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- "No, I am not Chinese."
"No, I am not Chinese."
Translation:いいえ、中国人ではありません。
90 Comments
いいえ is no
中国人 is a chinese person
で and は are the particles (indicate what the word does in the sentence)
ありません is one whole conjugated word. あります is the positive and ありません is the negative. "ません" is the whole negative ending they just split it into ませ and ん to make sure you are paying attention and understand proper conjugation form
(If anything i said is wrong please forgive me I'm still learning myself)
I think that you can simply learn ではありません as the negative present form of です. However, this has in fact an interpretation in terms of particles https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/1j7qeb/what_does_では_mean_specifically_in_では_ありません/
I don't think it is an abbreviation, but simply different constructions for affirmative and negative forms. According to this Quora thread, people also use ではあります, but in a very particular way. https://www.quora.com/What-is-deha-arimasu-%E3%81%A7%E3%81%AF%E3%81%82%E3%82%8A%E3%81%BE%E3%81%99?srid=2Emm
651
で - stating that we are talking about the concept or state of the previous noun
は - stressing the negative at the end
あり - the "adverbial" form of ある "to exist (for inanimates, including concepts, states)"
ませ - the "irrealis" form of ます - used to show respect to the listener
ん - it is transformed from the auxiliary verb ぬ - meaning negative.
So いいえ、(私は)中国人ではありません is saying "I do not exist as a concept of a Chinese person."
I have a more detailed explanation here => https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/23146395
You need it because it's part of the negation of です, the auxiliary verb "to be". In casual speech this would be ではない or じゃない (じゃ = contraction of では), and in polite speech ではありません.
Without で you would be saying something like "there are no Chinese people", and in a rather inpolite way as well, since ある (the basic form of あります) is used only for inanimate/dead objects, not people.
So I am not sure about Japanese but I do wonder if it is like Spanish... In Spanish, I and We are often omitted. It is called a tacit subject. In Spanish, the verb conjugation contains the necessary information to deduce the subject.
I am telling you this because while saying "Yo fui a bla bla" in Spanish is correct, it sounds strange and when I ot We is used a lot it sounds repetitive and selfish. A lot of native English speakers tend to do this and I can always tell they are not native speakers. They do this a lot in movies. The script writers dont hire native speakers to revise the lines lol
Anyway, that is besides the point. My main point here is, you will sound like a foreigner if you use watashi and boku a lot. Of course, our thick accents will give us away but we dont need our grammar to be cringe worthy.
Once it is established who you are talking about, dont repeat it. Keep in mind that the context will tell the listener if you are talking about you, him/her or someone else.
It's been a loooooooong time since I took Japanese in college (and only two quarters of it), so forgive me if this is wrong, but...no.
Pretty sure you'd have to tack "あなた は" at the beginning to indicate that you're talking about 'you', talking about the person to whom you're speaking. "As for you, you are not Chinese," basically.
を is a direct object particle. It marks the thing that a transitive verb is acting on. It would not work here as there is no object and no transitive verb in this sentence.
寿司を食べます・sushi o tabemasu・I eat sushi・Sushi (object) Eat - Sushi is the object that you are doing the action of eating to.
I think you're thinking of は, wa, the topic particle. This introduces the topic of the sentence. The topic can be omitted if it is known information. In this sentence the person the sentence is about "I/me/myself" is the topic and is the thing being omitted. The full sentence would be 私は中国人ではありません (On the topic of me - I am not Chinese)
ではありません is the negative form of the copula です, it is the part of the sentence that means "is not"
Without では, you would only have the negative ありません which means "does not exist"
中国人はありません would turn it into "Chinese people don't exist" lol
私・わたし・'watashi' is the first-person pronoun "I" or "Me"
Pronouns are rarely used in Japanese and can usually be implied through context. Only really use pronouns if you need to clarify or add emphasis to who you are talking about, like when changing a topic. If the conversation was previously talking about Maria but you wanted to say something about yourself you would use 私は to change the topic to yourself. That way the listener knows who you are referring to and doesn't think you're still talking about Maria. (This sentence is "No, I am not X" which implies you are answering a question directed towards you so there is no reason to clarify that you are talking about yourself. The listener already assumes you are since you are replying to something they asked you).
