how can I know わけない when is meaning “easy/simple” and when is meaning “impossible” ?

3 comments

1. i think you can just tell from the context, but I’ve never heard わけない being used for meaning “easy/simple” then again I don’t really talk to japanese people. Hopefully this helps

2. You can usually tell by how わけない links to the surrounding words. When it means 簡単, you have to be able to replace わけない with an adjective such as 簡単(な) itself. When it means わけがない, you have to be able to replace わけない with わけがない or e.g. こと(が)ない. These can only occur in certain syntactic positions.

   For example:

   そんな**わけない**だろ。そんな**ことない**だろ。~~そんな**簡単**だろ。~~
   The last one is syntactically incorrect.
   → the meaning is そんなわけがないだろ。

   そんなの**わけない**だろ。~~そんなの**ことない**だろ。~~そんなの**簡単**だろ。
   The middle one is syntactically incorrect.
   → the meaning is そんなの簡単だろ。

3. Its the same as 不思議 meaning both “weird, strange” and “miraculous, wonderful” words in English that are completely different from each other but in Japanese difference is based on nuance.

   There are so many words and instances like these sometimes Japanese and English becomes in comparable making learning pretty difficult.