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In Minna No Nihongo II みんなの日本語初級II 文型練習帳(Exercise 38 on page 89) there is an exercise about のは, のが and のを, where a list of words is given, and you have to decide which words fit best with のは, which fit best with のが and which fit best with のを.

The question is:

「〜のは／〜のが／〜のを」といっしょによく使われることばをえらびましょう。

With the list of words being:

好きだ、危ない、忘れた、難しい、早い、遅い、体にいい、無理だ、上手だ、気持ちがいい、楽しい、知っている

The book already gives the answers for the first 2 as being:
のが好きだ
のは危ない

Can anyone explain why some of those words fit best with のは and some with のが？ To my thinking, all of the words that could go with のは could alternatively go with のが, depending on the exact meaning you want to convey.

My understanding is that the の nominalizes the preceding phrase, and then the は or が are just the normal particles. So, のは would be used to show that the nominalized phrase is the 'topic' and のが would show it is the 'subject', irrespective of the actual word.

So, why does it suggest that some of those words fit best with のは and some with のが?

Bill
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  • I wholly agree with you. I think it is OK for you to know のを from two others because I come up with many examples that suit のが and のは. Of course, you said too, のは and のが are similar to each other, but are different. – Toshihiko Nov 09 '15 at 17:08

1 Answers1

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I am just as confused as you, but using the first two answers (のが好きだ, のは危ない) as a hint, the sorting I came up with is:

のが: 好きだ、早い、遅い、上手だ
のは: 危ない、難しい、体にいい、無理だ、気持ちがいい、楽しい
のを: 忘れた、知っている

(I could be totally wrong though!)

Method:

  1. Choose a topic that mostly fits all the words. (I chose 走る)
  2. From the get go, 走るのが好きだ and 走るのは好きだ are both valid sentences. But the former is already known to be “correct”. The difference between the two is that the は marker has a contrastive effect. (I like running, but not something else.) This tells you that you have to pick the particle that is the most neutral.
  3. 走るのは危ない is very different from 〜好きだ in one way: it generally does not take 私は as a subject. This led me to sort the words into “words that need a subject person (either explicitly or implicitly)” and “words that don't”. So the のは batch should contain statements that can or can only stand alone as generalized truths, independent of a subject person. (It's dangerous to run, It's difficult to run, etc.)

So at least in my reasoning, the words seemed to fall into place when I looked at whether the particle was most neutral (non-contrastive), and how it interacted when prefixed by 私は〜.

Sidenote: 国語問題 are notorious among natives for being absurd, but I didn't know JSL textbooks could be so puzzling too! There is even a famous short story parodying the farcical state of these exams.

mirka
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