The topic particle は lets someone know what we’re talking about in the sentence.
Usually the Hiragana は is pronounced ha but when it’s used as a particle, it’s pronounced wa.
For example, in this sentence, it indicates that we’re talking about a dog.
| 犬 | は | 大きい | です。 |
| The dog | big | is. | |
| The dog is big. | |||
In this example, we’re talking about me/myself.
| 私 | は | コーヒーが | 好きです。 |
| I | coffee | like. | |
| I like coffee. | |||
In this example, we’re talking about ‘today’.
| 今日 | は | 火曜日 | です。 |
| Today | Tuesday | is. | |
| Today is Tuesday. | |||
The benefit of using the は particle, is that once you’ve declared what you’re talking about, you don’t need to specify it again, because it’s already implied.
| 猫 | は | かわいい | です。 |
| The cat | cute | is. | |
| The cat is cute. | |||
Now that we know we’re talking about a cat, we don’t need to redefine it.
| 小さい | です。 | ||
| Small | is. | ||
| (It’s) small. | |||