こんにちは！

私はカナダ人です。

１月から、私は日本語をべんきょうしています。すぐ日本へいくつもりですから。

このコミュニティでしつもんしなもいいですか。

私はことばとかんじをべんきょうしなければいけません。たすけがひつようです。

よろしくおねがいします。

  • cyborganism@piefed.caOPEnglish
    4·
    16 days ago

    しつもんがあります。

    I learned that using 「〜なければいけません」means “must do”. But literally what does ければいけません mean? I only know to use this “formula” to say that I must do something. We weren’t really told that in our classes.

    • Lumidaub@feddit.orgEnglish
      9·
      16 days ago

      なければ is the negated subjunctive of ある, so very literally it means something like “if this isn’t the case/doesn’t happen/doesn’t come to pass”. It’s not easy to translate.

      いけません literally means “cannot go/work”.

      So what you’re saying is “if this doesn’t happen (/if I don’t do this), it won’t do (so I have to do it)”.

      Edit: Oh and don’t expect every grammatical pattern to have a translation that makes sense. Some of them you just need to memorise.

      • cyborganism@piefed.caOPEnglish
        4·
        16 days ago

        Haha, wow! I knew it sounded like a double negation situation, and it seemed oddly complicated.

        But as you said, sometimes in Japanese you can’t overthink it. Just memorize.

    • emb@lemmy.world
      2·
      15 days ago

      That’s a tricky construction, I always forget what it is. When it came up in the textbook, I mostly used the shorter form. I could remember なきゃ but not the whole なければいけません thing. The abbreviations are much more casual though, it sounds like. Here’s the Tae Kim page on it.