の Particle to Request/Provide Explanations

1. What are the differences between conjugating の and using it with different conjugations?
2. What does each of them actually mean? Does **じゃなかったんだ** mean ‘it was not, is not it?’, can we just add the ‘is not it?’ part to the expression?

||「んだ」 with different conjugations|「んだ」 is conjugated|
|:-|:-|:-|
|Negative|学生**じゃないんだ**|学生**なんじゃない**|
|Past|学生**だったんだ**|学生**なんだった**|
|Past-Neg|学生**じゃなかったんだ**|学生**なんじゃなかった**|

3. I know that 今、授業がないんじゃない? = Don’t you not have class now? (Expecting that there is no class),
But how can I understand such complex expressions?
Why does combining negative (がない) + negative (じゃない) we still have negative as translation (*Expecting that there is no class*)?
Is not it like in math: – (minus) \* – (minus) = + (plus)

4. The source of this grammar is [TaeKim Grammar Guide](https://guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/nounparticles). Are there any other sources especially for this part?

2 comments
  1. Dead ass I need someone to explain to me Japanese particles as if I’m a 2 year old trying to understand the alphabet

  2. E.g. 学生なんじゃない

    * Start with 学生だ (I’m a student).
    * Make it explanatory 学生な**のだ** (It’s that I’m a student) – Add のだ (or んだ if you prefer) to the end – the だ of the original sentence must also be put into its connective form な.
    * Now we just have a nominal sentence (nominalized by the final の before the だ) – so to make this negative, use the te-form of だ (で) and add ない (using a topic marker in between) – i.e. ’ではない’ (or if you prefer じゃない). Hence 学生なんじゃない.

    See [https://youtu.be/lYvIOi8Q3I8](https://youtu.be/lYvIOi8Q3I8) for more info.

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