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This is a trascript from a podcast I was listening to. The woman was asked about what she thought was the hardest aspect in learning english, to which she replied
私が困っているのがはつおんですね
So... why 私が instead of 私に (meaning 'to me'). Not only that but, what is the role in the sentence of 困っているの? It is the continuing action conjugation of 困る (to worry) but how does it fit in the sentence? And what is the role of の?
Thank you very much.
私が困っているのが is translated " what I am troubled with is" and this "の" is used in a nominalization of a sentence and verbs and so on. For example, "私が勉強しているのは、大学に行くためです"、"走るのが嫌いです"、"悲しいのが嫌です". And 私が困る of this sentence is that わたし is subject and 困る is predicate, so が is used because に isn't set behind a subject.
In addition, if you want to use "に", you say 私は、発音に困っています and it's translated I am troubled with pronunciation.
私が困っているのが発音ですね can be translated as “What I’m troubled with is pronunciation,” in short, “My problem (weak point) is pronunciation.”
You can replace “のが” with “のは” to mean “What I’m troubled / My problem is.” は and が is a postpositional particle to link the subject, 私が困っている - What I'm troubled with to predicate, 発音です.
のが（のは）can be used for examples:
彼の得意なのは英語です - English is his turf.
私の苦手なのは英語です - I'm bad at English.
日本が困っているのが膨大な政府負債です - Japan’s problem is a huge government debt.
私が思案しているのが海外留学するか、どうかです – What I’m thinking now is whether I should study abroad or not.