Questions & Answers about kono eiga wa mijikai desu.
Why is は used after 映画, instead of が?
In Japanese, は marks the topic of the sentence—what you are talking about. Here, この映画は literally means “As for this movie…,” and then you state something about it (that it’s short). If you used が (この映画が短いです), it would mark 映画 as the grammatical subject and often shifts the nuance toward “this is the movie that’s short” or highlights it among others. For a simple description of a known topic, は is the natural choice.
What does この mean, and how is it different from その or あの?
この is a demonstrative adjective meaning “this (something close to the speaker)”.
- その means “that (something close to the listener)”.
- あの means “that (something far from both speaker and listener)”.
Here, この映画 = “this movie (we’re talking about right now).”
Why is 短い placed before です, and what does 短いです represent?
短い is an i-adjective (“short”). In polite Japanese, you can attach です after an i-adjective to make it polite. So:
・ 短い = plain i-adjective (“short”)
・ 短いです = polite present affirmative (“is short”).
Word order: = “As for X, it is Y.”
