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In English, if I ask "I went to see you yesterday, why weren't you at home?" you might answer "went fishing". It's clear from the question and the situation that you are speaking about yourself, so you don't really need to spell in full "*I* went fishing". But, even so, that's hardly "correct" English. It's at best colorful.
In correct Japanese, ALL words MUST be supressed when it's clear who or what are we speaking about, including words meaning "I, me, you, we, us". In the same situation, a Japanese will always say something like "went fishing". If you say in Japanese something like "I went fishing", you won't sound more "correct"; you'll sound like a foreigner trying to speak Japanese.
To the question "where's the squirrel?" the answer may be "under the tree" or "it's under the tree". Japanese has no words like "he" or "she" or "it", so there's no sentence like "it's under the tree" in Japanese. If your hearer doesn't know that you are speaking about a squirrel, you say "squirrel is under tree". If they do know, the word "squirrel" must NOT be repeated, so you erase it and say "is under the tree". No need to add something like "it".
I, You and TheyHow to Read Japanese Mangawa は, ga が and o を
Copyright (c) 2003-2008
Jordi Mas Trullenque.
email: jordimastrullenque at gmail dot com
http://purl.oclc.org/NET/manga/persona.en.html
Last revised: 2008-10-25