in dramas, ちゃ things are added to sentences a lot. Is there a rule about when ちゃ and when じゃ is used? Are they both derived from では then? what about ちゃった？

Also, i think i read somewhere that ねい is Tokyo ない. Does anyone know why everything teaches ない then？ Which accent is the "BBC" accent of Japan?

Thanks...

Well, I know there is a popular word for "hello" that uses ちゃ used ONLY by famous people, but nobody actually uses it if you end up figuring out the word (I forget the word at the moment).

For ちゃった and じゃった, these are spoken ways of shortening てしまう, which means "completely" or "done unfortunately." Examples would be 食べちゃった, 乗っちゃった, 飲んじゃった, and 飛んじゃった (to give you a taste). The conjugation and rules regarding which to choose is easily found in any grammar dictionary or intermediate language book.

ねい MIGHT be a way some teenagers and others mispronounce ない, but the official pronunciation is ない. Saying ねい MAY in certain circumstances make you sound cool or hip, but in general, the use of this pronunciation may make you look like a dufus (eg. "He's trying too hard," "He sounds uneducated," etc...).

IceCream Wrote:Also, i think i read somewhere that ねい is Tokyo ない. Does anyone know why everything teaches ない then？ Which accent is the "BBC" accent of Japan?
Thanks...

～ねい　seems to be used almost exclusively by young adult males.
From what I can see it seems to be a way to sound "tough". I wouldn't use it during normal speech unless you want to sound like a thug or a member of the yakuza.

Yeah, ねい or rather ねぇ is a part of a cool way to speak that is used by mainly by young men or by people trying to sound cool (not that there is anything wrong with this, there is a time and a place for it). It's kind of the equivalent of speaking like "Hey man, what's up?".

It's not just ねぇ, as a general rule the い sound is changed to an え sound. For example お前 become おめぇ, 行きたい becomes 行きてぇ. It is also usually coupled with sentence ending particles like ぞ and ぜ and also the command form 電気つけてくれ. Mature aged and people who don't try to sound cool also use it when they are particularly emotional or have a strong reaction to something.

Kind of like how if someone says "You stole my wallet you bastard!" you probably don't respond with "well, that's not true at all" but with "Look alright! I didn't steal your wallet! OK!?" (何も盗んでねぇ). It is also used when joking a lot.

dat5h has the ちゃ and じゃ pretty much covered. One more thing, there is also a form ちゃverb + "not ok" (not sure if you can have just "ok"). This is most often used to explain rules to kids. eg 見ちゃだめだよ = No looking ok?

I've never seen it written with ねい, it's always ねぇ, ねえ, ねー, or similar...

The only difference between じゃ and ちゃ is the presence of voicing.
〜ては->ちゃ （食べてはいけません→食べちゃダメ、食べちゃった）
〜では->じゃ （泳いでは行けません→泳いじゃダメ、泳いじゃった）

A voiced mora pair is abbreviated to the voiced abbreviation.

There is also the だ→じゃ thing, but that is dialectical and not related to では.

avparker Wrote:～ねい　seems to be used almost exclusively by young adult males.
From what I can see it seems to be a way to sound "tough". I wouldn't use it during normal speech unless you want to sound like a thug or a member of the yakuza.

Young females also use it a lot. There is very little difference between the speech of male and female youths in current language, aside from girls not using 僕、俺、お前、etc regularly. Male speech is becoming less manly while female speech is becoming less feminine. Virtually no one outside of a manga uses 〜ぜ、〜ぞ etc anymore.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Male speech is becoming less manly while female speech is becoming less feminine. Virtually no one outside of a manga uses 〜ぜ、〜ぞ etc anymore.

I agree with the first sentence completely, however, if you come to the area where my school is, students, teachers, and parents alike use 〜ぜ、〜ぞ on a daily basis.

Kind of like everyone says こいつ・そいつ・あいつ instead of この・その・あの　人. It's quite interesting as people in this area consider it to be "normal" Japanese without thinking about it while some people in a different part of the city consider it to be "rude" or "rough" Japanese.

Well, Kobe IS considered to have the roughest/least polite language in all of Japan

Personally I've almost never heard it in Osaka, other than the occasional 行くぞ.

Yeah, I think real Japanese is quite different from what you get in anime and dramas. ぞ is almost never used, but I do hear ぜ sometimes. In particular, 行こうぜ.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Young females also use it a lot. There is very little difference between the speech of male and female youths in current language, aside from girls not using 僕、俺、お前、etc regularly. Male speech is becoming less manly while female speech is becoming less feminine. Virtually no one outside of a manga uses 〜ぜ、〜ぞ etc anymore.

There are many young females around the Tokyo area that use it. However, in other parts of Japan it is almost never used by females. I lived in Shizuoka and Aichi for a year each and never heard a girl speak in this way.

My gf is from Aichi (Nagoya) and uses 〜ねぇ, だいじょうばない, and other youthisms. やばい is probably her favorite word.

My exgf is from Yamaguchi and used it, but not quite as much (but she IS 12 years older than current gf)

BTW: someone said you shouldn't use ねぇ in normal speech, but they couldn't be more wrong. If you are a male and you are talking with your friends, it's 使い放題.

Interesting. I've never heard だいじょばない before.

There is a difference between young people words and "cool" words though. やばい is a young people word, but the "cool" (and apparently in the west male) way to say it is やべぇ.