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Consider this:
watashi wa remon wo tabeta
This is translated as I ate a lemon.
How about this?
remon wo watashi wa tabeta
This can be translated 2 ways:
1) A lemon I ate
However, it also can be translated as:
2) I ate a lemon
which is the same translation as in the 1st case (watashi wa remon wo tabeta), just the order of the words is different.
How would you deal with it on practice?
remon wo watashi wa tabeta
This can be translated 2 ways:
1) A lemon I ate
No it cannot be translated as “a lemon I ate”.
Particle wo indicates a direct object of the verb tabeta, and word order does not change that.
The phrase “A lemon I ate” in Japanese is “watashi ga tabeta remon”.
However, it also can be translated as:
2) I ate a lemon
And this is the only way it can be translated although the word order is not natural.
Both phrases you gave mean "I ate lemon". I will show you, roughly, how to parse the sentences so you can convince yourself of this.
Clauses in Japanese always end with the verb. This is very important, and (usually) won't change in casual speech, even if there are particles being omitted and all that. The verb is always in the end of the clause.
This means that, when you see:
watashi wa remon wo tabeta
You can conclude:
Therefore the translation can only be "I ate lemon". Now, if the sentence was, instead:
remon wo watashi wa tabeta
The analysis would be identical to the one I did above, and the only possible translation is still "I ate lemon".
In casual speech, it is not uncommon for particles to be omitted. But, you can be sure that the verb will still be in the end of the clause. Consider:
watashi, remon tabeta.
Particles were omitted, this is fine. But as you can see, the verb is still in the end. This won't change in acsual speech. You simply have to guess which particle was attached to "watashi" and which particle was attached to "remon", and you can quickly guess "wa" and "wo" respectively, and understand the sentence. This still means "I ate lemon".
First of all, note that "Lemon I ate" is not a clause! "I ate" is a clause. But "Lemon I ate" is well, a lemon with a special property (you ate it), so it is a noun modified by a clause.
Clauses can modify nouns. I don't know if you're familiar with this, so I will explain a bit. Clearly, we can modify a noun with adjectives, such as "big lemon", "small lemon", and so on. In english, we do this by putting the adjective on the left of the noun. We can also modify a noun with a clause. For example, "A lemon that I ate", or "A lemon I ate" for short. In Japanese, we can also do this, and to do this, we put the clause in the left of the noun. Therefore.
Conclusion: "Lemon that I ate" is "watashi ga tabeta remon". Since clauses in Japanese end with a verb, it is clear that "remon" is not a part of the clause here. Instead, it is being modified by a clause. And no particle omitting will change this.
