I am a university student in my second semester of Japanese. We have reached lesson 12 of the Genki book and I am having difficulties understanding the “んです” grammar topic. Can anyone explain it in both advanced and simple terms?
it can be translated as/literally means “it is that…” and it’s used like when you’re adding new information to a discourse. or you want to emphasise something.
ん is a contracted form of の, which can be used the same.
watch out because **だ** (or です) becomes **な**んです. But it’s used the same otherwise.
also you can’t use a -ます verb before it.
I’m trying to think of an example but i’m drawing a blank lol
so like I could say イギリス人です to describe my nationality. Neutral, “I’m british”.
if i say イギリス人なんです I’m probably emphasising it because someone called me American. “No I’m *British*.”
example with another verb… uh… パソコンが三つあります, I have three computers. パソコンが三つあるんです, I have *three* computers by the way.
you will also hear people use this form to mirror you when you tell them something new. えぇ、三つあるんですか？ “what you really have three?/wow you have three!”, イギリス人なんだ？ “ah you’re british are you?”, or the perennial そうなんですか.
usage overlaps with よ though the latter is idk more forceful??
you can use it with negative (-ない) and past tense (-た) too btw.
It might sound silly (or maybe it is), but my way of remembering it that it’s kinda the same when you use emojis in written language to express emotions. For my it has different “vibe” when someone writes “I haven’t done my homework” or “I haven’t done my homework. 😢 ”
So it feels the same for me in spoken japanese with んです.
I think you should consider “〜んです” to be a variant of “〜(な)のです”.
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Listen to Misa-sensei explain, this is a good lesson on the topic- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dunBnCI1iP0
ndes
it can be translated as/literally means “it is that…” and it’s used like when you’re adding new information to a discourse. or you want to emphasise something.
ん is a contracted form of の, which can be used the same.
watch out because **だ** (or です) becomes **な**んです. But it’s used the same otherwise.
also you can’t use a -ます verb before it.
I’m trying to think of an example but i’m drawing a blank lol
so like I could say イギリス人です to describe my nationality. Neutral, “I’m british”.
if i say イギリス人なんです I’m probably emphasising it because someone called me American. “No I’m *British*.”
example with another verb… uh… パソコンが三つあります, I have three computers. パソコンが三つあるんです, I have *three* computers by the way.
you will also hear people use this form to mirror you when you tell them something new. えぇ、三つあるんですか？ “what you really have three?/wow you have three!”, イギリス人なんだ？ “ah you’re british are you?”, or the perennial そうなんですか.
usage overlaps with よ though the latter is idk more forceful??
you can use it with negative (-ない) and past tense (-た) too btw.
Cure Dolly! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYvIOi8Q3I8
It might sound silly (or maybe it is), but my way of remembering it that it’s kinda the same when you use emojis in written language to express emotions. For my it has different “vibe” when someone writes “I haven’t done my homework” or “I haven’t done my homework. 😢 ”
So it feels the same for me in spoken japanese with んです.
I think you should consider “〜んです” to be a variant of “〜(な)のです”.