What is the purpose of のは in the sentence “今浮かんだのは”? The context is, I asked
someone what their favorite English word was and they said “Hmm 今浮かんだのは
bullshit. Just kidding!”

Would the translation be “I just came up with ‘bullshit’”? I don’t understand
the grammar used here. Please help, thanks!
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-05-01T14:29:07.777
67922
2019-05-02T01:55:32.557
33900
question
grammar translation word-choice particles verbs
Purpose of のは in this sentence?
> You: "What's your favorite English word?"
>
> Guy: “Hmm 今[浮]{う}かんだ **の** は 'bullshit'. Just kidding!”

「の」 here means " **(the) one** ", which of course refers to his favorite
English word.

「は」 is the regular topic marker.

By attaching a 「の」 to 「浮かんだ」, 「浮かんだ **の** 」 can now be treated just like a
noun -- " **the one that just came to mind** ". That is why you can attach the
topic marker 「は」 directly to 「浮かんだの」. You following me?

> Would the translation be “ **I just came up with ‘bullshit’** ”?

If you want it to be, yes, but that is not what it means literally. The
grammatical subject of the original is "今浮かんだの" and not an unmentioned first-
person pronoun. You used "I" in your TL.

Once again, the original reply means:

> "The one that just came to mind is 'bullshit'."
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-05-01T15:10:12.960
67923
2019-05-01T15:10:12.960
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
-1
67922
answer
の is a nominalizer and は is the topic particle. To put it simply, a
nominalizer turns a non-noun (in this case a verb) into a noun. In English
there's a number of ways to do this, but the most common is adding `-ing` to
the verb. For example you say `Running is hard` not `Run is hard`. `"That
which"`, `"The one (who)"`, etc are other ways to do this in English.

The verb that is being nominalized to act as a noun is 浮かんだ, which is the past
tense (た-form) of 浮かぶ. 浮かぶ in this context means `"comes to mind"`.

> A **のは** Bだ

is a known as a cleft sentence and it's a pattern that is frequently used in
Japanese. It basically introduces A and then tells us A is B. In this case, we
have

> 今浮かんだ **のは** bullshit.

We can clearly see A is 今浮かんだ as a noun: `"that which just came to mind"`. And
B is `"bullshit"`. Thus your friend is saying that

> that which came to mind just now was "bullshit"

in response to your question of what their favorite English word is. In more
natural English ordering you might say

> "bullshit" was what came to mind just now.

This is a great answer with more information about cleft sentences

  * [I don't understand what のも means in this sentence](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/19204/i-dont-understand-what-%E3%81%AE%E3%82%82-means-in-this-sentence/19208#19208)
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-05-01T15:14:04.377
67924
2019-05-01T17:45:50.280
2019-05-01T17:45:50.280
10045
10045
67922
answer
Also, I think it's good to point out that のは always needs a context. For
example, if, out of the blue, I said:

```

    今朝食べたのはパンです。 "The thing I ate this morning was bread."
    
```

That would be a little strange. The grammar is perfect, but it is a bit
unnatural. The reason is because の is a stand-in for some kind of noun.

If we have a context, using のは is perfect and natural.

```

    A: 最近食べているものは何ですか？ "What things are you eating recently?"
    B: ええと、今朝食べたのはパンです。"Umm... the thing I ate this morning was bread."
    
```

Person A uses the noun もの, and in the reply, person B uses the particle の to
mean もの.

In a nutshell, のは is most natural in a Q and A situation, when you want to
reference the noun that the asker used in your reply:

```

    What animals do you see out the window?
    The one I just saw was a bird.
    
```
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-05-02T01:55:32.557
67936
2019-05-02T01:55:32.557
33902
67922
answer