[deleted]

Who else liked this comment without fully understanding the context?

Thanks red, i was trying to understand the 'se' vs 'shi'

So would you use the first two when referring to other people? And the 2nd two are for yourself/us?

Is -shimasu and -semasu a politer way of -su and -seru? Are -shimasen and -semasen their polite forms? What's the other form?

Why would you learn to say that you can't speak Japanese in different languages?

This is a strange coincidence. The first ha is actually the particle wa, indicating japanese language as the subject of the sentence. The second ha is the first hiragana in hanashimasu, meaning to speak or tell a story. The fact that they are next to eachother is a fluke. Haha does mean mother, but it's not supposed to be in this sentence. Nice catch.

Think of it as: ,,As for Japanese, I cannot speak it.''

In fact, "Japanese" IS the subject of this sentence, not the speaker. [watashi wa nihongo o hanashimasen desu] means "I do not speak japanese" as well, but rearranged so the topic is the speaker and not the language. The first one is more like "Japanese is not something I speak."

Wa is topic particle

Duolingo is wrong. When using potential form, particles have to use が by default, nothing related to first person.

The complete sentence would be

わたし は - 日本語 が - はなせません

Usually i, me, you, are omitted during normal conversation. Thats why

Negatives are conjugated onto the verb. A polite positive verb usually ends with -masu and a polite negative ends with -masen. Search up a conjugation chart for Japanese and practice it owo

In the right context, any pronoun is acceptable. For example, this situation:

A: 彼は英語が話せますか。 Can he speak English?

B: ええ、話せますよ。 Yes, (that's right) he can.

A: 日本語は？ What about Japanese?

B: あ、日本語は話せません。 Ah, he can't speak Japanese.

It's not a program error; they are all actually correct :v Let me explain:

Root verb = 話す "to speak"

Polite present tense = 話します "to speak"

Polite negative present tense = 話しません "to not speak"

Potential tense = 話せる "to be able to speak"

Polite potential tense = 話せます "to be able to speak"

Polite negative potential tense = 話せません "to not be able to speak"

Japanese is the subject of this sentence.

Wow... even as a native English speaker, this is a very very subtle difference (possibly one I'm imagining).

My first thought was "yes, it should be valid too." However, by inserting "in", it breaks up the phrase "to speak language". The assumption of this phrase is that you can comprehend the language, that you can understand it. When you say "I can't speak in Japanese", there's almost an implied "but I can read/write/understand it".

In other words, "I can't speak Japanese" implies zero Japanese ability, whereas "I can't speak in Japanese" implies poor speaking ability.

But like I said, I could just be thinking about it too much f(^_^;

Since the subject is omitted, you're naturally expected to presume that you're referring to yourself.

We use は here in order to emphasize "Japanese" in a negative sentence. は is called the "topic" particle, so it's not surprise that we use it to indicate that something is the topic of conversation.

This emphasis is not strictly necessary though, but it is very common practice; that is, it sounds much more natural in most cases to use は in a negative sentence. In "I do not drink green tea" (which should be おちゃをのみません), it's acceptable to use を because "green tea" is directly acted upon by the verb. The topic of conversation in this case, would remain as the speaker or the person who was previously the topic. For example:

• A: ジョンさんはおちゃが好き【すき】ですか？ ("Does John like green tea?")
• B: 全然【ぜんぜん】、おちゃをのみません。("Not at all, he doesn't drink green tea.")

Also, since the verb is はなせません (i.e. in potential form), we wouldn't use the direct object marker を anyway; we should use が. This is because the verb is talking about ability, not an actual action. If you said "I can't speak Japanese (はなせません)", there isn't any Japanese not being spoken, you're just saying you don't have the ability to. If you said "I won't speak Japanese (はなしません)", there is a concrete amount of Japanese not being spoken, so you can use を.

The first sentence should be を.

1. 日本語を話します
2. 日本語は話しません
3. 日本語が話せます
4. 日本語は話せません

Sentence 1 is the base sentence. I will not speak Japanese. 話します is transitive, and 日本語 is the direct object, so を.

Sentence 3 is the potential form variant of 1. When in potential form, the verb 話せます is no longer transitive, so が is used to represent the target of the ability.

Sentence 2 and 4 are the negative variants of 1 and 3. When in negative, は is used to stress the negative mood, and は supecedes both が and を in each sentence.

Of course, は can be used to bring up a topic for other reasons as well, so sentence 1 and 3 can use は to replacw が and を also.

Technically in this sentence the subject is the japanese language. The speaker has only an implied relationship that is conditional. This same sentence could mean he/she/my grandma's potato doesnt speak japanese, depending on the conversational context.

The verbs are seldom conjugated depending on the subject. The verb stays intact, and the subject is implied; if you were talking about someone else and you said this sentence, you would be saying "[he/she] cannot speak Japanese." But in this case, without context, you are talking about yourself.

Just don't get confused by the tooltip. The sentence is like this: 日本語　は　話（はな）せません. Nothing to do with mother.

That's the answer I gave and got correct, but this thread makes me wonder about the differences of "はなしません" and "はなせません"...

"He doesn't speak Japanese" is a possible translation of this sentence in the right context. You'll notice that in the Japanese sentence, there isn't a pronoun marked as the subject, so it means that we have to guess from the context (which Duo doesn't provide for us).

If you were talking to someone about your brother, and they said "Can he speak Japanese", in English, you could reply with "He doesn't" and people would understand. It's the same concept in Japanese; you reply "doesn't speak" and it's obvious you're still talking about your brother, so you don't need to mention him.

