怖くないんです

[deathelysium]

I got question!!! This place fantastic to ask questions!!!

怖くないんです

What does the ん mean here? Cant it just be "...ないです"?

keke

[redfoxer]

so far to my knowledge, the n acts like a softer for words with -i at the end. As you build up on vocab you will notice many words with a 'n softener. Simple example thats commonly used would be, ii'n da - thats fine. Well thats what i think so far. sorry i couldnt really help more.

[deathelysium]

ok... so it's plainly a softener? ok then, thanks! japanese has a lot of useless words... hahax

[Daichi]

deathelysium wrote:
japanese has a lot of useless words... hahax

You should consider how many useless words there are in English, then the Japanese language doesn't seem quite so bad!:)

[Harisenbon]

Here, it's not used as a softender, but rather as a contraction of の. And it is definately NOT useless.

怖くないです is wrong as you can't have です after a negative いadjective. However, it is not polite to say this to a superior. So, what happens if you mistakenly say 怖くない when it's rude? add のです to make it grammatically correct, and raise the politeness level. In speech, this is generally contracted to んです。

It's the same with verbs. 「行かないんですか？」

[Gaijinian]

~(na)no desu/da
~(na)n desu/da
~(na) no
All mean the same thing. 'n' being a couropution of 'no.'
(so, obviously, 'no da' is very uncommon outside of test-books and the likes)
What they do is imply more information, or possibly or like 'because'.

For example:
A Japanese looks at you funny becasue your white.
In explaning why your there, ryuu-gaku sei nan desu would be natural.
It means:
(the reason I'm here is) I'm studing abroad.

In a situation like that, ~(na)n desu is the most natural.

I went to Japan.
Sou? Doko ni itta-n desu ka?
Where did you go (I want to know more!)?

Remember not to touch the structue in Japanese.
e.g>>A good reply would be ~ ni itta-n desu.

(I posted this awhile ago...)

怖くないです is wrong as you can't have です after a negative いadjective.

o:o
That cannot be true...Yahoo：
Results 1 - 10 of about 41,800,000 for じゃないです
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,180,000 for よくないです
Results 1 - 10 of about 314,000 for 怖くないです

[redfoxer]

ahhh very enlightening read. thanks guys. i didnt know what other reasons why 'n words existed other then to soften some words.

[deathelysium]

hahax... ok... totally clear now ^.^ fantastic

[Harisenbon]

GaijinIan,

You are completely right. I don't know why I thought that you can't say 怖くないです. I was probably getting it confused with the ないverbs, where you can't say　行かないです, as you wrote.

However, just out of curiosity, I looked up 行ったですか in google and got 9000 hits. and 40,000 for 行かないです. Not as impressive as 41,800,000, but still.

[Gaijinian]

I see. Strange about 行ったですか, really.
However, maybe it is not gramatically correct, but NegVrbです is used　(Results 1 - 10 of about 3,110,000 for しないです).
見たことないですか？本当に使われてあるんですよ。

BTW, my real name is Colin, not Ian (if that is what you thought). It's like "Floridian.";)

[Harisenbon]

NegVrbです is correct. I checked it with my school's 国語 teacher. んです is only used as a softener in speech, wherein のです is used as a softener in writing.

I always assumed you were a Gaijin named Ian. *laugh* Hi Colin.

PS, my real name isn't Harisenbon, either. *laugh*

[lomagu]

I think Harisenbon some kind of "i" <-> "L" thing going on.. in one of your posts, you wrote my name as "iomagu." it's actually, "Lomagu" (I just always use small case 'L'). haha

[Harisenbon]

The lowercase L in your handle looks like a capital I. Damn this san-serif! Bring back my serifs!