を or が わかりません

[JeanOfmArc]

Hello!

This is my first post!
I have a question. When I was looking through some examples of Japanese sentences, I came across two that were very similar, but used a different particle.
One said: フランスごをわかりません
The other said: フランスごがわかりません

I'm confused about which one is correct? Is there a general way to know, before a verb, when to use を and when to use が?

Would the same rule apply to しる?
For example, would it be からをしらない or からがしらない?

Thanks!

Jean Of mArc

[Psy]

Hello and first of all welcome to the forums!

This brings up the whole mess of transitive/intransitive and potential verbs. が (subject) and を(object) mark different grammatical functions in a sentence, and since there's some overlap regarding 分かる it can be a little confusing. Strictly speaking it belongs in a group of potential-style verbs such as 見える (able to see), 聞こえる (able to hear) and できる (able to do), which in Japanese don't actually take objects. While the sentence 飛行機が見える translates to "I can see an airplane," what you're actually saying is literally "an airplane can be seen [by me]." The unstated (and already understood) topic of the sentence is "by me," but still there is no object in the sentence. The same thing holds true for わかる. Because it carries with it the meaning of able (gramatically this is called the "potential"), it doesn't take an object and you say 日本語がわかる "Japanese is understood [by me]." This isn't to say people don't use を, but in the strictest grammatical sense, が is the correct particle to use.

With しる, the verb isn't potential (it means to know and not to be able to know), so you use を with it. Most people will experience confusion between real-life usage of しる and わかる at some point in their study, so allow me to paraphrase an interesting article I read some time ago: think of わかる not as "to understand" but "to be clear." Thus if something is unclear or murky in your mind, you won't say "I don't know" (しらない) but you will say "it isn't clear [to me]" （わからない）. しらない is reserved for things you are totally unaware of.

Hope that wasn't too much info. I tried to avoid getting overly grammatical but I'm not sure how successful I was in the end. If there are any mistakes let me know.

Cheers!

[squirrelscuba]

hi,

newbie 54 (welcome to styleu 24) in the audio lesson briefly disscusses the use of がわかります [ga wakarimasu]

psy, thanks for that explanation between しらない　and わからない. very useful...

peter

[jkeyz15]

To explain this and the many uses of /wakaru/ think of it as meaning "to be(become) clear"

Does that help?

[JeanOfmArc]

WOW!!!

Sorry for my late reply (is there a way to get e-mailed when a post has been responded to?), but now that I came back and read the response, I'm blown away by the great reply you gave, Psy. Thank you very much! And I think your advice, like jkeyz15, will be very useful in its future use. I always just thought of わかる as "to understand" but what you described will help me a lot.

Thanks again!

Jean Of mArc

[jkid]

Is there a way to get e-mailed when a post has been responded to?

JeanOfmArc-san,
Underneath the "Message body" textbox where you type out the content of your post there is a checkbox (the third one down) that reads " Notify me when a reply is posted" that should do the trick. I'm unsure if it sends an email or a PM but it is the only option that does something like what you're asking for (that I know of).