じゃなかったWas not, Wasn't

Most Recent Replies (12 in total)

• 

  Jake

  was not

  Structure

  • Noun or な-Adjective +
    • じゃなかった・ではなかった
    • じゃありませんでした・ではありませんでした

  View on Bunpro

• 

  mattbacon

  When should じゃなかった be used and when should it just be なかった?

• 

  mrnoone

  Hey!
  Sorry for the extremely slow answer

  なかった (with adequate conjugation) is used with adjectives, nouns and verbs.

  じゃなかった is used after なadjectives and nouns.

  くなかった is used with いadjectives

  ない stem + なかった is used with verbs.

  Examples:

  • For verbs:
    V(る5) → 座 る → 座ら なかった
    V(う) → 歌 う → 歌わ なかった
    V(く) → 歩 く → 歩か なかった
    V(す) → 話 す → 話さ なかった
    V(つ) → 打 つ → 打た なかった
    V(ぬ) → 死 ぬ → 死な なかった
    V(ぶ) → 飛 ぶ → 飛ば
• 

  ulurujamman

  Is 暇 a noun or a na-adjective? I can only recall seeing it in constructions with +ある, so I thought the former, but in this example:

  先週末、私は暇じゃなかった。

  it’s taking the copula as if it were an adjective?

• 

  Pushindawood

  @ulurujamman Hey! 暇 is both a noun and a な-adjective depending on what you would like to express. It is similar to the English “I am free” and “I have free time.” You can say “I didn’t have free time.” or you could say “I wasn’t free.” Both がなかった and じゃなかった can work in this example, but the nuance changes slightly. Cheers!

• 

  pasi

  I struggle with です and あります.

  I keep answering “赤色 ではありませんでした” (and similar questions) wrong, thinking it should 赤色でした. I feel like it’s so similar to say (conveniently, from the same review session) 教室は静か でした. Is there any good online resource that could help me out? It’s this particular construction I’m struggling with. これは赤です I’d probably get right (and if it’s say, “There is a cow” type sentence, that I would hopefully get right).

  Another example is 宿題は大変たいへん ではありませんでした.

• 

  mrnoone

  @pasi
  Hey and welcome on the community forums!

  I struggle with です and あります.

  Actally, it’s a struggle with だ’s past forms. I will try to help you understand them better
  But you will stop confusing them naturally with more experience, so don’t worry!

  Let’s start with basic affirmative conjugations:

  Short form	Polite form	Translation
  だ	です	to be (is/are)
  だった	でした	was/were

  As you can see, です is a polite form of だ.
  The past forms of だ is だった. でした is bo...

• 

  pasi

  Wow. That is a mighty detailed reply. Thank you so much. I won’t even pretend I read and understood it all yet but I shall go through it in detail.

  Also thanks for the superb service.

• 

  mrnoone

  @pasi

  By the way, I have made a small error in translation, it should be like below (already fixed in post above):

• 

  pasi

  Hey, just wanted to let you know that your answer was actually very, very helpful. I haven’t actually got a single related grammar item wrong in my reviews since (I’m sure I will but it’s a huge improvement). Thank you so much.

• 

  lorenzosama

  Hi! I’m confused on when to use this " じゃありませんでした" and when to use ”じゃない". In the sentence below why is " じゃありませんでした" the correct usage? Thank you in advance

  朝あさごはんを作つくったのは、お父とうさん じゃありませんでした

• 

  Pushindawood

  @lorenzosama Hey! It really comes down to what level of politeness you want to use/wish to express. This particular review question actually accepts all of the following answers:

  じゃなかった
  ではなかった
  じゃなかったです
  ではなかったです
  じゃありませんでした
  ではありませんでした

  When it comes to choosing the best answer, it would be best to refer to the post made by @mrnoone above. Let us know if you have any further questions. Cheers!

• 

  Peter_Wilson

  The accepted answer for the following question is shown
  風邪を [ひくつもりはなかった]

  Why is じゃなかった not accepted for the past tense as じゃない is shown in the grammar notes for the present tense?