Page 412 - Basic Japanese

Kono kusuri o nomeba yoku naru deshō.
I think you’ll get better if you take this
medicine.

Watashi nara sonna mono wa kaimasen.
If I were you, I wouldn’t buy such a thing.

Inaka nara shizuka na tokoro ga ōi deshō.
If it’s the countryside (you’re talking about or
going to), there are probably lots of quiet

places.

Sonna ni fuben nara soko ni sumitaku arimasen yo.
If it’s so inconvenient, I certainly don’t want to
live there.

8.5. Obligation

For the expression ‘someone MUST or HAS TO do

something,’ Japanese has several equivalents. One of the
most common is the use of the provisional form of the

negative adjectives derived from the verbs (yomanakereba ‘if I
do not read’) + the negative of the verb naru (narimasen ‘it

does not become = it won’t do’). So, to say ‘I must read this
book,’ you say Kono hon o yomanakereba narimasen ‘If I do not

read this book, it won’t do.’ Instead of narimasen, you can use

dame desu ‘it’s no good’ or ikemasen ‘it can’t go, it’s no good,
it won’t do.’ Yomanakereba narimasen, yomanakereba dame desu,

and yomanakereba ikemasen all mean about the same thing: ‘I