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So I was signing up for an account at a website, and I came across this line:

> 写真があった方があなたがどんな人なのかわかるし、フレンドも作りやすくなります。

I have never come across a sentence with 3 が's in it, much less one with 3 of
them placed consecutively like that. How do you even make heads or tails of
this!?

By the second が, the sentence had already lost me... If が marks the subject of
a sentence, what on earth is going on in this sentence?

**Questions:**

  * How would you parse this sentence?
  * Is there a less confusing / better way of phrasing it?
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2015-05-20T23:25:19.563
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grammar translation meaning particle-が subordinate-clauses
Parsing and making sense of this sentence with multiple が's
Actually, there is no definite way of "parsing" a sentence, i.e.
distinguishing the components : it depends on the context. See for example
[this](http://togetter.com/li/567493) very funny twitter thread about the
sentence, where native speakers try to find all possible interpretations :

> 頭{あたま}が赤｛あか｝い魚｛さかな｝を食｛た｝べた猫｛ねこ｝

However, it should be obvious that in a given context, only one sentence is
acceptable. In your example, the first thing to notice is that 「写真があった」 is a
proposition that modifies the noun following it, i.e. 方.

> People who have a (profile) picture.

The next が shows that 方 is in turn subject of the next clause. The next verb
being わかる, we need to find the function of 「あなたがどんな人なのか」. Well, this would be
the object of わかる. It is an indirect or [embedded
question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/13034/usage-
of-%E3%81%8B-after-a-clause/13038#13038) : meaning that people will understand
the answer to the question 「あなたがどんあひとなの」.

This sentence ends with 「し」, here showing a reason among others. Thus :

> One reason that it becomes easy to make friends 「フレンドを作りやすくなります」, is that
> people can understand what kind of person you are if you have a profile
> picture.

This is obviously subject to interpretation, and we lack context but in this
case, I do not see any other way of splitting the sentence in parts that make
sense.

> 「写真があった方」が「あなたがどんな人なのか」わかるし、フレンドも作りやすくなります。

My guess would be that people who see your profile picture would get a better
understanding as of who you are !

And no, I do not see another "less confusing" way of writing this sentence. It
is true that it contains nested propositions, but this is very common in
Japanese.
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> 「[写真]{しゃしん}があった[方]{ほう}があなたがどんな[人]{ひと}なのかわかるし、フレンドも[作]{つく}りやすくなります。」

is a perfectly normal sentence with a fairly simple sentence structure.

> It says "Condition A will bring Result #1 and Result #2".

Condition A:「写真があった方が」

Result #1:「あなたがどんな人なのかわかる」

Result #2:「フレンドも作りやすくなる。」

In 「写真があった方が」, 「方」 is used to compare (implicitly) two situations.

Situation 1: 「写真が **ある** 」

Situation 2: 「写真が **ない** 」

It is saying that Situation 1 is "better", "recommended more", etc. (than
Situation 2). = **_"If there existed a photo, ~~" ⇒ "If you pasted a photo,
~~"_**

「あなたがどんな人なのかわかる」 = **_"(Others) will get to know you (better)."_**

「フレンドも作りやすくなる。」 = **_"It will be easier (for you) to make friends."_**

> Is there a less confusing / better way of phrasing it?

As I stated at the beginning, the sentence is very simple and it could not be
made any simpler. It is already "good", too.

The kind of sentence that you would better understand (even though I have no
idea what it would be like) would probably not be a very natural sentence for
the native speakers.
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