So, I’m in my second semester of formally learning Japanese and we’re taught to use じゃないです, however, when I mentioned this with my family (who are native Japanese), they were confused and said that they would never use じゃない, even in casual conversation, and that it would always be some iteration of ではありません(dewaarimasen/dearimasen). I understand that ではありません is more formal, but does anyone have experience/comments on this? Could it be a regional thing since my family is from Kyoto and my teacher is from Tokyo? Is it a part of standard/fundamental Japanese? (forgot what it’s called)
11 comments
Can’t speak on the Kyoto dialect, but じゃない is a totally normal part of casual Japanese in Tokyo. I use it with friends and family all the time. 100% fine to use casually, 100% avoid in all classroom/professional/service settings.
Regarding the pushback, how is your family’s grasp on english?
It could be that they’re misunderstanding “causal Japanese” as something like “chatting at the watercooler”, which would still be a “professional setting”, which WOULD actually be weird to use じゃない。
I’m not sure if Japanese people understand the concept of learning “Japanese that you only use at the bar with your buddies” in a formal classroom. I think it might be something like learning profanities in school lol.
じゅない is standard Japanese, if your family is from Kyoto they’re probably used to speaking Kyoto-ben which uses じゃあらへん.
じゃない is very commonly used in casual conversations.
じゃないです is something in between casual and formal and is not really common to hear on it’s own I think. I imagine this to rather continue with じゃないですが or じゃないですけど
ではありません is formal and I agree with your parents that this is more often used in formal conversations.
Maybe there are reasons teaching this way to be more familiar with the suffix of です
If anything it’s the opposite, in daily use I think you’d hear じゃない far more often than you’d encounter ではありません. ではありません is *quite* formal
I actually very rarely hear ではありません in Tokyo outside of formal settings like the office.
Kyushu calling. We use that frequently, all day, every day.
Ask your Kyoto family what they think of やあらへんで
じゃない/じゃないです is straight standard bread & butter japanese. They probably mean something like they in particular prefer to use ではありません/etc. personally, because everyone and their mother uses じゃない。ではありません is pretty formal, id imagine someone who’s either an employee speaking to a customer or someone just rigid at their core only ever using it in spoken conversation. ではない however is common enough in spoken
The confusion probably comes from the fact that じゃないです sounds like it’s trying to be formal (because it’s using です) but in reality you wouldn’t say this in a formal setting.
You absolutely can use じゃない (without です) in any informal setting. And if it’s a formal setting then you’d want to use ではありません or じゃありませんlike your family suggested.
Also, there’s a simple explanation why じゃないです sounds quite wrong. They probably haven’t told you this yet, but です in reality is short for ではあります. That’s why the negation is ではありません. Another thing that you’ll eventually learn is that「では」sometimes becomes 「じゃ」(just from saying it fast, especially when speaking informal Japanese). So this is how ではありません informally becomes じゃない (I hope you already knew that あります、ありません become ある、ない in casual). Anyway, when someone says じゃないです they’re actually saying ではありませんではあります, which of course it’s repetitive and sounds unnecessary. Some people still do it tho, we’re all human and like to play with language or be goofy or sometimes just don’t think about what we’re really saying.
いいんじゃない？
I think its because they are in Kyoto. The culture in Kyoto is preserved and from what I learned they are very polite people. Maybe that’s the reason why they don’t use じゃない even with family and friends or casual conversations. They also have their own dialect.. so yuh. 😊