It is similar to how in English we only mention a person's name at the beginning of a paragraph and then refer to them as "he/she/they" the entire rest of the conversation until a new name comes up. Japanese does this to an even greater extent. It would sound unnatural to constantly repeat "I" as if the listener didn't know who you were talking about.
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中国出身 - from China
中国人 - Chinese
They are different. Like if you are from Britain you are not necessarily British.
651
The model answer is いいえ、中国人ではありません。
To say something about myself, 私は is often not needed in Japanese. It is understood most of the times.
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いいえ、私中国人ではありません。 is not a complete sentence. The は is necessary. In conversations particles can be dropped, but as a beginner, I strongly recommend trying to make every sentence complete.
968
This incomplete sentence was accepted for me. I used 私 without that particle は (since I needed it forでは)
651
When you write, you only write ではありません. When you speak you use じゃないです. じゃありません is a bit more rigid. ではありません can be spoken in a more formal context.
58
You wrote ありまでん (arimaDen) instead of ありません (arimaSen). Otherwise your sentence is correct.
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I don't see anything wrong, you should probably report this as "my answer should have been accepted"
When am I required to use 私は and when am I not required to use it? Because every time I don't use it (when the sentence starts with "I am" it's wrong.. But when I do use it, it's wrong too. Is there a difference between "I'm" and "I am"? Or am I missing something else? This is very confusing. Can someone explain? Thanks in advance!
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I am not a pro so take this with a grain of salt.
I don't know what version of Duo you're using but there's no reason you should be penalised for not using it, if the particle following it is は, because it's omitted when it's obvious who you're speaking about (and I've never been penalised for that in the app; if it happens again, feel free to post the answer you gave to make sure it's the only thing wrong in the sentence and if so, report it as "my answer should have been accepted"). As a rule, anything that is obvious from context should be omitted.
A good rule of thumb is if the sentence is obviously an answer to a question/remark ("are you Chinese?" or "I think kokosnoot is Chinese, right?" for example) like here, then you should omit it as it would sound very unnatural in Japanese. If it's a statement about yourself like "Hi, my name is kokosnoot" or "I am from Berlin" that could be a standalone sentence, then it would really be up to context whether or not using 私は is necessary.
All in all, I really don't see why you'd be penalised for omitting a 私は because it's very very rarely wrong to omit it in Japanese.
Hope this helps :)
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Basically yes. I'd even encourage it as adding a 私は when you're obviously speaking about yourself would sound a bit "me me me look at me" to a native speaker from what I've been told :)
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Why did I not need は after 私? Why is it not used in the beginning of the sentence? Is it because the は is in the ではありませえん?
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I assume it's because technically, in spoken Japanese, people tend to drop the は so Duo accepts that, but it's more correct to not have a 私は at all in this sentence as it is obviously an answer to a question such as "are you Chinese?", so it's obvious you're talking about yourself.
After reading through some articles I found the meaning of dewa.
If it is alone in a sentence (preceding the subject) it means "then"
In this sentence however, dewa implies that this SPECIFIC subject takes the verb, other subjects do not work. It means "I am not Chinese (however I am something else.)" If dewa is used with something like "I do not eat apples" it becomes "I do not eat apples (but I eat something else.)" In another example I read, a sentence like "You can exit via this door" + dewa = "You can exit via this door (but not other doors.)" Hope this clarifies, tell me if it can be clearer.
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Is there any rule when to use ja nai des and de wa ari masen? Earlier dl used in sentence im not japanese ja nai des combination.
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They both mean the exact same thing, but there are different levels of politeness. First, じゃ is a contraction of では so it sounds more casual/informal (and should mostly be used orally, I think). Second, when conjugating a verb in general, ない marks a negation in plain form and ません marks a negation in polite form. Overall, you can play around with both:
ではありません: very formal
じゃありません: a bit less formal
ではない(です): informal
じゃない(です): informal
I'm not exactly sure about just how formal but I'm fairly sure I correctly ranked them from most formal to least. Also, I'm not sure about the です after ない form but as far as I can tell it's optional and might had a hint of politeness, but from what I've seen, you'd use じゃない on its own when speaking to a friend (e.g. if you're not feeling too good, you might say "元気じゃない…").
Hope this help, and I invite anyone who might spot a mistake in what I said to correct me if I'm wrong.