Editing Japanese grammar (section)

=====Objective {{transliteration|ja|ga}}=====
For certain verbs, {{transliteration|ja|ga}} is typically used instead of {{transliteration|ja|o}} to mark what would be the direct object in English:

{{fs interlinear|lang=ja|indent=3
|ジョンさん は フランス語 が 出来る。
|Jon-san wa furansu-go ga dekiru
|John knows French.}}

There are various common expressions that use verbs in English, often transitive verbs, where the action happens to a specific object: "to be able to do something", "to want something", "to like something", "to dislike something". These same ideas are expressed in Japanese using adjectives and intransitive verbs that describe a subject, instead of actions that happen to an object: {{nihongo|"to be possible"|出来る|dekiru}}, {{nihongo|"to be desired/desirable"|ほしい|hoshii}}, {{nihongo|"to be liked"|好きだ|suki da}}, {{nihongo|"to be disliked"|嫌いだ|kirai da}}. The equivalent of the English subject is instead the [[Topic–comment|topic]] in Japanese and thus marked by {{transliteration|ja|wa}}, reflecting the [[Topic-prominent language|topic-prominent]] nature of Japanese grammar.

Since these constructions in English describe an object, whereas the Japanese equivalents describe a subject marked with {{nihongo||が|ga}}, some sources call this usage of {{nihongo||が|ga}} the "objective ''ga''". Strictly speaking, this label may be misleading, as there is no object in the Japanese constructions.

As an example, the Japanese verb {{nihongo||分かる|wakaru}} is often glossed as transitive English verb "to understand". However, ''wakaru'' is an intransitive verb that describes a subject, so a more literal gloss would be "to be understandable".

{{fs interlinear|lang=ja|indent=3
|ジョンさん は 日本語 が 分かる。
|Jon-san wa nihongo ga wakaru.
|* John understands Japanese.  → translating into idiomatic English, using the transitive verb "to understand"<br>
<nowiki>*</nowiki> As for John, Japanese is understandable.  → translating more closely to the Japanese, with "Japanese" as the subject of an intransitive descriptive verb}}