"Have to be"

[Kaia]

Hi guys, I have a grammar questions that my book doesn't cover. (I am a beginner)

The book teaches a construct for saying you have to do something, but what if you have to BE something, like a noun or an adjective?

This seems to work with i-adjectives, but not with nouns: (by counting google hits for these phrases, hehe)

楽しくなくちゃいけない seems ok?

元気じゃあなくちゃいけない these are not ok...?
学生じゃあなくちゃいけない

I mean, how would you say "I have to be happy", "have to be a student" etc?

[Toritoribe]

Very close. でなきゃいけない/でなくちゃいけない is correct.(It's the contraction of でなくてはいけない.)
You'd better to think of the negative form first.

verb
笑う → 笑わない → 笑わなくちゃいけない/笑わなきゃいけない

i-adjective
楽しい → 楽しくない → 楽しくなくちゃいけない/楽しくなきゃいけない

noun/na-adjective
元気だ → 元気でない → 元気でなくちゃいけない/元気でなきゃいけない

[nice gaijin]

元気じゃあなくちゃいけない

That extra あ is your problem. Grammatically it's ok, but it seems kind of strange to use such an imperative. Also note that "~なくちゃ" is a contraction of "~なくては," and there are other ways to say things that translate similarly; as Toritoribe-san pointed out, you could also use ～なきゃ, a contraction of ～なければ

this structure works well for situations like "I have to go." It's like saying "if verb doesn't get performed/condition isn't met... it's no good"

[Kaia]

Thank you both for the answer, I appreciate it.

[bmoddo]

Hi, Same question very slightly different angle because I wasn't making sense of the examples above:

僕は学生でなければならない [boku wa gakusei denakerebanaranai]

or "I must be a student." (An emphatic statement if there ever was one.)

so 僕は学生でなくちゃならない is the equivalent of 僕は学生でなければならない

because "~なくちゃ" is the colloquial equivalent of "なければ"?

Wreaks havoc with my dictionary; it's not colloquialism friendly I guess... I'll run it past some of my Japanese friends here on Monday for an in person　「うん、うん、そですね。」

本当にありがとうございます

ビモッド

[nice gaijin]

なくては → なくちゃ
なければ → なきゃ
not the same, but similar constructs

学生でなくてはいけない → 学生でなくちゃいけない
学生でなければならない → 学生でなきゃならない

also, 「うん、うん、そうですね。

[Toritoribe]

学生でなければならない sounds like a "condition/requirement."

この奨学金に応募するには、学生でなければならない。 ＝ 学生でなければ、この奨学金に応募できない。
Kono shougakukin ni oubo suru ni wa, gakusei de nakereba naranai. = Gakusei de nakereba, kono shougakukin ni oubo dekinai.
You must be a student to apply for this scholarship.


As nice gaijin-san wrote, なきゃ is originally from なければ(なければ → なけりゃ → なきゃ), but it seems to be used also as a contraction of なくては/なくちゃ nowadays.;-)

[bmoddo]

@Toritoribe, that's a good point. It does rather sound like a requirement doesn't it.

Contractions and turns of phrase can be problematic for someone learning a language. So are colloquialisms. English is full of them and a native speaker thinks nothing of them where it comes to using them. Explaining them on the other hand is a more difficult thing.

The same applies to Japanese. So, the question remains.

How would one state a personal need to "be" or "become" something or somewhere?

As in "I really have to be at the station at 10." or "I just have to be better at this."
etc.

b.moddo (ビ。モッド)

[Toritoribe]

What I wanted to say in my previous post is that なきゃ can be used for both なくては and なければ, wheares なければ is not always replaced by なくちゃ.
e.g.
君に頼まなければよかった。→

○君に頼まなきゃよかった。
×君に頼まなくちゃよかった

How would one state a personal need to "be" or "become" something or somewhere?

As in "I really have to be at the station at 10." or "I just have to be better at this."
etc.
Depending on the context, as always. Those examples would be ganerally expressed with verbs 居る, 成る.

駅にいなくちゃいけない/なきゃいけない

うまくならなくちゃいけない/なきゃいけない

[bmoddo]

My apologies, I must be thick. (colloquial phrase of English origin, meaning slow or stupid not in general use in Canada)

Can we start here:

私は駅で10時にする必要があります。 [watashiwa eki de 10ji ni suru hitsuyouga arimasu.]

