Lesson 70
Te Form + wa ikemasen
Polite ikemasen or plain ikenai are used alone to mean "Don't do that!", "You mustn't do that!", "Naughty!", etc. Just go to a shopping center where mothers and kids are together and you're bound to hear either of these, especially ikenai. When placed after the Te Form with wa, ikemasen or ikenai point to what's forbidden:
- Shashin o totte wa ikemasen. (You can't take pictures.)
- Okurete wa ikemasen yo. (Don't be late.)
- Boku no PC o sawatte wa ikenai! (Don't touch my PC!)
Since statements like these are mainly used in familiar situations, plain ikenai will be heard more often than ikemasen. Also, the -te wa element is often "crushed" into a colloquial form that sounds like "-tcha": Boku no PC o sawatcha ikenai! Also, to make it even more colorful, ikenai will often be put into a dialectal form, like ikan (Takamatsu), iken (Okayama), akan (Osaka), etc. So, if you move to a new area or make a new friend from one, chances are good that you'll have the opportunity to learn a new way to say this.
Ikenai! by itself is also handy for expressing your aggravation at realizing that something has been forgotten:
- Ikenai! Joushaken o wasurete shimaimashita! (Oh, no! I forgot my ticket!)
- Ikenai! Kimiko wa kasa o motte iku no o wasuremashita! (Oh, no! Kimiko forgot to take her umbrella!)
Getting back to -te wa ikenai / ikemasen, there are other ways to say the same thing that you may hear. A very popular substitute for -te wa ikenai in familiar settings is -te wa dame (-tcha dame), and a more formal one is -te wa naranai / narimasen. In fact, "Thou shalt not..." in the Japanese version of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament is translated "...(verb) -te wa naranai."
Word Check
shashin: a photograph
toru: to take 1
okureru: to be late
boku no: my (male familiar)
sawaru: to touch
joushaken: a train ticket
wasureru: to forget
kasa: umbrella
motte iku: to take (something away with you or for someone else to do so); to carry away (This is a combination of motsu [to hold] and iku [to go].)
(Verbs are shown in their plain form.)
Notes
1. The verb toru has many different usages, many of which parallel its English counterpart: to take something from a place or person; to take a picture with a camera; to take (steal) something from someone. However, the kanji used for each meaning are different, so keep that in mind when you start studying kanji. (Because of this it is often just written in hiragana these days.) Another important point is that there are also many actions that use take in English that do not use toru in Japanese, like "take a bath," for example. So please don't assume that toru can be used universally for take. (In Japanese you get into the bath: ofuro ni hairu.)
Be careful not to elongate the o in toru when pronouncing it, which is easy to do, because tooru is a totally different verb, meaning "to pass (by/over something)."
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