Breakdown of ningen wa mizu ga hitsuyou desu.
はwa
topic particle
ですdesu
to be
水mizu
water
がga
subject particle
Questions & Answers about ningen wa mizu ga hitsuyou desu.
Why are both は and が used in the same sentence?
Because they are doing different jobs.
- 人間は marks 人間 as the topic: as for humans...
- 水が marks 水 as the thing that is grammatically tied to 必要です: water is necessary
So the structure is roughly:
A は B が 必要です
= As for A, B is necessary
This is very common in Japanese. A sentence can have a topic marked by は and also another element marked by が inside the comment about that topic.
Why is 水 marked with が instead of を?
Because 必要です is not an action verb like drink or eat. It describes a state: being necessary.
In this pattern, the thing that is necessary is marked with が:
- 水が必要です = Water is necessary
- お金が必要です = Money is necessary
- 時間が必要です = Time is necessary
If you used を, it would sound wrong here because 必要です does not take a direct object the way an action verb does.
What kind of word is 必要?