"I must be at the station at 10 o'clock" Is this a correct way of phrasing this?

If so, how many other ways are there to say the same thing? [taking into account local expressions and colloquialisms]

b.moddo

[Elizabeth]

My apologies, I must be thick. (colloquial phrase of English origin, meaning slow or stupid not in general use in Canada)

Can we start here:

私は駅で10時にする必要があります。 [watashiwa eki de 10ji ni suru hitsuyouga arimasu.]

"I must be at the station at 10 o'clock" Is this a correct way of phrasing this?

If so, how many other ways are there to say the same thing? [taking into account local expressions and colloquialisms]

b.moddo
Without wading through the hundreds of possibilities, anyway, this is your basic structure...

（わたしは）、１０時までに（は）、駅に行かなければなりません。(Have to be/get there by...)

[bmoddo]

わかった、ありがとうございました。

僕は１０時に駅に行かなければなりません。
"I must go to the station at 10."

or perhaps

午後10時で僕は駅に行かなければなりません。

(there's the whole am/pm thing to think about too... but since time is relative perhaps it matters naught at the moment)

(this is where having a friend who is either Japanese or speaks Japanese fluently that one can call would be very, very handy... )

b.moddo

[nice gaijin]

Like Elizabeth-san said, there are many possible ways to say what you want, with slightly different meanings and emphasis. When you say "I have to be at the station," you're thinking in English, and a direct translation may not necessarily be a very natural way to say it in Japanese. To "be" somewhere in Japanese doesn't have the same connotation of going somewhere.

Do you mean
must go (行く) to the train station at (に) / by (まで) 10?
must arrive (着く) at the station
must be waiting (待っている) at the station
must meet (会う/待ち合わせる) at the station

The "must/have to" construct is not a single conjugation of a verb or a set word, it's a conditional statement and a consequence.

The conditional can take many forms, like those discussed in this thread.
The consequence can be general or specific. The basic forms for "must/have to" are just like saying "If condition isn't met / なくては / なければ, it's no good / いけない / ならない / だめだ" You can get more specific (using a different consequence), or even use this basic construct for other structures, like "must not," or "shouldn't have."

[Elizabeth]

わかった、ありがとうございました。

僕は１０時に駅に行かなければなりません。
"I must go to the station at 10."

or perhaps

午後10時で僕は駅に行かなければなりません。

(there's the whole am/pm thing to think about too... but since time is relative perhaps it matters naught at the moment)

(this is where having a friend who is either Japanese or speaks Japanese fluently that one can call would be very, very handy... )

b.moddo
You can use "night" as well as afternoon, if the question of shift becomes an issue 夜10時に駅に行かなければなりません。

10時で。。。 This reads like "It's 10 o'clock and I will go to the station."

[bmoddo]

Thank-you all for the pointers and helping me learn the subtleties of the language as well as expanding my vocabulary.

It's interesting that when I speak French; I'm fluent and have been since I was very young, that I don't think in English. When I'm speaking French, I'm "in" French mode.

It took some time to get there, this is fluency. To be able to operate in a language without thinking about it. This is where I intend to be with Japanese and with more study and patience this is all possible.

Thanks again!

b.moddo

Now I must check on the soup and the meat the ramen I'm making for dinner...

b.

[bmoddo]

Funny story... Tonight, while studying on the train the lesson of the day was... [drumroll please] "Expressing Necessity"

like so...

~なければなりません　expresses duty or obligation and, by extension, necessity. ~なければ　is the conditional form of the a negative verb. You use ~なければなりません　to suggest than an action must be taken due to circumstances beyond your own or someone else's control.

EG:

今日中に　お金を　払わなければなりません。(I/You must pay the money today.)

Additionally, you often use ~なければ成りません to make excuses for when you cannot do something, in which case it is common to add んです　 or 　ので.

１０時間までに　学校に　子どもを　むかえに　行かなければ　ならないんです。
I must go to the school to pick up the children by 10 o'clock.

子どもを　むかえに　行かなければ　ならないので　お先に　失礼します。
I must go to pick up the children, so I'll be off before you.

〜なきゃなりません, ~なきゃならない and 〜なきゃ　are, in descending order of formality, the contracted forms of ~なければなりません. They are used quite a bit in colloquial Japanese....

...and there you have it... Jungian synchronicity in action...

b.moddo