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In English, it is possible to make certain negative sentences in two different ways and in this post I want to explain about those two ways.

certain negative sentences - ある否定文

For example, if we consider the sentence 「彼は何もしなかった。」, then we can see there are two ways to say it:

He did nothing.

He didn’t do anything.

So, 「nothing」＝「not … anything」. The same is true for ‘no-one’, ‘nobody’, ‘nowhere’ as well as ‘nothing’, as you can see in the following examples:

I saw no-one. She knew nobody. They went nowhere.

I didn’t see anyone. She didn’t know anybody. They didn’t go anywhere.

As you can see, ‘no~’ words are used with positive verbs, and ‘any~’ words are used with negative verbs.

positive verbs - 動詞の肯定形 // negative verbs - 動詞の否定形

‘No~’ words are often used when giving a short answer, as in the following examples:

What did you do? Where did you go? Who did you see?

Nothing. Nowhere. No-one.

Also, ‘no~’ words are used as the subject of a sentence. In this case ‘any~’ words cannot be used. ‘Any~’ words can only be used as objects in a sentence.
subject - 主語 // in this case - この場合は // object - 目的語

Nothing was on TV, so I read a book. Nobody was in the office.

There wasn’t anything on TV,… There wasn’t anybody in the…

So, let’s do a little practice. Change the following sentences to use ‘not anything’ instead of ‘nothing’. Then listen to the audio to check your ideas.

1. I like nothing here.
2. I saw noone at the shrine.
3. The conversation went nowhere.
4. She knows noone.
5. I did nothing to it.
6. Nowhere is open yet.

In normal speech, the ‘not …any~’ form is the most common and the most natural. The ‘no~’ form is usually used in one-word short answers, or if it is necessary in subject position. As a general rule, you should try to use ‘not … any~’ as much as possible.

Finally, let’s try some translations from Japanese…

1. 彼女は、パーティで誰も知ってる人がいなかった。
2. 誰もレッスンに来なかった。
3. 電話したけど、誰も出なかった。
4. 日曜日にどこにも行かなかった。
5. 探したけど、何も見つけられなかった。
6. 彼は、シャイで、何も言わない。

That’s all for this post… don’t forget to come back soon!