[headerLesson]Negative Tense - いる - ある [/headerLesson] By now you
should have a clear understanding of います and あります however there is
one problem with all of this, we don’t know how to disagree with
someone or to state that they are wrong. We can easily do this just
by changing tenses. はじめましょう!
Remember the copula です? It can be viewed as “to be” but as we know
from English grammar, “to be” is a verb which can only mean that です
is both a copula and a verb. For example, if you’ve BEEN somewhere
or perhaps you’re about to be in a location. Verbs are actions and
they have tenses even in Japanese.
|
Positive |
Negative |
Present |
です |
で は ありません |
Present |
あります |
ありません |
In Japanese, verbs are easy to learn how to conjugate and we will
learn more about them in JPLearn! Lesson 21 however, we will
advance one step at a time by first observing the Present-Positive
and Present-Negative (Polite) tenses.
If we take a look at the chart above, we can observe and find that
です (to-be) can become ではありません when it is conjugated negatively.
Let’s first look at an example for further elaboration.
[b]Example Sentences:[/b]
That is a cat -> それはねこです。 [i](Present-Positive Form)[/i]
No, that is not a cat -> いいえ、それはねこではありません。 [i](Present-Negative
Form)[/i]
In the above example we added the word “No” いいえ to the beginning of
the sentence to declare the argument and conjugated です to
で は ありません. It may seem strange that we are using ありません when there
is a living thing (the cat) in context but in this context we
should be using ありません because [b]it just is[/b].
When you must state that something is not, use ではありません.
When you must state that that such thing is not there, you may use
いません.
In other verb, ありません is the negative of “to have / to be” and is a
conjugation of the verb ある. The verb いません is the negative of “to
be” meaning the existence of something and it is a conjugation of
the verb いる.
[b]Let’s look at some more examples and try to understand the
differences between いる and ある[/b]
English |
Japanese |
(I) have a book. |
ほんはあります。 |
(I) don’t have a book. |
ほんはありません。 |
There is a woman. |
おんなはいます。 |
There is no woman. |
おんなはいません。 |
That is a horse. |
それはうまです。 |
No, that is not a horse. |
いいえ、それはうまではありません。 |
Perhaps by now the usage of the two has become more evident. There
will be more practice in the assignments and in future lessons you
will become more natural with the correct grammar through more
exposure.
[headerLesson]Formal, Informal, and Casual Japanese[/headerLesson]
Truth be told, you will not use ではありません too often because it’s
strictly very formal and unnatural in day-to-day conversations.
While it may still be acceptable it can be seen as the difference
between using the full meaning and instead using an apostrophe like
“will not” and “won’t” in English. It is certainly more polite to
say ではありません though it may not sound natural in context. Keep in
mind that you should retain a Formal conversation approach to those
whom rank higher than you in society such as your boss, a police
officer, customers and so forth.
[b]Let’s observe the following table to see the key differences
between formalities.[/b]
Verb |
Present-Positive |
Present-Negative (Formal) |
Present-Negative (Informal) |
Present-Negative (Casual) |
ある |
あります |
ありません |
ないです |
ない |
いる |
います |
いません |
いないです |
いない |
[b]By using the table above, we can formulate the following
sentences:[/b]
にわとりはありません。 = There is no Chicken. [i](Formal)[/i]
にわとりはいないです。 = There is no Chicken. [i](Informal)[/i]
にわとりはない。= There is no Chicken [i](Casual)[/i]
Well done, let's finish the conversation between ひでよ and ひとみ from
the previous lesson.
English |
Translation |
Hideyo: It’s a cat! |
ひでよ:ねこがいますよ。 |
Hitomi: Where is the cat? |
ひとみ:どこにいますか? |
Hideyo: The cat is over there! |
ひでよ: あそこがいます! |
Hitomi: There is no cat. |
ねこはありません。 |
[headerLesson]Assignments[/headerLesson] It’s now time to do this
lesson’s assignments. We will be using a chart to create our own
sentences, learn new katakana characters, and improve our
vocabulary. In the next lesson, we will be learning about Japanese
Adjectives. This will be a 3-part series as it is quite an
extensive subject. However after learning Japanese adjectives we
will be able to put all of what we learned into practical Japanese.