Double negation?

[ahmadismail339308]

Hello everybody,

I found the following sentence in Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese:

加賀先生： そうね。大体、 「こんにちは」と言うと思いますよ。 ただし、書く時 は「こんにちわ」じゃなくて、 「こんにちは」と書かなくてはなりません。

The translation given is:

Kaga-sensei: Well, mostly, I think people say "konnichiwa". Only, when you write it, you must write "konnichiha" and not "konnichiwa".

I have trouble understanding the structure of the last phrase:

「こんにちは」と書かなくてはなりません。

I don't know how this translates to: you must write "Konnichiha".

My own analysis of the phrase is as follows:

「こんにちは」と "Konnichiha" quote
書かなくて not write
は topic particle
なりません must not

Is this a case of double negation? "You must NOT NOT write "konnichiha"?

Thanks

[ericf]

Yes, you've got it, it's a double negative.

Eric.

[mmmason8967]

Yes, you've got it, it's a double negative.

Coincidentally, the Can you translate this? question on the JP101 Facebook page on Wednesday was:-

運転手として、周りのことに注意を払わなければなりません。
Untenshu to shite, mawari no koto ni chūi o harawanakereba narimasen.

It's the same (or at least very similar) double negative, again meaning "you must". Is this the standard way of saying you must (do something) in Japanese?

マイケル

[Jessi]

Hi ahmadismail and mmmason,

Yes, this is the standard grammar structure for saying one "must" do something.
Grammar Bank entry: http://www.japanesepod101.com/learningc ... rammar/193?

JPOD lessons that cover this topic:

http://www.japanesepod101.com/2010/03/0 ... -japanese/
http://www.japanesepod101.com/2007/11/2 ... aughter-2/

I hope this helps

[mmmason8967]

This wasn't exactly the way I'd anticipated that "you must" would work in Japanese

...so, thanks! The links are very helpful.

マイケル