Teach Us, Teacher

How to make negative sentences (Lesson 4)

Let me explain this with a sentence, "I am a Japanese."

"I" is WATASHI, and "a Japanese" is NIHON-JIN. So, "I'm a Japanese" is WATASHI WA NIHON-JIN DESU. To make a sentence ending with DESU into a negative sentence, we change DESU to DEWA ARIMASEN. So, “I’m not a Japanese” is WATASHI WA NIHON-JIN DEWA ARIMASEN. In this sentence, if you change DEWA to JA, you sound more casual. So, "I'm not a Japanese," NIHON-JIN DEWA ARIMASEN becomes NIHON-JIN JA ARIMASEN.