Sorera no eiga wa mita nai (why magical wa)?

[JockZon]

Hello everybody!

I was recently talking to a girl in japan about three of Kurusawa Akrias movies. I wanted to say "I haven't seen those movies yet" and she told me that Sorera no eiga wa mita nai sounded more natural than Sorera no eiga wo mita nai. Is there someone that can explain this? The only thing I can think of is that the movies are the topic of the sentence but when I wanted to include boku, the subject she said "boku wa sorera no eiga wa mita nai" was the most natural way of saying this. Why wa topic particle instead of object? She said it wasn't wrong but her way sounded more natural.

Please help me with this grammar question. Onegai shimasu.

[Outkast]

The object marker を kind of gives the feeling that something is being done to whatever it marks. While that could technically work for movie in this situation, I think the girl wanted to keep it set up so that the movie stayed the subject.

Personally, I think including a pronoun like 僕（ぼく）is unnecessary, because in the context you gave, it's already understood that you are the one who's being discussed. She may have realized this, but still gave you a way to put 僕 in there anyway...

Just my guess.

[dmr214]

How about saying:
そのえいがは見たことありません。
(sono eiga ha mita koto arimasen)
This is an actual grammer construction you can use to say you have not expereinced something. So for example:

Chicago ha itta koto arimasen

I've never been to Chicago

it goes like this:

something something something ha verb in past plain + koto (ga) arimasen

one more example:
日本が大好きですけどまだ日本へ行ったことがありません。

I love Japan but I haven't had a chance to go there yet.

[JockZon]

Okey, well I used the "mita koto ga arimasen"-form with her too but as I understand mita nai is causual and like a contraction of "mita koto ga nai."

Still don't really understand why she wants the movies to be the topic, although it kind of is the topic of the sentence. Grammar tells us to use object-particle.

[dmr214]

Sorry for extra post.

As for your direct grammar question, i think if you say

sorera no eiga ha mita nai, (ha is wa when you type japanese on keyboard)
it actually is quite natural because it will translate as, As for those movies, I'm not watching them.

Your verb is a little off, it should probably be mite inai 見ていない　which is the present progressive or something called like that. Peter says it all the time but I can never remember it.

sono eiga ha mite inai.
So if you say that above you're getting "I am currently in the moment not watching those movies." I think you don't need to make things plural by adding the RA at the end of Sore. Just sono will do.

By using HA/WA you are making the movies the topic of your sentence. This does not mean its the subject. It's different in Japanese. The subject is of course YOU! but it's understood from context but the topic isn't.

When you use WO what comes before it is a direct object. I know all this stuff is really technical but the point you need to keep in mind when using WO and HA is that HA defines the topic of your sentence. WO defines the direct object.

Example:

nihongo wo benkyou shimasu
I am going to study Japanese (sub I, direct object nihongo)

nihongo ha bekyou shimasu
As for Japanese I am going to study it. (sub I, direct object is understood as it, topic is Japanese)

I dont know if I've made it all clear, but it's the best I can do.
Hope this helps!

[dmr214]

Okey, well I used the "mita koto ga arimasen"-form with her too but as I understand mita nai is causual and like a contraction of "mita koto ga nai."

Still don't really understand why she wants the movies to be the topic, although it kind of is the topic of the sentence. Grammar tells us to use object-particle.

I didn't know that...well that makes sense, just ignore the verb part in my post above.

[Joey]

um i'm not sure about this, but i think my Japanese teacher once told me that with negative sentences you can often replace を or が with は because the は in those sentences is like a contrast は instead of a topic marker は. But then again, i know hardly anything about this so what i just wrote could be completely false.

[JockZon]

My verb is not a little of, sorry. Mita nai is talking about experience, like koto ga arimasen do. I thought as you that I should use mite inai but that's not what my japanese e-pals say so.

[Garyuchin]

I think the を would demand 　見なかった rather than 見たない.
This being a negative sentence, the は particle as offered makes it "Those movies in particular, (omitting but implying) unlike others." Using を lacks that extended implication.

[dmr214]

My verb is not a little of, sorry. Mita nai is talking about experience, like koto ga arimasen do. I thought as you that I should use mite inai but that's not what my japanese e-pals say so.

JockZon, I think you should take another look at that. Mita nai doesn't mean anything. It is not a short form of Mita koto arimasen. The short form would be Mite nai.

Mite inai would mean I am currently not watching.

Don't take my word for it! Go check it out.

[JockZon]

You are right. It is mite nai. But still that isn't the point of this topic

[Airth]

I thought for a moment that perhaps 見たない was some form of colloquial contraction and went looking for it on Google. It turned up over 10,000 hits, but it looks like that simply equals 10,000 mistakes. They should either be 見たくない or 満たない or are complete nonsense. The moral? Be careful of Google.

Anyway, back on topic. Using を keeps the focus on the films you're talking about. Using は expresses that while you haven't seen those particular films, you have seen... (fill in the gap). Actually, it's inviting the question 'So what films have you seen?' This is a good technique for slightly shifting the topic of conversation to an area that you have something to say about, which is why you often see it with negative structures.

[dmr214]

Wow, if Japanese people are thinking that much when they are speaking then I'm giving up on learning this language.

[WCR91]

Hmm. I just bypassed what everyone wrote and came to the reply button, but I think that 'wa' is used for some negative actions?

[simon]

"mita nai" is standard Kansai (Osaka) dialectical contraction of "mitakunai" which, of course, mean "don't want to watch". It is definitely not a contraction of "mita koto ga nai" and it is definitely not an error and it is not "mite nai". Those many hits on google aren't mistakes, they are just people from Kansai speaking in their own funny way. Hope that helps.