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In the very first grammar lesson, you learned how to use state of being. To recap, state of being is the declaration that something (a noun) is (or has the qualities) of something else (a noun or an adjective). For instance, the sentence "I am American" uses state of being - I have "stated" that I am an American.
Now this is all fine and dandy. But what about when something isn't something else? This is called negative state of being. It's the declaration that something is not (or does not have the qualities) of something else. So to negate the previous example, "I am not American" is an example of negative state of being.
In Japanese it's pretty basic. This applies to nouns and noun-like adjectives only (you'll learn how to conjugate other adjectives and verbs in another lesson). Simply affix じゃない after the noun or noun-like adjective.
それは本じゃない。As for that, is not a book.
It's just that easy. Let's try it again, but with a more complicated sentence:
サリーさんは魚が好きじゃない。As for Sally, fish are not likeable. (Sally doesn't like fish.)
In this example, we have what's called a な-adjective. They act like nouns, which is why they have similar conjugations. な-adjectives (and the other type, い-adjectives) will be explained in the next lesson, but keep it in mind that な-adjectives conjugate exactly like nouns. Let's look at an example of how you can conjugate な-adjectives to modify a noun:
リア先生は静かじゃない部屋が好き。As for Leah sensei, not-quiet rooms are likeable. (Leah-sensei likes rooms that aren't quiet.)
This puts emphasis more on what Leah likes. She likes it when rooms are not quiet. You can invert the sentence to mean the same thing, but the focus turns to what Leah doesn't like:
リア先生は静かな部屋が好きじゃない。As for Leah sensei, quiet rooms are not likeable. (Leah-sensei doesn't like quiet rooms.)
In reality, 静か and 好き are both な-adjectives. When modifying another noun in the positive sense, な follows the adjective. When acting as nouns they look like normal nouns. In the above sentence, 静か is functioning as an adjective, while 好き is functioning as a noun.
The last thing I want to point out is that the 「じゃ] in 「じゃない」 is actually a contraction of the sound 「では」, making it 「ではない」. 「ではない」 is a bit more literary, and you will hear 「じゃない」 far more often in conversation. Another thing to note is the 「は」 in 「では」 is also the 「は」 particle, so it is pronounced like 「でわない」. If you're curious, 「ｘではない」 actually means "in x, does not exist."
So that's the basics of the negative state of being for nouns and noun-like adjectives. With this conjugation you can make some decent sized sentences, but you've still got a ways to go.
Worksheet
Want to practice negative state of being? Download the worksheet below:
Negative State of Being Worksheet
Click here for the answer key.
Lessons
The Writing Systems
- Understanding the Japanese Writing Systems
- Hiragana
- Katakana
- Romaji & Why It Sucks
- Introduction to Kanji