My guess is that Duo's auto correct thinks "he" was the closest acceptable pronoun where you put "mother". Then again, "Mother doesn't speak Japanese" could be an acceptable translation too, in the right context.

I think 'Japanese' would have to be doing something to use 'ga'.

The verb is already 'hanasemasen', which is 'to not speak'. So adding another verb would be odd. I think it would be more like if you took away 'masen' (and somehow kept it negative), it would be the impolite form. 'deshita' itself means 'was'.

Nothing in this sentence indicates "they" or "I". As is frequently the case in Japanese, the information about the subject is implied though context. We don't have any context in these exercises, so Duo accepts (or should accept) a number of different answers because there is more than one correct translation depending on the context.

"I" is the subject. "Japanese" is the passive subject in the potential form construct. The literal translation is "I have the trait that Japanese can be spoken." So both I and Japanese are subjects (although modern grammar simplifies this as Japanese being the indirect object of ability or wish).

は is used to bring up the negative contrast where it implies I cannot speak Japanese but can speak something else.

日本語はではりません is simply incorrect Japanese.

I suspect you might have meant 日本語ではありません, but you've made two mistakes in your sentence. Firstly, the verb should be ではありません is the negative form of です, so my sentence means "It is not Japanese" (日本語 = "Japanese", ではありません = "is not"). Secondly, if that is the verb you meant, the topic particle は doesn't go in between it and the subject. 日本語 は ではありません is just ungrammatical.

Well, I'm not the best but, in this case, you use は because you're marking the topic of the sentence.

So it's like: "As for Japanese language, I cannot speak it".

See? The topic of the sentence is 日本語, and using は you point it out.

In no case you must. It is optional and depends on the purpose of the sentence (whether the speaker wants to make Japanese a topic or not).

I guess you will have to say this if you are in front of a Japanese now. who cannot speak English.

I think the idea is to show you how to make negative verbs in Japanese.

You missed quite a number of things.

1. ではありません is the negative for nouns and na-adjectives (one of the two types of adjectives in Japanese). The construct is (noun/na-adj)ではありません. There is no が in between.

2. To form the negative of a verb we use (verb in the renyou form)ません. Renyou form is the same form you should have learnt along with verb+ます. Essentially you just change ます to ません.

3. In this question it is talking about ability, so potential form is used. i.e. (verb in potential form)ません. To change a verb to potential form, I have a detailed explanation above in this thread.

Duplicate question. Search for -Tara- in this page for answer

I don't want to sound rude, but precisely because at this point in the course, you are (likely) quite far from being able to speak Japanese, let alone fluently.

"Fluent Japanese" is actually a noun phrase (流暢な日本語 - な-adjective + noun), which is a relatively complicated thing to learn after you've just learned the basic SOV sentence structure (which is also very different and possibly unintuitive compared to English's SVO structure). Alternatively, another good way to translate that sentence into Japanese would be to use "fluent" as an adverb, e.g. "I cannot speak Japanese fluently", which, again, is a relatively complicated concept for what has been covered up to now.

I checked the audio above and it sounds correct.

Nihongo WA HAnase masen

Did you mix up the first WA with the second HA?

Yes it seems to be a reason outbreak of this bug. Please send a bug report preferably with screenshot via the Duolingo webpage.

Yes-ish*.

Polite verbs end with ます when it's an affirmative sentence and ません when it's a negative sentence. In plain verbs, they end in "u" for affirmatives and ない for negatives.

In order to say whether you can or can't, you have to combine that rule with the potential form of a verb. In this case, the affirmative potential forms, i.e. "can speak", are はなせます (polite) and はなせる (plain), and the negative potential forms, i.e. "can't speak", are はなせません (polite) and はなせない (plain).

For grammar there is a course note page you can access by clicking on the light blub button before starting the lesson at the course content page. Inside each question, every word of the question can be checked with the meaning when clicking on the word itself.

No, は indicates the word before is a topic only. The topic can be a subject, an object or others. However Japanese is indeed a subject, but you have to understand there can be two subjects in a Japanese sentence. The full sentence is 私は日本語が話せません which means "I have a trait that Japanese cannot be spoken." Note that "I" is the bigger subject and "Japanese" is the smaller subject.

Never heard of "the 'Ni' before 'Masu' implies that the verb is negative in some way." (And I can't think of what you have mixed up with.)

The common way to make a negative statement is "dewa arimasen" for nouns, "masen" for verbs and "ku naidesu" for adjectives.

There is already an answer to this question. Search for Lazariusta in this thread.

There is already an answer to this question. Search for Lazariusta in this thread.

Downvote, duplicate question, already asked by revtobiaz in this page.

Downvote, duplicate question, already asked by revtobiaz in this page.

Downvote, duplicate question, already asked by revtobiaz in this page.

It doesn't mean the same thing, and it was marked wrong because it's incorrect English.

"I cannot not speak" means "I must speak" or "I'm incapable of being in a state of silence"; this is not the same thing as "I cannot speak".

This isn't the place to be spamming; the course developers don't necessarily read these comments as it's intended as a forum for learners.

When you get the question "wrong", you should have a flag/report button available to say "My answer should have been accepted". That's what you want to spam. Some people have previously made comments that the button isn't available for them. If this is the case for you, I'd recommend updating your app, trying the lesson on a browser, or simply accept the fact that the course developers didn't target this course for you, but for beginners who might get intimidated by so much kanji.

Apparently with potential forms, we don't use を coz theres no action being taken yet.

"Understand" is 分かる(わかる) not 話す(はなす).
"I don't understand Japanese" is
「日本語が分かりません」。

Understand = wakaremasu hanase is speak