In my Japanese class, a student asked me what じゃん meant. I tried to explain and eventually we asked my teacher, who said it was a more casual form of じゃない as in..

いいじゃない　\　いいじゃん
おいしいじゃない　\　おいしいじゃん

Now, I thought this was not true. So I asked another teacher, who said that it does in the standard meaning, but the are some uses that specific to dialects that differ from じゃない.

I am still skeptical. Ages ago it was explained to me that じゃん emphasised something as true objectively, as if anyone would agree with this view point. じゃない I think posits that something is sufficient.

So おいしいじゃん　＝　Well isn't this delicious!
おいしいじゃない　＝　It's delicious, isn't it?

The only thing is I spent a year in Shizuoka and spoke the local dialect which did use じゃん a lot, so maybe I am confusing the local meaning. But the usage I see in dramas seems to coincide with my thoughts.

What do you think?

....@_@....

Seems the same to me.

I haven't picked up on any substantial differences, particularly in the vein you describe. But I could just be missing it.

My Japanese buddies use じゃん all the time. When I asked for a good explanation from one of them, they said it was closest to です, but with a slightly different (more emphatic I believe) connotation.

I'm a little confused over the English definitions given in the first post. I haven't really been working on my grammar at all, so my knowledge is all basic and wonky. But I thought じゃない represented a negative state of being?

So from the example, おいしいじゃない, wouldn't that mean something like "not delicious"?

ashmountains Wrote:So from the example, おいしいじゃない, wouldn't that mean something like "not delicious"?

Not delicious is おいしくない.

As far as i'm concerned, おいしいじゃない　= Not delicious. If someone said "おいしいじゃん" I would understand it as "that's delicious!"

It's like.. "innit" (Isn't it).

It's slang but if you live in Japan for a while you will hear it OFTEN. "アホじゃん！" = you're an idiot, whereas "アホじゃない！" = not an idiot!

I can only assume that your Japanese teacher is not native, or not giving a good explanation.

I would say it's kind of like negative tags we use in English. We say "It's delicious, isn't it", the meaning is "it's delicious". "It's cold isn't it" = It's cold.

Sorry I can't post anything more comprehensive got a bit of a cold, but I'm pretty sure I'm

If someone disagrees feel free to correct me!

zoletype Wrote:As far as i'm concerned, おいしいじゃない　= Not delicious. If someone said "おいしいじゃん" I would understand it as "that's delicious!"

I just posted that not delicious is correctly おいしくない before I saw iSoron's post, but now I'm kind of curious. Native speakers are not known to respect grammar.

Although アホ is a noun not an i adjective so it makes sense they would be different.

おいしいじゃない would never mean straightforwardly 'Not delicious.' It can only ever be given a meaning like that as a question, where you're actually looking for confirmation that it is delicious. Anything else would be ungrammatical.

アホじゃない！ Is different, since it's a noun. That could fall under any usage.
Edit: (Well, na adjective, but let's not split hairs.)

I'm a complete beginner when it comes to colloquialisms, but as shakkun pointed out, there is a difference between nouns and adjectives (which are really verbs). My guess is that the tranformational derivation is probably as follows:

verb　→　verbのだ
だ　→　じゃない
のだ　→　だ
i.e.,
いい　→　いいのだ　→　いいのじゃない　→　いいじゃない　→　いいじゃん

For nouns, the equivalent would probably be something like

アホ　→　アホなのだ　→　アホなのじゃない　→　アホなのじゃん

I guess you should be able to apply
のだ　→　んだ
to abbreviate it to アホなんじゃん.

However, the のだ→だ would not be able to be applied for nouns (アホなのじゃない→アホなじゃない) because it would collide with the transformation for negation:

アホ　→　アホじゃない

Note this is off the top of my head. If anyone can ask a real native speaker, that would be great.

With じゃない, a lot depends on the intonation and context, which is tricky to represent in print. It can be be used in a negative or positive sense, or it can be used in a question. That's why you're getting so many conflicting answers.

