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Basically, just as every English sentence has a verb, every Japanese sentence has a が particle. Sometimes, it is “invisible”, but it is always there. For example, in the basic sentence “さくらです”, (I am Sakura), the subject is not said or written, but it’s implied by the context. The が is there, and logically the sentence is “(私が)さくらです”. (The 私 can be switched out with whatever the implied subject is.) In a different example, “寒いです” (It’s cold), the implied subject is closest to the English “it”, as in the sentence “It is cold”. There is no exact Japanese translation of this “it”, so logically the sentence is “_が寒いです”, with the underscore being the “it”.
が is the one that states the subject of the sentence, not は. は is more like a flag that marks the topic of the sentence. You’ve most likely heard a sentence starting with “私は” being literally translated to “As for me”. This is most accurate to what は really does. It does not change the logical meaning of the sentence, it only marks what is being talked about. Take the example from the video: Someone is ordering at a restaurant and says, “私はうなぎです”. A confused Japanese learner might think she has just heard someone say “I am an eel”. Obviously, that is not the correct meaning. Really, the sentence means, “私は(implied subject)がうなぎです”, or “As for me, (implied subject) is eel”, with the implied subject being which dish he is choosing to order. On the other hand, “私がうなぎです” would always mean “I am an eel”. The が always marks the actual subject of the sentence, not the topic.
sometimes both は and が (topic and subject) are the same thing, and in such cases, が (and what it refers to) is omitted completely.
Therefore 私は私が人で is incorrect (私が should be removed), and this happens in so many sentences that beginners can get away without learning about が topics for a lot of time, and teaching the topic-subject duality at such an early time would do more harm than good gor most.
Okay, so in ◯は_____ vs. ◯が_____ sentences, it helps to understand that usually when we formulate a sentence, half of the sentence has the “new/important” information (or, in questions, the information that we’re seeking), meanwhile the other half of the sentence is just for framing that important thing.
Coming to Japanese from English, the easiest way to start getting used to thinking about “◯は_____” phrases is as “As for ◯, …” This is because は marks ◯ as the ‘topic’ of conversation. This topic should be familiar to everyone in the conversation, right? “As for [thing you don’t know about], …” is weird, even in English. Because of this, I like to say that は should always mark a familiar topic. Hence, the “new information” in ◯は_____ phrases should always be whatever is filling the blank.
Now for ◯が_____. Compared to the は counterpart, this sounds A LOT like we are answering/confirming that ◯ is whatever the blank says. This is also why question words like 何、誰、どこ、どれ、etc. are basically glued to が. The question “誰が_____?” feels like asking “Who is/does/will _?” Then, the answer, “田中さんが_____” feels like “Tanaka-san is/does/will _.”
There’s one other really big difference between は and が usage: は feels contrastive, which means that when you make a statement like ◯は[A], it sounds like things that are not ◯ are also not [A].
Because of this, は is generally not used with positive phrases, like 今日のばんごはんは おいしいです, because it’ll sound like a backhanded compliment, maybe something like “Your meals aren’t usually tasty, but tonight’s is delicious!” So, phrases like 〇〇が好きです are commonly taught as set phrases that take が, not は.
Likewise, you might even notice that negative phrases typically use は, since that indirectly elevates everything else in a relatively positive light.
All that being said, let’s finally get back to 私はアメリカが好きです. Naturally, 好き gets used with が, because otherwise it feels like you’re implying that you don’t 好き any other country except America (maybe you actually want that nuance, but that’s kind of a fringe-case scenario…). Adding 私は in front of the phrase is optional, but it adds a feeling of “I’m only speaking for myself here, but… アメリカが好きです！”