Meaning/use of ~わけない

Japanese
#1

Hi, I had a quick question. I feel like I’ve heard わけない a lot when listening, and I was curious if someone could either help confirm how I think it’s used, or explain it a little better. I have two example sentences here from 君を膵臓を食べたい (I Want to Eat Your Pancreas).

Example 1:
(桜良) 彼女とかいたことあるの？
(真宙) いるわけないよ

Example 2:
(桜良) 彼氏とこの前別れちゃった
(真宙) 君がもうすぐ死ぬから？
(桜良) 違うよ彼氏にそんなこと言う言うわけないでしょ

Based on those two example sentences I kind of get the feeling it has something to do with “there’s no reason for me to do (verb)” or something else I’m thinking is “of course not/of course I wouldn’t (verb)”.

As I finish writing out this post I’ve kind of started to understand how it’s used a bit more lol, but I’d still like to see if I can input from anyone else. Thanks.

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#2

@josh

わけない is contraction of わけがない
, and as you noticed, わけがない negates the existence of a reason to believe that something is the case or will happen, to put it simply, it means that something is “impossible”. It is used as a very strong negation.

So basically：
(桜良) Have you ever had a girlfriend?
(真宙) Of course not.

There is a similar expression, わけではない(わけじゃない） literally meaning “it is not a reason”, and used when we want negate someones conclusion.

A: 「Cさんは日本に十年以上住んでる。日本語が上手だろうね。」 B：「日本に長い間住んでも、日本語を話せるわけではないよ。」
A: “C has been living in Japan for over ten years. His Japanese is probably amazing, right?” (A concludes that C’s Japanese is very good)
B: “Even if he has lived in Japan for a long time it doesn’t mean he can speak Japanese.”

I hope it helps,
Cheers! :+1:

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#3

That helps a lot, thank you!

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#4

@josh
Glad to help :slight_smile:

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