Adam
じゃない? Lately, I've saw a video that translated the phrase 「すごいじゃない!」 as "That's great!." I'm confused as I know すごい is an expression of amazement or "That's great!" but isn't じゃない a negative, wouldn't that phrase mean that is isn't amazing? By the way it was used, recieved and translated, it would seem she would only need to say "すごい!" Any help would be appreciated.
May 30, 2015 7:54 PM
Answers · 2
2
The translation on the video is correct, it means "that's great! / how great!" with emotion/exclamation. すごい is an adjective and it has several meaning depends on the situation. (great, amazing, awesome / heavy, enormous / awful, horrible, terrible) *すごく is an adverb. This じゃない express the exclamation and if the tone of the voice is like ⤴︎, it means "that's great, isn't it?". *the simple negative form of the adjective すごい is すごくない, not すごいじゃない. じゃない is the negative form for NA-adjective and some which end with だ, like 元気じゃない、わたしの本じゃない. However, depends on the tone of the voice, the meaning is changed to "that's my book!", "that's my book, isn't it?", "that isn't my book". I hope it was helpful.
May 30, 2015
2
Yeah you are right, sugoi is amazing and jya nai is negative. The only logical explanation is to notice the tone being used by the speaker, I think it may be something like " isn't it amazing?" (This would make more sense if speaker says すごい じゃ ない か
May 30, 2015
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