What is the difference between “Namerunayo” vs “Namennayo”?

I have seen both being used to mean “Don’t underestimate me” but wanted to understand the difference between the two forms.

5 comments
  1. ~~The first looks more like negative imperative (more of a command) to me than the second?~~

  2. As I understand it, the latter form is simply a contraction for the former. So the latter is usually more colloquial and spoken where the former is formal and literary

  3. In rapid or slangy speech -るな changes to んな. That’s it. Try saying namerunayo fast a bunch, and you can see how this could happen pretty easily.

  4. Understand (which you likely understand, but) it’s a common way to tell someone they are not taking things seriously.

    Because people come at it from media the see it as something says to a person, but it is frequently used to tell new workers that they might get hurt if they don’t take things (cars, machinery, actions etc) seriously.

    It is pretty much always rude, and so is effective to tell someone to, as we would say in English “Wake the fuck up! You could get someone killed!) abruptly, even if you do not use the abrupt command form. Namenai de kudasai still carries some punch.

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