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hte subject predicate is different in japanese and it is essential understand

～が　

～は

subordinate clause

these are need to make sense in japanese.

a clause is something that expresses a complete thought.

in japanese, to express thought, all you need is verb:

食べた　

i/you/he/she/they/we/shizu/some animal/anything that has the ability to eat/some inanimate object cam to life and ate

is what that can be translated as , depending on context

(like if you say "ahh the TV is alive!" and then say "tabeta" it means "the tv ate")

subordinate clause is a clause within a clause.

ex>

母さんが日本に来る前に、この部屋を綺麗にならなきゃいけない

before my mother comes to japan,(i) must make this room clean

before my mother comes to japan is a complete thought because it has verb, a complete thought.

this is just to easy isnt it? you know were i am going.

は　particle is often seperated from sentence by comma. why? because it make subordinate clause. any thing that is expressig state-of-being it becomes subordinate.

so now you think, well that is all need to be knowing. wrong again

all those verb suffixes you learn, only affect the clause before them, so in this sentence:

母さんが日本に来ると、あたし死ぬって思う　

if my mom comes to japan, i think i will die.

without the clause rule it means:

i think if my mom comes to japan i will die.

last example:

いなくなった志穂は、おとなしいけどとてもいい子だった　

now gone shiho, though docile, was a good kid.

は　Is　State-of-being　（Docile has negativity in japan)

が　often marks the subject of the predicate, but this can be replaced by の（Special use)and occaisonly は

I agree...I don't know what's going on... xp

I added some information to the question sticky that will hopefully cover Kanji and Kana problems (how to install the language fonts, a site for translating Kanji and some books for learning Kana)

Check it out Questions and Subforum FAQs

SENTENCE ORDER

ITS NO IMPORTANT! AS LONG AS THE VERB IS AT THE END, PARTICLES ARE IN THE RIGHT PLACE, AND ADJECTIVES/ADVERBS ARE DESCRIBING THE RIGHT THING, ITS FINE! GEEZ ITS NOT ENGLISH! WE DONT HAVE A SENTENCE ORDER! /DONE YELLING