Prompt is:
Negative non-past, Standard
京都で電車を_____。(降りる)
I must get off the train in Kyoto.
Correct answer is
降りなくてはならない
My incorrect answer was:
降りないではならない
What’s wrong with my answer? Looking for a grammar clarification here.
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I’m far from an expert on Japanese grammar, and I can’t know what’s going on in someone else’s brain, but if I had made this error it would have been because my mind was combining two different grammar points that Bunpro introduces close together. The answer you gave initially contains elements of:
Whereas the correct answer comes from this grammar point, just a few lessons later:
…which itself is similar to this grammar point, also introduced around the same time:
I myself have just recently learned all of these grammar points, and (especially with the second two) I think Bunpro currently does not do a good enough job of differentiating when and how to use them. It’s not surprising that users tend to mix them up.
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Thank you, yes you are absolutely correct that this is why I am mixing them up.
The problem is that I don’t really understand why one is right and one is wrong, so I don’t have a “mnemonic” to help choose the correct answer next time. I’ve been making this same mixup three days in a row, and halted new lessons until it sinks in.
I mean, when I paste my “wrong” answer into auto translation software, it does get the correct meaning. I suppose it sounds like a child making wrong sounds but still the intention is known by adults.
Maybe this is where I should invest in studying carefully the offline resources linked on all three of those grammar points.
Right, so we basically have two negative forms of て: なくて and ないで. They have their own usage nuances, that I’m too incompetent to tell about.
There are a couple of fixed expressions that are used exclusively with なくて, and なくてはならない is one of them.
upd. I don’t want “two negative forms of て” to give the wrong impression, so let me quote the lessons:
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Depending on your philosophy around studying, this may seem like cheating to you, but…I write down these phrases in a notebook along with their rough English translations and refer to those notes when I’m doing my reviews. I was having the same experience as you - getting the same questions wrong for days in a row - and I finally just gave up and created my “cheat sheet.” If you definitely want to memorize the grammar points, then that may not work for you, but I view my Bunpro reviews as more of an opportunity to practice using the grammar than an opportunity to memorize it (I hope memorization will come later with immersion) so the cheat sheet strategy has been my go-to so far.
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しなくてはなられない uses the て form of ない to create a sentence in which the first verb is connected to the second, becoming one unified phrase:
not doing it しなくて+はなられない is not becoming (= you have to do it)
しないで does not function as て form. think of it more like a Vない form ＋で ＋ following clause. In this structure the ‘not doing’ is separated from the following verb.
E.g. in order to explain two separate actions/state 水着を着ないで温泉に入る。(don’t put on a swim suit, get in the onsen = get in the onsen without putting on a swim suit)
OR to ask somebody not to do something 邪魔(じゃま）しないで+ください don’t get in the way + please
so if you said おりないではなられない you’re separately saying ’ (please) don’t get off’ and ‘something isn’t happening’.
But basically a simple way to remember without understanding the grammar is that the ないで form is not used in double negative set phrases (on the whole) so if it’s a double negative it will なくて
I hope that helps
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I will give a short answer but please let me know if you have further questions. [verb]なくて and [verb]ないで have different uses and are grammatically different. This video goes over the essentials (English and Japanese subs are available). I won’t go further into it as I don’t want to muddy the waters further.
In the case of phrases meaning “must do” or “have to” a double-negative with a conditional (if-then statement) are used. E.g., “If you don’t do it then it is bad” = “You have to do it”. Let’s look at some examples:
しないといけない → Here we have the conditional usage of と, meaning “If”
しなければならない → Here we have the ば conditional form, meaning “If”
So what about しなくてはならない?
It is my understanding that [verb]なくては actually is also a conditional, specifically the ては part. You can read about it further in this grammar point. Note that ならない and いけない do come from conjugations of なる and いく however they are idiomatically used to essentially mean “impossible” or “no good”, etc.
Just for fun, lets look at similar patterns in different ways of speaking:
せなあかん → Kansai dialect
せねばならぬ → Old-fashioned stiff Japanese
しなきゃ → Casual, drops the second half of the phrase
There is no harm in remembering this grammar point as a set phrase for the time being if the grammar side of things goes over your head; that’s what I did when I started learning and then only later on did it click for me grammatically. Hopefully that clears things up for you. If it is still unclear then please ask!
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Also don’t forget
さねばまね → Tsugaru dialect
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みなさん、ありがとうございました。本当に助かったよ！
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