みんなさん,こんにちは!
So Ive been puzzled over this for a while. I quite frequently hear scentances not ending in nai or masen being translated as a negative sentance, usually its a verb that just ends in na. Does this sound familiar? I dont have an example off the top of my head (esspecially since i dont undersand it) but if there needs to be further explanation ill keep an ear out for an example.
Are there other parts of the scentance marking it as a negative scentance? I only bring this up because several times i have heard a fairly simple scentance which I thought i understood, only to read the translation to find it was negative.
thanks for all the help
ダン
negative sentances

teklis
May 20, 2010

Sayaka-Matsuura
May 23, 2010
ダンさん、
The negative-verb ending ない (~nai) can contract to ん (~n) in colloquial speech. The ~nai ending gets shortened to just ~n - especially among male speakers.
For example,
しらない (shiranai) "I do not know" can be contracted to しらん (shiran). Could be translated to "Don't kno".
わからない (wakaranai) "I do not understand" can be contracted to わからん (wakaran) - something like the colloquial English "I don't get it."
-Hope that helps!
Sayaka :P