Lesson Four: How To Make A Negative Statement

A wa B de wa arimasen.

Now that you know how to say A is B it would probably be helpful to know how to say that A is not B. Again, it is actually very simple. All you have to do is take the A wa B desu, and replace desu with de wa arimasen (or de wa nai in the more informal situations and ja arimasen or ja nai in a contracted format) to get the negative. How is that for straight forward? Couldn't be easier, now could it? Are you remembering all this? Good. I knew you could.

Usually it is also good to know how to say Yes, and No. I am sure every single person on the face of this earth already knows, through TV and the movies that Hai means Yes. But did you know that Iie means No? I bet you didn't. Well now you do. If someone asks you a question, you can answer by putting Hai or Iie at the front of the sentence.

So here are similar examples in the negative:

1. Kore wa juu de wa arimasen.
(This is not a gun.)
2. Iie, watashi wa dokushin ja nai.
(No, I'm not single.)
3. Kanojo wa Kanadajin ja arimasen.
(She isn't Canadian.)
4. Boku wa baka ja nai yo.
(I'm not an idiot!)
5. Iie, Kurinton-san wa neko de wa arimasen. Itachi desu.
(No, Mr. Clinton is not a cat. He is a weasel.)

Moving right along....

- Sensei

Next Lesson: Lesson Five - How To Make An Imperative Statement, and then How to Soften it