に and で prepositions
 

Hi!
What is the difference between に and で, for example in the phrase:
犬はテーブルの上にある
犬はテーブルの上である

Well, grammatically, the first sentence is wrong, and the second one makes no sense.

犬はテーブルの上にいる。
Remember a dog is a living breath creature, so use いる.
The second sentence says, "The dog is the top of the table."
である is a more formal way of saying です

For the case of いる, you should always に.

The second sentence is incorrect and the first sentence is fine.

で[meaning place of action] is not used with ある in this way.

である is a very formal form of the copula.

Where did you get the second example? I don't know Japanese that much, but I don't think it is correct (99% I am wrong tho LOL).
I could give you a detailed list of the Italian complements which correspond to で and に...but I think that would be the wrong way since they both can be stato in luogo (indicate a place). I will try to explain how they work so you won't need to translate them and it will be easier to use them.
に shows an area (space or time) where something, someone or an event exist.
Moreover it represents where an action ends (complemento di termine).
で shows the place where and action takes place. It is used also for other things like to indicate a price or again to show the means (complemento di mezzo).
Using some examples...
ﾚｽｵﾗﾝに犬がいます　　　in this case the dog exists in the restaurant
ﾚｽﾄﾗﾝで犬が食べます　 in this case the dog is eating at the restaurant, thus the action of eating is taking place at the restaurant.
Hopefully I didn't mess all up hee hee.
As I always say...trust more others than what I say :)

Dang someone always replies while I am typing...I need to type faster :)


MMM now I am gonna make a complete fool of myself :O
Why ある? Shouldn't be いる with living people/animals?

No, you are correct, chryuop. Both are wrong because of verb choice, but 1) uses the correct use of に

You should see the big smile on my face...I finally got something right in 日本語!!!
(Running to the calendar mark a big red spot)


But I also owe an apology to Haroldさん, I really didn't see his message...where he had mentioned it, I guess usual lag made me skip his message.

ok... I guess that it will still take a long long time before I learn japanese particles (and how to use them!) :)
Thanks

Good thing is that even if it's wrong, a Japanese person should be able to understand it :)

Though... no one answered the original question. Where to use ni and de? There must be rules regarding that. While someone mentioned animate versus inanimate... that I believe is talking about the verbs.

Although I have to admit... I couldn't tell you anything of what that sentence said by myself... I can still recognize sentence structure well enough. Sentence structure is so easy in Japanese ^_^