga [State predicates] .

Example: Satou-san wa Kami ga Nagai desu. (As for Sato-san, her hair is long.)

– Transitive verb sentence;

[Subject] wa/ga [Object] o [Transitive verb].

Example: Satou-san wa Kami o Kirimashita. (Sato-san cut her hair.)

Many Japanese learners tend to use Wa-ga construction in many cases, and don’t learn how to use the particle “o” which is necessary to describe an object of action by a transitive verb.

But it is a fact that there is “Wa-ga construction” in Japanese. Wa-ga constrcution has several types, and some of them have already been introduced. Today’s Wa-ga construction is a typical one that has double subject. Let us look at the above example again;

Example: Satou-san wa Kami ga Nagai desu.

I put an English translation “As for Sato-san, her hair is long.”, so that the word order could have similarity with the original Japanese Wa-ga construction. But the following is better for the meaning;

– Sato-san has long hair.

Putting this English translation in your head, you may think that “Satou-san” must be the subject of Japanese sentence “Satou-san wa Kami ga Nagai desu.”. I don’t think that arguing whether subject is Satou-san-wa or Kami-ga is productive. Probably an acceptable answer in the realm of Japanese education, to the question what the subject is in Wa-ga construction of this type is;

– Satou-san wa = Topic

– Kami-ga = Subject

Again, this kind of argument is not productive. It would be better to put them as “double subject”. How double? It can be said that the word with “wa” is broader subject, while the word with “ga” is smaller and specific subject. In other words, “Something+ga” is a small part of “Something+wa”. For exapmple, Sato-san’s hair is a thing that exists on Sato-san’s head, you can call it a part of Sato-san. Confirm that “Something+ga” is a part of “Something+wa ” in the following examples;

1. Satou-san wa Se ga Takai desu. (As for Sato-san, her height is tall.)

2. Satou-san wa Kao ga Marui desu. (Sato-san is a person whose face is round.)

3. Satou-san wa Yubi ga Hosoi desu. (Sato-san’s fingers are thin.)  

The English translation is inconsistent among 1 through 3, but I just tried to translate “Wa-ga construction” of “double subject” in English.

This post was written with reference to the exercise A3 on Section 16 of “Minna no Nihongo (2^nd Edition)” published by “3A Corporation”