”の” か ”は”？？？

[rpgherogaz]

こんにちはジャポ二ズポッド１０１！

問題があります！

I am still going through the various lessons! I notice that sometimes the sentence structure is very very different, but the differnce in meaning does not seem to be apparent.

The following example should make my confusion clear.

群馬県の出身です
gunma ken no shusshin desu.
Your hometown is the Gunma prefecture.

How is this sentence different then?
出身は群馬です　・　ご出身は群馬県です


From what I know, the "no" particle is like "of" or shows some relationship / description of the following thing. like "aka no kuruma" a red car (car of red) so this is like saying "hometown of gunma ken".

With the wa particle, that marks a subject, like "as for".

"As for a hometown, Gunma Ken is"

or tidied up....

"As for your hometoen, it is Gunma prefecture."

Is there much differnce to the ears of the Japanese?

Can this structure share be used often?


助けてください！

[Bucko]

Your understanding is correct.
出身は群馬です　= As for (my/your/his etc) home prefecture, it is Gunma
群馬県の出身です = (As for me, him, her etc), home perfecure of Gunma.

As for what sounds natural to Japanese ears, the most common way of saying it that I've heard is:
（私は）群馬県出身です
（あの人は）群馬県ご出身です
I.e. you omit の

Also bare in mind the following:

ご出身は群馬県です can be anyone but yourself, since you are using the ご to "beautify" the word 出身
出身は群馬県です can be anyone including yourself.

[Javizy]

I think the surrounding dialogue could help to understand something like this better, since it just seems to be an issue of topic to me.

(あなたは)どこの出身ですか？
(私は)群馬県(の)出身です。

(あなたの)出身はどこですか？
(出身は)群馬です。

[rpgherogaz]

Thank you for the fast replies

That makes sence, so like in english, there are many ways to say the same thing.

it comes down to the surrounding conversation then, to fit the question etc thank you for that.

i was told to avoid using a question word as a particle... such as


doko ga shusshin desu ka?

if i do, i am meant to use "ga" atleast, but would it be more natural to use...

doko no shusshin desu ka?

[Javizy]

i was told to avoid using a question word as a particle... such as

doko ga shusshin desu ka?

if i do, i am meant to use "ga" atleast, but would it be more natural to use...

doko no shusshin desu ka?

Again, context is key. To me, that question reads as 'which one is your hometown?', which would make a lot of sense if you were both looking at a map or something. A very common use of this kind of question is to clarify the subject. For example, if your friend says「だいきらい！」and you have no idea what he's talking about, you'd say 「なにが？」. You will hear this question over and over again in dialogues.

You have to use が with all interrogative pronouns, because an unknown entity can't possibly be the topic. どこは would imply that we've established what どこ is, and are now talking about it, which is impossible because we don't know where or what どこ is yet. This is why topics marked by は can be so readily omitted; we know what they are, because we're already speaking about them, and only really need to mention them for the purpose of contrast or emphasis.