I asked a few native speakers about which phrase was more natural in a situation where I ask a friend if they had time:
時間がありますか？
or
時間はありますか？
They all chose the latter. So is the former unnatural? In what situations would you use it in?
Answer
I'm amused to read all of your native Japanese speaking friends chose 時間はあります. To me 時間があります and 時間はあります sound the same, and look interchangeable as a postpositional particle - は、が following the subject..
If I was asked which of が and は I would choose in the following examples, I would choose
バッテリーの交換は３０分かかります。(お待ちいただく)時間はありますか？
開宴まで５分です。トイレに行く時間はありますか？
もう６０歳だ。残された時間はない
まだ十分考える時間がある
くだくだ言っている時間はない
But it doesn’t mean the other option would be grammatically wrong.
Frankly I don’t know why I chose them this way. It might be just intuitive for me, and it is a matter of taste at best. I don’t think the choice of は and が makes any significant difference in meaning or grammaticality in most cases.
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