chiasm@mastodon.online's status on Tuesday, 08-Feb-2022 19:18:54 UTC

@tagomago Yeah I don't think of them as separators so much as markers. Want to know what's the main noun of the sentence (usually the subject in English)?, look for wa. Want to know what the main noun for the verb is (if it's unclear), look for ga. Want to know who/what's being acted on, look for wo. In English we do a lot of it by word order and pronouns (I wrote him a book) but in Japanese they lay it all out for you--assuming they say it at all, which with pronouns they often don't. 😁