じゃ is an elided form of では, so　じゃない is short for ではありません. In casual questions, か is often omitted because intonation makes it clear that you're asking a question (you'd do that with じゃない but not with ではありません). You could also make a rhetorical question without か, which is where you're getting the positive assertions.

Thermal's teacher probably just didn't want to get into it. How do you explain intonation and context, especially if many of the students in the class don't have the experience of living in Japan and hearing spoken Japanese in casual contexts?

じゃん is colloquial but quite common. As far as I know, it is short for じゃない, but the usage and nuance seem to be a little different. I don't remember ever hearing じゃん in the context of a negative statement, only positive ones. Again, a lot depends on the intonation.

Yeah, じゃない used in a positive sense is really confusing. But if you think about it, in all languages (that I know of at least) there are cases where we technically say one thing while the actual meaning is the opposite.

Actually じゃん is a more colloqiual form of でしょう or だろう and yes it's used for a positive connotation.

Usually I'll talk about something like "会議か！来週受けないと" (Next week I have to go to a seminar/meeting)　*Side note: There's many ways to say "I must" or "I have to"*

The seminars I usually have to go to are all day Power Point Presentations so I'm not exactly happy about it.

The response I get is "いいじゃん。学校に行かなくていい" (That good, right? You don't have to go to school)

So the positive side is being pointed out. Just like Thermal was is Shizuoka, this is also what I hear in Shizuoka when I visit or talk to friends from Shizuoka.

じゃん is short for じゃない but they aren't used the same, じゃん is only used for a special じゃない which is rarely used itself.

いいじゃない？ - Isn't it alright? / It's alright, right?
いいじゃない。 - It's alright.

じゃん is almost always used for the second one, so yes, it is more positive than じゃない.

I actually hate いいじゃん in written form. Sounds overly cutsie to me.

Just to clarify a bit. I am refering to じゃない as in a question which is sometime rhetorical. I suppose I should have included question marks. For those who aren't familar, it has a very specific tone and can come after ANYTHING. You don't use any grammar to connect it (except it will usually have ん after a い ending). You can even nest it in a way as so.

静かじゃないんじゃない？

In my experience it is typically used when there is some doubt over the suitability of something. Some other person reassures them that it is ok. EG.

この靴はやっぱ派手すぎだろう。- Ugh, these shoes are just too flashy aren't they.
いいんじゃない？ - They're ok, aren't they?

However, it is not a very strong approval, just saying that something is adequate. This grammar is increbible useful IMO.

I think じゃん is similiar, but rather than saying something is purely adequate, it says that something is great. It is also more versatile. There was a festival in the town I used to live in which was just the name of the town plus じゃん (新居じゃん）. This is kind of where I think there idea that what it emphasises is objectively acceptable. In this case I would translate it to something like "Arai, need we say more?" or " F**king Arai baby".

Anyway, I find the two too distinct to say they are a version of each other, but maybe that is just the local dialect (遠州弁）I am thinking of.

If you want to break down the difference between じゃないか and じゃん when used in the same context, think about the difference of "isn't it" and "innit". Why do we say the second one? Same reason they do. Quicker, easier, and holds that slight nuance that makes the language more friendly. Therefore in common practice, じゃん is used a lot more, and holds even less meaning. Pretty much anything said subjectively will have something similar or other attached just to lighten what you've said a notch.

Where I live (mie-ken), やん is used rather than じゃん. Although a girl I recently met is from here and still speaks in kanto-ben, which is really messin with my head. いいじゃん this and そうだね that...

Jawful Wrote:If you want to break down the difference between じゃないか and じゃん when used in the same context, think about the difference of "isn't it" and "innit".

This isn't a good comparison. じゃないか is looking for affirmation of one's views or opinion, while じゃん is expressing what the speakers thinks of as an objective issue.

If I'm not mistaken, じゃん denotes a (redundant) positive affirmation.
Ex.
言ってたじゃん　- "I told you so" , "just like I said"