Japanese/Lessons/Existence

When you want to say that something exists, there two verbs you have to choose from depending on whether the subject is an animate- or inanimate object. The difference is not quite living/non-living, as plants would be considered inanimate (as they don't move ... well, most only really slowly). A fish swimming in its fish-bowl would be an animate object, but a dead fish (whether at the fish-mongers or — let's hope not — in its bowl) would be in-animate.


 * For animate objects (humans and animals), use "いる" (polite present positive: "います").
 * For inanimate objects, use "ある" (polite present positive: "あります").

Note that these can denote both presence or possession.

In the dialogues below, you may replace "います" with "あります".

To ask about the presence of a particular animate object
If the animate object in question is not present but something else is, you can suggest this by saying:

Notice that this reply uses "は" instead of "が". The "は" particle can be translated as "as for such and such", while "が" directly marks the subject.

Vocabulary
か: "anything/something". も: "everything/nothing" (positive/negative depends on the verb)