掲示板 Forums - Genki I, Lesson 4 Practice IB

I'm having problems understanding some of the questions in this exercise, they just don't make seem to make sense:

5. デパートに何がありますか。
7.　動弗園に何がいますか。
9.　あなたの家に何がありますか。

First, is number five asking what department store there is? Second, What exactly is number seven asking because I have no idea? Last question, is number nine asking what type of house I have or something? I could really use some help ???

ありがとうございす。

I know what the particle に is and how it's working in the sentences I'm having problems with the ending phrase. The phrases あります and いります have many different meanings and it's hard to understand what the point of the sentence is. For example in question seven they use いります with the word zoo. I would think that a zoo is a place and not a person.

I pulled out my Genki I to see if it would help clarify the issue here. :D I don't think the grammar section is laid out as well as some of the later grammar points are.

All of these questions have the same basic format: (place) に (thing) が います/あります か。

This is a basic format that will be very important for you to learn. Even my mom (who doesn't speak a word of Japanese) has learned to recognize "Toothbrush がどこにありますか～！！！" ;D [size=5pt]I take that back. She knows how to say わかりました from too much Shogun. -.-;;[/size]

The nature of your questions shows that there is a small gap in your understanding of the questions. To check your general understanding, as opposed to maybe just having a problem with this particular kind of sentence, did you interpret the first few questions along these lines?

1. あなたの町に日本のレストランがありますか。
Is there a Japanese restaurant in your town?
2. あなたのいに猫がいますか。
Does your household have a cat?
3. あなたの学校に何がありますか。
What is there at your school?
4. あなたの学校に日本人の学生がいますか。
Are there Japanese students at your school?

If not, a quick review would be in order. Even if not, a quick review never hurts.

With both います and あります, the thing or person that the verb acts on is marked with が. So います is used when (thing) が is a person, and あります when (thing) が is an object. This is in no way influenced by the place marked with に - as Daniel pointed out, the word marked with に indicates the place in which the person or thing exists.

When you're trying to figure out a sentence, break it up into parts by particle - in this case, デパートに, 何が, and ありますか. Look at the verb first to figure out how the particles interact (あります, so が marks what is arimasu-ing, and に marks where it happens), match that up with the pieces (何が, so they want to know what is arimasu-ing, and デパートに, so it's happening at the department store), and put it back together. That's how I remember getting through several chapters of Genki I.


So a breakdown of the specific questions:

5. デパートに何がありますか。
What is there at a department store?
7. 動物園に何がいますか。
What is there at a zoo? (This should clue you into the answer, just as it clued you into the fact that you were missing something - just remember, animals are living too, so they can fall under います.)
9. あなたの家に何がありますか。
What is there at your house? (Like above, but backwards - make sure you don't say you have a brother at home, unless you're being really snide about him being an "it". ;D)


Really long response, but I hope somewhere in there it helped something click for you.