Page 524 - Basic Japanese

Shinpai de go-han mo taberaremasen.

I’m worried about it so much that I cannot even
eat meals.

Isogashikute mēru mo chekku dekimasen deshita.
I was so busy I couldn’t even check emails.

Hitori de koraremasu ka.

Can you come by yourself?

Instead of kikeru and mirareru for kiku ‘hears’ and miru
‘sees,’ you often hear the derived verbs kikoeru ‘is heard,

can be heard,’ and mieru ‘is seen, can be seen, appears.’

You will recall that the negative of the potential of iku
‘goes,’ ikemasen, is also used with the special meaning ‘it’s

no good, it won’t do,’ for example, Nete wa ikemasen ‘You

mustn’t sleep.’ Sometimes it means ‘that’s too bad,’ for
example, when someone has told you some ill that has

befallen him, you may sympathize with Sore wa ikemasen
deshita ne ‘That was too bad, wasn’t it?’

10.19. ka mo shirenai

The form shirenai (shiremasen) is the negative of the potential

of shiru ‘knows,’ and means ‘cannot be known.’ Ka mo shirenai
means something like ‘it can’t be known even whether,’ and
is added after a predicate in the plain imperfect or perfect

or after a noun (with the plain copula da dropping before ka