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Ian
Japanese Negation
Hitojyanai - "not a person"
hitojyanai iru - "there is not a person" ?
hito inai - "A person is not there" ?
hitojyanai inai - "There is not a person who is not there" ?
I am having trouble understanding the grammatical rules for negation in Japanese. Can you say these things? Are my rough translations accurate?
Mar 22, 2014 8:40 PM
Answers · 5
1
Hi,
We have the formal and informal form, so I'll translate your sentences in both form.
"not a person"
(formal) hito de wa arimasen
(informal) hito de wa nai
*you can also say JA instead of DE WA though DE WA sounds a bit more formal in each form.
**Generally we write JA though JYA isn't incorrect.
"there is not a person"
"A person is not there"
*I think both means the same although I'm not sure for my English.
(formal) hito wa imasen / hito ga imasen
(informal) hito wa inai / hito ga inai
*there is no one / nobody is there
(formal) dare mo imasen
(informal) dare mo inai
"There is not a person who is not there" ?
*I couldn't understand this English sentence for my English.
I hope this was helpful.
March 23, 2014
1
hmmm, are you good at math? I found the easiest to understand negation by using "≠" for jyanai. And let's put subject to more understandable.
anata = you,, jyanai = not, iru = There is/are ~, inai = There is/are no ~.
hito = a person/human, seito = a student, otoko = a man/men, onnna = a woman/women *most nouns can put 'jyanai' at the end and becomes adjective.
1) anata ha hitojyanai - you are ≠ human
2) hitojyanai iru - There are people who are ≠ human
3) hito inai - There are no people
4) hitojyanai inai = hito iru - There are no people who are ≠ human = There are people who are human
Actually 1) to 4) is not a complete sentence, so even I'm hard to understand it!lol
5) anata ha otokojyanai - you are ≠man.
6) otokojyanai hito - A ≠man person.
7) seitojyanai otoko - A ≠student man.
8) onnnajyanai seito - A ≠woman student.
9) otoko ga iru - There is a man.
10) onnnajyanai hito ga iru - There is a ≠woman person.
11) seitojyanai onnna ga iru - There is a ≠student person.
12) hito ga inai - There is no person.
13) seito ga inai - There is no student.
14) seitojyanai otoko ga inai - There is no a ≠student man.
15) otokojyanai seito ga inai - There is no a ≠man student.
14) and 15) are double negative, so we don't use><
Did you get it?xD
March 23, 2014
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Ian
Language Skills
English, French, Japanese, Thai
Learning Language
Japanese, Thai
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