Page 139 - Basic Japanese
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desu. Ja in negative forms is often de wa in formal contexts. Do
not confuse this with the word arimasen all by itself; this is the
negative of arimasu and means ‘there isn’t any.’
The most common type of attention-focus for a negative
sentence in Japanese is on the negation itself ‘there ISN’T any
bread.’ If you want to say ‘There isn’t any BREAD’ (that is, ‘It’s
BREAD that we lack (rather than something else)’), then you
say Pan ga arimasen.
The polite perfect negative is a phrase, -masen deshita (for the
copula ja arimasen deshita), and similarly the polite tentative
negative is -nai deshō (for the copula ja nai deshō).
There is bread. This is bread.
パンがあります。 これはパンです。
Pan ga Kore wa pan desu.
arimasu.
There is no bread. This isn’t bread.
パンはありません。 これはパンじゃありません。
Pan wa Kore wa pan ja
arimasen. arimasen.
(パンはないです。) (これはパンではありません。)
(Pan wa nai desu.) (Kore wa pan de wa arimasen.)
(これはパンじゃないです。) (Kore
wa pan ja nai desu.)
(これはパンではないです。) (Kore
wa pan de wa nai desu.)
There was bread. That was bread.
