All About Butts… Er… Buts.
“How do I work? I grope.” - Albert Einstein
And I bet you thought I was going to use a picture with butts in them. You sicko. Clean your mind with these adorable kittens.
To continue our lesson on “making sentences” longer, we’re going to learn about butts… err.. buts, rather.
I’m sure you can think of a million ways to use the word “but.” It’s so incredibly useful in all kinds of conversation. In Japanese, the grammar for “but” is pretty straight forward, though there are a couple ways to do it which can be confusing. In this lesson you’ll go through only one way of saying “but,” though I think it is the most common and useful by quite a bit. 80-20 rule, right?
が As A “But”
“Be different, stand out, and work your butt off.” - Reba McEntire
You know about が as a particle, but (you see what I did there?) it can also connect two sentences with a “but.”
“I like you, but I don’t like your breath.”
“I’m a runner but I’m fat.”
etc. You’ll be able to say these things easily (maybe with a word or two looked up) by the end of this lesson.
First, let’s think about the word “but” in English. It’s pretty similar in Japanese, too.
Step 1: Come up with one sentence
Step 2: Come up with another sentence
Step 3: Put the word “but” between them in order to connect them (hopefully the first two sentences go together, though).
In Japanese, it’s exactly the same.
Step 1: Come up with one (Japanese) sentence
Step 2: Come up with another (Japanese) sentence
Step 3: Put が between them. Once again, hopefully the two sentences you came up with actually go together.
It’s very easy, but you need to practice. Let’s start with things you like and reasons why you don’t like them.
ハンバーガーが好きですが、ホットドッグがきらいです。
I like hamburgers but I hate hot dogs.
One thing you might have noticed is that I didn’t add a わたしは (I) in the above sentence が I did add it into the translation. This is because the “I” in Japanese is often assumed, so you don’t have to use it unless it’s important to specify that you are indeed talking about yourself.
But anyways, do you see how the sentence is laid out? Memorizing the sentence isn’t important at all… figuring out and understanding the actual structure of the sentence is. Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day… Teach him how が (but) works, and he’ll come up with all kinds of excuses why he doesn’t want to learn how to fish.
魚（さかな）が好きですが、つりが好きじゃありません。
I like fish but I don’t like fishing.
Just a quick note – take a look at the second part of both the above sentences. Notice how the first one uses きらい and the second uses 好きじゃない? They mean almost the same thing, but as you learned before, there is a subtle difference. すきじゃない means “to not like,” whereas きらい means “to hate.” They both give off negative feelings, but one (きらい) is stronger than the other.
Let’s take these two sentences and have you do something with them. Both of the above sentences are using formal/neutral sentence enders which means they’re fairly polite and nice sounding in that regard. Can you change the sentences to be more casual?
ハンバーガーが好きですが、ホットドッグがきらいです。
- ハンバーガーが好きだが、ホットドッグがきらいだ。
魚が好きですが、つりが好きじゃありません。
- 魚が好きだが、つりが好きじゃない。
You can use が with other kinds of sentences as well… like verbs, for example!
すしは食べませんがホットドッグは食べます。
すしはたべませんがホットドッグはたべます。I don’t eat sushi but I eat hot dogs.
If you look at this sentence (すしは食べませんがホットドッグは食べます) you’ll notice that we’re using は instead of を as the particle. If you remember back, を is used when you’re taking action. You know, when you’re doing something. In this case, you’re just saying that you eat something – that’s pretty passive if you ask me. You do eat / don’t eat these things, but you’re not doing it right now.
ビールは飲みますが水は飲みません。
ビールはのみますがみずはのみません。
I drink beer but I don’t drink water.
One more thing worth reminding you of about the particle は is that the most important thing is the stuff that comes after the は’s. は talks about something. It’s nice and passive, just like we learned before.
It gets even better. You can even mix the two (verbs and nouns and all that).
私はMicrosoftの会社員ですが、iPhoneを持っています。
わたしはMicrosoftのかいしゃいんですが、iPhoneをもっています。I am a Microsoft employee, but I carry an iPhone
Your turn, let’s see if you can figure out how to say these sentences. Feel free to look up some of the vocabulary yourself.
My name is Jeeves, but I am not a butler.
私の名前はジーブズですが、バトラーじゃありません。
わたしのなまえはジーブズですが、バトラーじゃありません。I am a turtle, but I am not a ninja
私は亀ですが、忍者じゃありません
わたしはかめですが、にんじゃじゃありませんI eat sushi, but I don’t eat fish.
すしを食べますが、魚を食べません
すしをたべますが、さかなをたべません
This should give you a rudimentary knowledge of how が works (as a contradiction… i.e. a “but” word). Let’s practice a bit now, and we’ll keep practicing it as we go through future lessons, too.
After you’ve done this, move on!