Page 350 - Basic Japanese

I want to eat ramen noodles.

The first sentence with o is stating what one wants to do,
while the second sentence with ga is stating what one wants

to eat.
The person doing the desiring will be either the topic with

the particle wa or the emphasized subject with the particle

ga, depending on the specific emphasis. This sometimes

leads to ambiguity. Tanaka-san wa Nakamura-san ga yobitai desu
can mean either ‘Mr. Tanaka wants to invite MR. NAKAMURA’
or ‘MR. NAKAMURA wants to invite Mr. Tanaka,’ since all it

tells us literally is ‘With Mr. Tanaka for the topic and the
emphasis on Mr. Nakamura, somebody wants to invite

somebody.’ This ambiguity parallels that of Tarō wa Hanako ga
suki desu (‘With Taro for the subject and the emphasis on

Hanako, somebody is liked by somebody’), which can mean
either ‘Taro likes HANAKO’ or ‘HANAKO likes Taro.’ Such

ambiguities are straightened out, of course, by the situation
and the context. English ‘like’ (as in ‘I like coffee’) usually

corresponds to Japanese suki desu, but in the expression ‘I’d