てない vs ない

Japanese
#1

What’s the difference between them?

For example:
食べてない
食べない

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#2

食べてない - I’m not eating
食べない - I won’t eat

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#3

So てない is present continuous and ない is future? Is that correct?

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#4

Yes, so the plain form you see in dictionaries (食べる/食べない) is future tense. 食べている and 食べていない is present continuous (of course you can omit the い in more casual settings)

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#5

It seems that ～ていない is often parsed as, “I haven’t done [verb].”

I feel like it might have something to do with the fact that when someone asks, “have you done ◯?,” the common negative response is,「いいえ、まだ◯ていません。」which is in what’s called “perfect aspect” and translates most closely to, “I - still - have not - done ◯.”

So, I would encourage you to think of 食べていない as “I haven’t eaten,” which implies both that you didn’t eat anything recently and are currently not eating. You are not いる in a state of having 食べた’d.

 

Here’s a Stack Exchange post where someone goes into this in detail (courtesy of @Pushindawood): Why is a verb in the past (た形) contradicted with ～ていない?

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#6

Well, it seems to be a cultural thing, so it’s pretty hard to grasp it as a logical law.

Thanks for the article, I’m now trying to read the PDF to see if I can understand something.

I think I’ll keep reading for some months to get used to it then I’ll revisit this topic.

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#7

食べない is also present tense. That’s why some textbooks refer to dictionary form as non-past tense. It can mean both “I don’t eat” and “I won’t eat.”

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#8

Please can you give an example in context of when 食べない is used as present tense?

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#9

@matt_in_mito

It is sort of present simple(future simple)-like
ドミニクは果物を食べない。
Dominic doesn’t eat fruits.
(Actually, he started eating apples and bananas recently :partying_face:)

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#10

Oh yeah it makes sense in that situation ;p

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