Lesson 10: Being more with で, では, and じゃ
Normally, で marks the "circumstance" or "means" behind an action. Circumstance can be a location.
剣で出来ている
Is made out of swords
刀で殺した
Killed (others) with a katana
バスで来た
Came by bus
学校で働く
Working at school
で comes from contracting にて. You see にて in old fashioned writing.
で can also be used like it's the て "particle" of だ. It's not actually the て "particle" of だ, but it's close enough for japanese grammar to say it is.
私は彼が本当に犬で慌てる
He's really a dog and I'm flustered.
(I'm flustered that he's really a dog.)
This brings us to では. では is a compound particle. The は here is the topic marker, but では's meaning isn't defined as the sum of its parts. では marks the circumstance or condition of another state.
公園ではアイスが売られる
Ice cream is sold at the park.
This extends to state of being.
私は学生ではない
I am not a student.
The conversational version of the above uses じゃ, a contraction of では.
私は学生じゃない
I'm not a student.
Because it's not contracted, ではない is a low grade formal negative assertion. In fact, じゃない is basically the negative version of だ. The etymology of だ has で in it, but we'll learn that etymology later.
Some dialects have different normal spoken copulas than だ. Examples are や and じゃ. This じゃ is a contraction of something other than では. では is not a copula.
ペンじゃ
'ts a pen. (it's a pen.)