No. 9 in Japanese
ない
"ない" means "not" or "nonexistent," used to indicate negation or absence.
In a sentence
彼は遅れることはない。
He will not be late.
In this context, 'ない' is being used as a negation of the idea that something will happen.
今日はどこにも行かない。
I am not going anywhere today.
Here, 'ない' negates the action of '行く' (to go), indicating that the action is not going to take place.
忘れてしまうこともない。
It is not that such things are forgotten.
In this example, 'ない' negates the potential possibility that 'forgetting' will occur.
Hear it in real podcasts
The recording above is a synthetic voice. Hear how people say “ない” in actual Japanese podcasts.
Find “ない” in podcastsLearn it from shows you like
LangTurbo plays Japanese podcasts with a transcript and the English under every line. Tap a word like this one and it tells you what it means right there. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Learning English?
LangTurbo plays real English podcasts with every line translated into 日本語, and tells you what any word means in that sentence. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Japanese books and courses on Amazon (an affiliate link: a purchase through it supports this site).