"I do not listen to a lot of music."
Translation:音楽はあまり聞きません。
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Wait, then does that mean when i said a lot of books in a negative sentence it is あまり本?
Wait, あまり can't be used in positive sentences as well? I thought it could.
No. The post he's replying to is about music ("I like music. I listen to a lot of music") and the reply is "Me too! Cats are very cute". Honestly, it's a non sequitur (i.e. what does liking music have to do with the cuteness of cats?), so using が would be infelicitous, because using が requires cats to be already in the discourse and highly salient. You introduce a new topic with は. The sentence is more like "As for cats, they're cute." EDIT: not that it affects anything else I said, but apparently cats enter into it because the OP's user icon had a cute cat before they were a deactivated user, so it's "The cat is very cute".
Actually, no, because we're talking about music in general. When we use は, we can roughly get it as ‘As for music, I do not listen to lots of it.'
を changed to は because it's a negative sentence.
https://www.learn-japanese-adventure.com/japanese-particles-change.html
AFAIK (I'm not very proficient so it would be great if someone could verify this) は marks what you disagree with. There could be a question asking whether you listen to music daily. Then you could either mark daily with は and music with を, meaning that you don't listen to music daily, or you could mark music with は, meaning that you don't listen to music at all. Not having は seems to be just plain wrong here (i.e. you say no but at the same time agree with all the parts of the sentence).
no tengo ninguna música
este tipo de música no la escucha nadie
"no es imposible" with "no" and "im-"
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I'd say that isn't a double negative since the whole sentence still has negative meaning. Rather, the entire sentence 'must be negative' to be correct.
And for native "double negative" (properly called "negative concord") users of English, it's the same way.
The more you know...
In this particular Japanese sentence, is it actually a double negative? I thought あまり only took on a negative meaning when used in a negative sentence, but isn't negative itself.
Its just associating the sentence structure to English were using 2 negatives would cancel the meaning but in other languages using 2 or more negatives wont necessarily alter the meaning, its still using a "double negative" to convey the meaning and at least in Spanish the whole sentence doesn't need to be negative to make sense
That is not even true of English and never has been. There were some upper crust guys in the 19th century that decided that because in formal logic two negatives cancel, it therefore stands to reason that natural language must work the same way (come hell or high water). It doesn't though. Speakers who natively say things like "I ain't got none" do not mean "I have some", they mean "I do not have any" but their dialect requires negative concord (i.e the negativity must agree across words in the sentence).
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This sentence is not double negative. And double negatives turn into positive in Japanese e.g. 音楽を聞かないこともない (literal translated "don't not to listen music. ".
You are making two questions there... first: why the sentence doesn't use たくさん instead of あまり, and second: why doesn't use the other kanji for 聴く
So let's start with the hardest one
"why あまり instead of たくさん？"
the original meaning of あまり is a little bit more complicated than just "a lot". Duolingo is just translating the Japanese sentence into English and teaching you the word. However you might need to be aware that あまり has a negative connotation, that's why is often used in negative sentences, and while you can use it in positive ones, the negative connotation still prevails.
Here is an extract from the DoJG:
The adverb あまり usually occurs in negative sentences, meaning 'not very (much)'. あまり is one of a group of adverbs which co-occur with negative predicates; In limited situations, あまり can be used in affirmative sentences, too. In this case, it means 'very; too' with a negative implication.
And the meaning of the kanji used for the word「余」has strong relevance to stretch, and it might imply to do something too much to the point of leaving only a remnant of resources. In Japanese, you use あまり as an adverb to soften the negative implication of the sentence. This is very similar to when you use "not much" in English, so I would personally translate this sentence into "I do not listen to music much", probably accepted by now in this exercise.
The reason why you don't use たくさん in here is because as I explained, the reason for あまり is not to mean "a lot" is just a softening expression from the language. Using たくさん here sound weirds to me here because of the negative meaning. たくさん would make more sense if the sentence is a positive one like たくさん書きます。Using it with a negative verb is like saying "I do a lot of not hearing" and that just sounds wrong.
Why 聞く instead of 聴く
聞 is a more general kanji, you can translate 聞く to "to hear", it doesn't have anything to do with music, while 聴 is more about paying attention while hearing and you can translate 聴く to "to listen" and in the context of music it also has an "enjoying" meaning.
In the exercise 聴く makes more sense to me, but Duolingo is probably using a more general kanji for this sentence because this is still a basic part of the course. Both are fine though.
How do double negatives work in Japanese? If I were to translate this sentence directly I would write: おんがくはたくさん聞きません。 But the proper translation reads like ”does not listen to not a lot of music”
Not not may mean yes in English but in Japanese (and quite a few other languages) not not is just not. The whole sentence is negative since its individual parts are negative.
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In this case "音楽はたくさんは聞きません" is my first insight, and I am a native speaker. Also this sentence is not double negative. Just the adverb あまり imply negative feeling".
My sentence was あまりおんがくは聞きません and it was right. But it doesn't have the same meaning right?
Based on other discussions, あまりおんがくは聞きません should mean "I don't listen to a lot of music" while 音楽はあまり聞きません should mean "I don't listen a lot to music.
Thank you. Duolingo just told me the opposite and I didn't think that both englush sentences (which have different meanings) could have the same translation in Japanese
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It does. Only slightly different in the point of emphasis. Yours sound put stress on あまり. Duo version sounds more neutral.
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Why is it は and not が? I swear... every time I think to FINALLY grasp the difference between the two I find out the rules changed, or there are additional rules or exceptions.
Here the 私は at the start of the sentence is understod but not included, right? Why is it then は and が is not accepted at all?
in this particular sentence is to place the focus of the sentence into the negation. The important part is あまり聞きません.
Since the topic is something that is known between both the listener and the speaker, at least conceptually, the topic is not important, what's important is what you are saying about the topic, then the rest of the sentence pops up in the listener's mind. The listener hears 音楽は "speaking of music" and he thinks "what about it?".. あまり聞きません。"I do not listen to it much".
If you use が、this would be ungrammatical since we expect を as in よく音楽を聞きます。
I got this right only because i knew what duo was after, BUT, I think Duo had it wrong. I would translate Duos answer as :I don't listen to music much, or, a lot. Yet, it asked to translate the English sentence of: I don't listen to a lot of music. Therefor, Music should be modified, not the verb. .....imho, haha
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聞けません means "cannot listen to". That is not same as the question. Also 聞く（聞き-ませ-ん）and 聞ける（聞け-ませ-ん）are two different verbs, not just different conjugations.
Can あまり come before 音楽？ If so, can it be at the beginning of the sentence, or would I to add in the 私 part? Which of these is most common?
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あまり音楽は聞きません is grammatically correct. "音楽あまりはききません" is no good grammar, while understandable. You would meet such an instance in lyrics, it is kinda "poetic license".
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あまり should come after きき right? Because it's "listen to a lot" and not "a lot to listen". Can someone explain in detail why am i wrong and what's the right way and why? Thanks :)
Why only 音楽 is accepted, but not 歌? What is the difference between 音楽 and 歌?
音楽 is music, but 歌 is songs. Ideally all songs are music, but not all music is a song.
I was wondering... shouldn't I be using the other kanji 「聴く」 here if I'm trying to talk about listening to music? From what I've been told, 「聞く」 is more like "hear" and 「聴く」is more like "listen".
there's a slight difference in nuance between "i don't listen to a lot of music" and "i don't really listen to music". the first case might be if say, someone only listens to one type of music. the second is more like he doesn't really listen to music at all. would there be a difference in japanese?
