I've become pretty decent at understanding when to use が, but every so often I make a mistake between using が vs. を. In the two sentences below, I'm confused:

  1. Everybody knows that / sore wa daremo ga shitte iru / それは誰もが知っている

  2. Everybody respects her / daremo ga kanojo wo sonkei shite iru / 誰もが彼女を尊敬している

I translated the first sentence correctly. In the second example, I used が instead of を and it was marked incorrect. My logic was that the verb was not an action verb (or is it?), which from what I've found so far would use the particle が.

I see the structure of both sentences and the type of verb as very similar and I'm confused by the difference in use of particles. If someone can please clarify why が isn't used in the second sentence, I'd really appreciate it.

Thank you!

  • 1
    Your sentence #1 has a mismatch between the EN and JA. In both sentences, the verbs are 他動詞【たどうし】 or transitive verbs that mark the object with を. Sentence #1 is introducing the object of the verb as the topic of the sentence, so it comes at the beginning and is marked with は, replacing the を. It's a bit like saying, "As for that, everybody knows [it],", where the object "[it]" is omitted in the Japanese. Sentence #2 is structured differently, and the object is not also the topic, so it just gets regular を. – Eiríkr Útlendi Dec 10 '19 at 22:18
  • Ok, I see my mistake now. That makes sense, thank you very much... – イ リ ニ Dec 10 '19 at 23:03
  • If you are looking for "normal" language, the "daremo ga" would not be used; most natural would probably be to "turn the sentence around" and use minna ie "彼女はみんなに尊敬されています" – Tuomo Dec 12 '19 at 13:46
  • Ok, that's good to know. Thank you. Does this mean that "dare mo" isn't used in general, or that it wouldn't be used in this context? – イ リ ニ Dec 13 '19 at 19:16

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