Lesson 44

[tarkonis]

minnasan konnichiwa!

I am looking at beginner lesson 41 and the dialouge says

夏子：えぇぇ、やっぱり金曜日がいいです。

What does yappari mean in this sentence? In my dictionary it means "also" but I think it means something different in this context.

Also, further down the dialouge we have

「土曜日がいいでしょう」

which means, "Saturday's are good right?"

but in the informal we have

「土曜日はいいんじゃないの」

I don't understand this construction. I thought Ja nai made a negative. Could someone explain this sentence to me please.

Again thanks very much for your assistance I love your website.

Tarkonis



Thanks for your help

[Javizy]

やっぱり usually means '(just) as I thought', 'as is to be expected'. It is one of those words that in most cases changes the nuance rather than having any intrinsic meaning, so you usually get an awkward sentence if you directly translate.

The sentence you posted would probably just be 'Saturday is best for me' when naturally translated. I found it a strange word at first, but it's quite frequently used, so the best way to learn it is by example. Listen out for the more formal やはり and the very informal やっぱ also.

じゃないの, in this case, is the feminine version of the expression じゃないか／じゃないですか, which is a tag question meaning 'isn't it?'. So, the sentence is essentially the same as the でしょう version, and would be translated as 'Saturdays are good, aren't they?'. Notice that it is 'aren't they' in this case, じゃないか remains the same, whereas in English we have to account for plurals.

[jkeyz15]

to add to the post above. Notice the ん before じゃない.

Also something else to note about why it doesn't make いい negative is that you can't negate i-adjectives with じない.

[josiah]

this is a good dictionary you can use online too;
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdic.html
very helpful i believe