nilfisq wrote:

今朝、食べないで学校へ行きました

I went to school without eating.

And

今朝、食べなくて学校へ行きました

I didn't eat, then (or instead) I went to school.  (I think this sentence is very unlikely.  The construction usually expresses "instead" in my experience -- the few genuine examples I found on google for the phrase "食べなくて学校" were all expressing the idea of "Rather than eating at home, I usually [get food somehow] at school")

The ないで construction implies that eating is something you would normally do or are expected to do, etc.

As an addition, I don't know if this appears on N5, but ないで can be replaced by ずに with no change in meaning, except in the negative command form.  Both are used in speech.

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2012 November 14, 7:13 am)

This is the question as it shows up in the book:

けさ わたしは あさごはんを (     ) しごとに 行きました。
1. 食べませんで
2. 食べた
3. 食べないで
4. 食べなかった

So far I hadn't seen (食べ)ないで used like this. I thought you just used it to express a negative request.

yudantaiteki wrote:

you use the same conjugation you would normally add ない to and add ず + に instead.)

I meant that, but I take your point that that isn't what I actually wrote. I'm not all that great at explaining stuff : /

That only real reason i said that zuni is clearer (and clearer is the wrong word I'm sure) is because I can't actually think of any context in which V-zuni means anything other than 'without doing / without having' etc. In the context of his example, I stand corrected in that zuni and naide don't differ at all, and are both as clear as one another. However, to my knowledge, although zuni can always be replaced by naide, I don't think you can always replace naide with zuni.

Please correct me if I'm wrong though ... I often miss these smaller details

Last edited by squarezebra (2012 November 14, 7:59 am)

I think the explanation of the DOBJG is pretty clear:
- ~ないで is the negative te-form of a verb, ie a progressive negated (p271)
- ~なくて is the te-form of nai, ie a non-action in te-form (p279), and is used to expressed cause (p273), which isn't the case here.

Last edited by EratiK (2012 November 14, 11:33 am)

nilfisq wrote:

The meaning is clear to me. However, I still don't understand why ~ないで is used. Apparently the JLPT people list this as basic grammar (N5) but I never saw it used like this in text books/Tae Kim, except for the Basic Dictionary of Japanese Grammar. Is it some kind of instrumental use of で?

It's a pretty basic grammar pattern so it doesn't surprise me that it's on N5, although it could probably be on N4 as well.  I don't know about Tae Kim so I'm not sure why he doesn't discuss it.