Asking and saying no with verbs in Japanese

Level A1

Asking and saying no with verbs in Japanese

By the end of this lesson you can check what someone usually eats and drinks, and answer the same question about yourself: 肉を食べますか (niku o tabemasu ka), "Do you eat meat?", and いいえ、食べません (iie, tabemasen), "No, I don't eat it." One idea does all the work: the sentence stays as it is and only its end changes. か (ka) makes the question, ません (masen) makes the "no", and the answer repeats the verb.

A quick warm-up: を, か, はい and いいえ

Here's what you'll reuse, even if it's your first time seeing it. ご飯を食べます (gohan o tabemasu) is "I eat rice" and 水を飲みます (mizu o nomimasu) is "I drink water": the thing comes first, を (o) marks it, and the verb closes the sentence. か (ka) turns a sentence into a polite question: 本ですか (hon desu ka) in これは本ですか (kore wa hon desu ka), "Is this a book?" The answers were はい (hai, yes) with the noun, or いいえ (iie, no) with the right noun. Those questions asked what something is. Now you'll ask what someone does.

Two more words: 肉 and コーヒー

肉 (niku) is meat and コーヒー (kōhī) is coffee. Like ご飯 (gohan, rice), パン (pan, bread) and 水 (mizu, water), they take no "a" or "the". 肉 goes with 食べます (tabemasu, eat), and コーヒー with 飲みます (nomimasu, drink). They're what people often ask about when they want to know someone's habits.

Planning a lunch

One colleague (A) is organizing a lunch and checks what the other (B) usually eats and drinks. Listen once without reading. A never says "you" and B never says "I", because it's clear who is meant. Every question ends in か, and B answers with はい or いいえ plus the verb alone: 食べます or 食べません, 飲みます or 飲みません.

To ask: add か

The whole lesson rests on one idea: the sentence stays as it is, and only its end changes. To ask, keep a ます sentence exactly as it is and add か: パンを食べます (pan o tabemasu), "I eat bread", becomes パンを食べますか (pan o tabemasu ka), "Do you eat bread?" English puts "do" in front of the subject; Japanese adds か at the end and moves nothing.

To ask about someone else, name the person with は, as usual: アナさんは肉を食べますか (Ana-san wa niku o tabemasu ka), "Does Ana eat meat?" The verb is the same for you, for her and for anyone else.

食べますか can ask about a habit or about what's going to happen: "Do you eat...?" or "Are you going to eat...?" The situation tells you which. In this lesson, it's mostly habits.

肉を食べますか。

To say no: swap ます for ません

To say no, change only the ending: ます becomes ません. 食べます (tabemasu) becomes 食べません (tabemasen), and 飲みます (nomimasu) becomes 飲みません (nomimasen). Everything before it stays in place: the thing, を, and the person if you named one. So 私は肉を食べません (watashi wa niku o tabemasen) is "I don't eat meat", and アナさんはコーヒーを飲みません (Ana-san wa kōhī o nomimasen) is "Ana doesn't drink coffee".

English puts "don't" before the verb. In Japanese the "no" comes in the last sounds of the sentence, so listen to the end before you decide what someone said. ません is polite, like ます, and it's just as broad: 飲みません can be "I don't drink it" or "I'm not going to drink it".

This ending belongs to verbs in ます. Nouns and adjectives have negatives of their own, which come in later lessons.

パンを食べません。

Answering with the same verb

English answers "Yes, I do" or "No, I don't". Japanese has no short word like that "do" here: you repeat the verb. In this lesson's questions, はい goes with the ます form and いいえ with the ません form, so コーヒーを飲みますか gets はい、飲みます (hai, nomimasu) or いいえ、飲みません (iie, nomimasen). The translations below say "it" because English needs a word there; the Japanese has none: the thing is already clear from the question, so it usually drops out, and はい、コーヒーを飲みます is correct as well, only longer.

The verb doesn't say who, so the same words work for someone else. If the question was about Ana, いいえ、食べません means "No, she doesn't eat it".

Your turn, and the short version

Stay with the lunch plans and say each one out loud before you look at its line below. Ask a colleague if they drink coffee; then, in their place, answer no and then yes, using only いいえ or はい and the verb. Say you don't eat bread. Ask if Ana eats meat and, last, say that Ana doesn't drink coffee.

In short: add か to a ます sentence to ask, and swap ます for ません to say no. Answer with はい and the ます form, or いいえ and the ません form, of the same verb.

Practise this lesson

Next lessons