Skip to main content
replaced http://japanese.stackexchange.com/ with https://japanese.stackexchange.com/
Source Link

"X wa Y ga suki desu" always means "X likes Y" unless you're in a very special context.

It's actually theoretically possible that this effectively means "Y likes X" in a certain special context where ga works as the exhaustive-listing marker (See this questionthis question for exhaustive-lisging ga):

A: I know either Y or Z likes X. Which? Who likes X?
B: X wa Y ga suki desu. (It's Y who likes X.)

B's answer would be pronounced with a different intonation from the normal "X wa Y ga suki desu".

Nevertheless, people will rarely make a question like this, and I don't know if this really is what you have read. And even when people make such a question, I doubt you would ever hear an answer like this actually used in real life. There is a better, clearer way to put this. This answer would be far more natural when said like this:

B: X no kotoX no koto wa Y ga suki desu. (It's Y who likes X.)


A similar expression can also be ambiguous when it forms a relative clause. I think these pages answers your question about "suki-na X":

"X wa Y ga suki desu" always means "X likes Y" unless you're in a very special context.

It's actually theoretically possible that this effectively means "Y likes X" in a certain special context where ga works as the exhaustive-listing marker (See this question for exhaustive-lisging ga):

A: I know either Y or Z likes X. Which? Who likes X?
B: X wa Y ga suki desu. (It's Y who likes X.)

B's answer would be pronounced with a different intonation from the normal "X wa Y ga suki desu".

Nevertheless, people will rarely make a question like this, and I don't know if this really is what you have read. And even when people make such a question, I doubt you would ever hear an answer like this actually used in real life. There is a better, clearer way to put this. This answer would be far more natural when said like this:

B: X no koto wa Y ga suki desu. (It's Y who likes X.)


A similar expression can also be ambiguous when it forms a relative clause. I think these pages answers your question about "suki-na X":

"X wa Y ga suki desu" always means "X likes Y" unless you're in a very special context.

It's actually theoretically possible that this effectively means "Y likes X" in a certain special context where ga works as the exhaustive-listing marker (See this question for exhaustive-lisging ga):

A: I know either Y or Z likes X. Which? Who likes X?
B: X wa Y ga suki desu. (It's Y who likes X.)

B's answer would be pronounced with a different intonation from the normal "X wa Y ga suki desu".

Nevertheless, people will rarely make a question like this, and I don't know if this really is what you have read. And even when people make such a question, I doubt you would ever hear an answer like this actually used in real life. There is a better, clearer way to put this. This answer would be far more natural when said like this:

B: X no koto wa Y ga suki desu. (It's Y who likes X.)


A similar expression can also be ambiguous when it forms a relative clause. I think these pages answers your question about "suki-na X":

Source Link
naruto
  • 336.6k
  • 13
  • 339
  • 660

"X wa Y ga suki desu" always means "X likes Y" unless you're in a very special context.

It's actually theoretically possible that this effectively means "Y likes X" in a certain special context where ga works as the exhaustive-listing marker (See this question for exhaustive-lisging ga):

A: I know either Y or Z likes X. Which? Who likes X?
B: X wa Y ga suki desu. (It's Y who likes X.)

B's answer would be pronounced with a different intonation from the normal "X wa Y ga suki desu".

Nevertheless, people will rarely make a question like this, and I don't know if this really is what you have read. And even when people make such a question, I doubt you would ever hear an answer like this actually used in real life. There is a better, clearer way to put this. This answer would be far more natural when said like this:

B: X no koto wa Y ga suki desu. (It's Y who likes X.)


A similar expression can also be ambiguous when it forms a relative clause. I think these pages answers your question about "suki-na X":