ひかないつもりだった vs. ひくつもりはなかった

[TimTimTimmey2]

Hey so I just came across this prompt and struggled with it quite a lot.

Now my first instinct was “ひかないつもりだった”, but I realised this would mean “I intended not to catch a cold” not “I didnt intend to catch a cold” which although somewhat similar, are not the same in english. The difference between “I didnt mean to” and “I meant not to” can be important, depending on the context.

So I messed around with it a bit, got it wrong and then saw this solution:

Which makes a lot of sense to me.

However my original idea was offered as an alternative:

Which left me confused. Is this just extreme leniency on the prompt, do those two sentences actually mean the same thing in japanese, or am I missing something important here?

[Pablunpro]

Hello,

This is what the lesson on つもりだ has to say about this nuance:

• 今日きょうは学校がっこうに行いかないつもりだ。

• 明日あしたは休やすみだから、早はやく起おきるつもりはない。

In the last two sentences, there is only a small difference in nuance. It can be thought of as similar to the difference between ‘to intend not to’ ないつもり, and ‘to have no intention of’ つもりはない in English.

So you are right, “there is only a small difference in nuance” and both answers may be considered suitable. HTH!

EDIT: to whom it may concern (i.e., the formidable Bunpro Team), whilst going through the オンライン section of the lesson, I saw this: “IMABI HAS MOVED!! → www.imabi.org”. This results in the links to the former IMABI site throwing a 404 error. I guess all the links to imabi.net will have to be updated to imabi.org.

EDIT 2: I’ve been looking into this a bit more, it doesn’t seem so straightforward: some imabi.net links still work, some others don’t and it isn’t as simple as changing imabi.net to imabi.org (e.g. the lesson on the particle と for citation has this link in imabi.net (still working) but this link in imabi.org).
As today is the day scheduled for the shut down of the server where the old site is hosted on and this may or mayn’t happen, I guess a better idea of the effort to be made may be available in some days/weeks time.

[TimTimTimmey2]

Thank you for the quick answer! I went through the grammar point before posting but I missed this, probably because the lesson is present tense and the review was in past tense.

In present tense english “I dont intend to” and “I intend not to” are usually used exactly the same (“I will not do this”, but in past tense “I didnt intend to” (~I didnt plan on it but I might change my mind) and “I intended not to” (~I planed to not do it (and failed)) are very different to me.

I guess japanese just treats it as the same thing regardless of the tense its in. Again, thank you!

[Sidgr]

懐かし

My very first suggestion to bunpro was over this very concern haha.

And Yes, There is a difference between I did not intend to, and I intended not to.

Even more, there is I did not intend not to. As in, “I didn’t intend on not doing my homework, but I was distracted.”

やらないつもりはなかった。

[Asher]

I will change all of these sentences so that they read correctly in the morning, もう僕には遅すぎます! It appears that a few sentences use the wrong translation, and like a few users have mentioned here, there is a big difference between ないつもり and つもりはない.

There are so many sentences on the website now that, to be completely honest, some things get forgotten, but we endeavor to handle most of them as soon as possible! Especially with the vocab which is a new feature, so have been handled very strictly from the very beginning.

You should never find an ‘unnatural Japanese’ sentence on the website, as all of these have already been fixed, but it is possible that occasionally a strange translation may appear. In these cases, please report them to us as soon as possible, as we want to knock them all out in the very near future!

[Asher]

All fixed. The sentences will now give a proper hint about the difference in nuance, rather than marking it correct. I also added a bit of info about the negative form being different in the grammar description.

[Pablunpro]

@Pablunpro

EDIT: to whom it may concern (i.e., the formidable Bunpro Team), whilst going through the オンライン section of the lesson, I saw this: “IMABI HAS MOVED!! → www.imabi.org ”. This results in the links to the former IMABI site throwing a 404 error. I guess all the links to imabi.net will have to be updated to imabi.org .

EDIT 2: I’ve been looking into this a bit more, it doesn’t seem so straightforward: some imabi.net links still work, some others don’t and it isn’t as simple as changing imabi.net to imabi.org (e.g. the lesson on the particle と for citation has this link in imabi.net (still working) but this link in imabi.org ).
As today is the day scheduled for the shut down of the server where the old site is hosted on and this may or mayn’t happen, I guess a better idea of the effort to be made may be available in some days/weeks time.

おはようございます。
I rekindle this EDITs as I have encountered this issue again whilst studying ‘からこぞ’. I clicked on the imabi link in the ‘リソース’ section and got the 404 error.