じゃない can be tricky because it can either be negative, or just mean "Isn't that right?"  It can also be a genuine question, or just a rhetorical (as in the case you listed).

If it comes after a verb or adjective it can't be negative -- so 分かるじゃない can only mean "You understand, don't you", and 高いじゃない can only mean "It's expensive, isn't it".  But when it's after a noun/na-adj it's up to context.  In speech the intonation is different but if it's written dialogue you just have to go on context.  If it's a genuine question you may get a question mark after it, but if it's the rhetorical question it will just be a period.

Betelgeuzah wrote:

That was a good explanation, thanks yudantaiteki. I hadn't even realized that you can look at the preceding verb/adjective to know what the じゃない stands for, but it makes perfect sense now that I know.

Is 分からないじゃない then　"you don't understand, do you?"

"You don't understand, do you?" would be 分からないだろう/でしょう. It's a double negative so the じゃない in わからないじゃない serves to add emphasis.

「言ってくれなきゃわからないじゃない」- Obviously I won't know if you don't tell me.
「やってみないとわからないじゃない」 - Of course you won't know unless you try.

... Or maybe I just can't imagine the right context for it to mean what you've said. Someone just saying that alone to another person... maybe it would mean that? I'm not 100% sure.

(How things are said can make a big difference, too. This is atypical but if someone were to say「やってみないとわからない...じゃない！」 then they'd be saying they don't need to try before knowing something.)

Last edited by Roketzu (May 17, 11:11 am)

Betelgeuzah wrote:

Ah, I was thinking of something similar but couldn't put it to words. Either way the meaning is derived from the preceding verb and the じゃない only adds emphasis/softens the sentence. Thanks for the help.

However, I need to clarify one more thing. If someone wanted to say for example "it's not that I don't understand", that would be phrased differently? Perhaps わからないことじゃない? Or 分からないんじゃない?

It would be わからないではないが... / わからないでもないが... / わからないことはないけど, etc. (けど being used more for speech). Because it has a more understanding and formal tone it doesn't really use the じゃ contraction of では. If just stating "it's not that I don't understand" then you don't need the が/けど. It's just those constructions are usually followed by a conjunctive.

Last edited by Roketzu (May 17, 1:00 pm)

I dug a bit deeper and found out that じゃない also has a meaning like this (taken from japanese stackexchange):

If you say 俺がやったんじゃない, it means the thing happened, but it's not done by me.

However the explanation is unclear whether this meaning is limited to the のではない phrase (so whether I can use the preceding の to identify this particular meaning). Also, is this kind of partial negation limited to the speaker talking about himself? In this case it seems that じゃない and ではない　share the same meaning, but it's interesting to hear that it's not the case with all of their meanings. Does it also apply vice-versa? So you can't use ではない to emphasize or soften a question the same way you can with じゃない?

Last edited by Betelgeuzah (May 18, 4:26 am)

Tzadeck wrote:

This is not a special grammar point really, it's a negation of a noun.  "It's not a thing that I did," with 'ん' or 'の' being translated here as 'thing.'  Same thing as any other noun, as in: うさぎじゃない "It's not a rabbit."  It's also not limited to talking about yourself as far as I know.

Also, not sure what you're talking about with the じゃない and ではない.  じゃない is just a vocal slurring of ではない.  I guess it's analogous to the English 'can't' and 'cannot.'  You can indeed do rhetorical questions and the like with ではない, which you'll see a lot in writing.

Yes, so, it is the noun part の/ん that changes the meaning (to a particular way of saying "I didn't do it") - on the other hand, if someone says 君がやったじゃない without ん　it could be interpreted as "you did it, didn't you?". It certainly didn't help me that thus far I hadn't been able to distinguish the explanatory ん/の from the noun　ん/の at the end of a sentence.

The じゃない and ではない part has to do with what Roketzu said few posts back, regarding how you can't say "it's not that I don't understand" with 分からないじゃない but you can say it with　分からないではない.

Either way I hope my confusion turns into understanding one of these days.

Last edited by Betelgeuzah (May 18, 6:55 am)

Ah, alright. I can't seem to be able to shake the feeling of vagueness out of じゃない but hopefully I've made some progress at least, haha.

Last edited by Betelgeuzah (May 18, 7:26 am)

A short while ago i came across this sentence:
矢継ぎ早に聞かれ、さすがの店主もたじたじになっている。
I had no problem understanding the general meaning, but what i did not understand was the reason behind the の after さすが. I have since then tried time and time again to figure i out, but i am stuck - would anybody mind explaining it to me_

Okay, I give up. What does にまりと mean in the sentence below?

部長がにまりと、意味深な笑いを浮かべた。

Does it mean "with a grin" or maybe a leer? I get that kind of feeling, but I can't find anything close to it any dictionary.

Much thanks!

rich_f wrote:

Found another 意味不明 word: ぱっきり/パッキリ. This time I even tried Google and Chiebukuro. (And I've seen it as both ぱっきり and パッキリ. It was in hiragana in the book I was reading.)

Anybody have an idea?

The sentence I found it in:
Vサインに似ているが、中指と薬指のあいだをぱっきりと割る。

ぱっきり is a really interesting word. I tried searching for the meaning of the word in several popular dictionaries but nothing came up. My Japanese roommate confirmed my initial guess that it refers to a breaking/cracking sharp sound.

Even with a translation I don't fully understand the meaning of the word おわす in this sentence:

この先が、メルウィブ提督のおわす「提督室」だ

I understood it simply as "beyond this point, is Merlwyb's admiral room." But I feel like I am missing something, since I guess you could state the same thing without おわす.

Betelgeuzah wrote:

この先が、メルウィブ提督のおわす「提督室」だ

I think what Vempele is saying is right (though I'm not so familiar with the word おわす).  When I read his post for some reason I was thinking this sentence is easy to understand in small steps from a simplified version.

You can imagine a very plain sentence as:
メルウィブさんがいる部屋だ (the room that Merlwyb is in)

You could also express this as:
メルウィブさんのいる部屋だ (the の is basically a substitute for が with different emphasis)

Then you replace いる with the very formal おわす
メルウイブさんのおわす部屋だ

And then finally with all the vocab:
メルウィブ提督のおわす「提督室」だ

(By the way, anybody care to explain about how おわす is different from いらっしゃる?  My girlfriend only said, 「おわす使わんよ！」)

Last edited by Tzadeck (May 27, 6:33 am)

The sentence becomes much clearer when you changed owasu to iru. It's good to know that there is no particular nuance to be aware of aside from the word being archaic. Granted, it was probably my lack of fully comprehending this particular usage of the の particle that caused the confusion in the first place.