Difference Between Subject Marker(가,이) and Topic Marker(는,은)

If you follow my lesson from start you should already learn topic marker and object marker. You are going to learn one more particle use in Korean language and often confusing for foreigner to understand: Subject Marker.

Pretty much like the object marker, you can guess that for subject marker is place after the subject. "가" is place if the word didn't have a final consonant and "이" is place if the word have a final consonant. However, the topic and subject in a sentence may be the same sometimes so how should we know when to put topic marker and when to put subject marker.


A topic of a sentence is not nessesary a subject. A inanimate object can also be the topic of a sentence. A topic of sentence is generally what the sentence is about and therefore the topic marker is use to mark the topic of a sentence and to differentiate two possible topic of conversation.

A subject marker is use to identifies the subject: the noun in the sentence, and to give emphasize to it. Sometimes it is very hard to tell when to use which. One of the easy way is to remember topic marker emphasize more on the verb while subject marker emphasize more on the subject.

Example:

제가 샀다 - I bought (It's not anyone else but it was I who bought it)

저는 샀다 - I bought (I bought rather than doing something else)

Both sentence mean I bought but 제가 샀다 identifies the subject, I, and so puts more emphasis on the subject rather than the rest of the sentence whereas 저는 샀다 emphasizes on 샀다. So in 제가 샀다, it is more concerned about WHO bought while 저는 샀다 is more concerned about what I DID.

Another thing you should notice is when using subject marker "가", the pronoun 저 is turn into 제. This is the same for 나 and 너. 나 will turn into 내 while 너 will turn into 네. Let me give you more example.

1. 제가 먹었어요 - I ate
2. 내가 봤어요 - I saw
3. 네가 샀어요 - You bought
4. 집이 크다 - The house is big
5. 하늘이 높다 = The sky is high

Another way to explain the difference between subject marker and topic marker:

1. Who bought a new t-shirt? 제가 갔어요 - I went (Notice that you cannot answer 저는 갔어요, because the person is asking who it was that went.
2. What did you do in the shopping mall? 나는 구두를 샀어요 - I bought shoes (Notice that the person is asking what I did in the shopping mall and so it is unnecessary to use the identifier particle. The person asking the question already knows that it was I who did something in the shopping mall. Therefore 는 is used rather than 가)

Hope all this explanation benefits you guys ^^

The END~