Tips for Japanese Learners / Colloquial Usage of 全然 This time, let me talk about 全然. You probably know the word. 全然 means "not at all" as it's used in negative sentences. However, once you come to Japan, you'll hear people are using them differently all the time. This is what I want to talk about. It's grammatically incorrect, but we use 全然 in positive sentences, too. Let me give some examples ahead of explanations. X「１時間も遅れて本当にごめん！」 Y「全然いいよ。気にしないで。」I'm totally fine. Don't worry about it. X「ごちそうさまでした。」 Y「あ、冷蔵庫にケーキあるの忘れてた。でもお腹一杯だから明日にしよっか。」 X「まだ全然食べれるから今食べちゃお！」I'm STILL hungry, so let's eat now! X「水曜日までに間に合いそう？」 Y「うん、全然いける。」 With it, you can stress the thing mentioned. I think it's similar to totally/surely. But it wouldn't be a very good idea to stick to the English translation, so just feel it. You'll get the hang of it easily if you hear and use it over and over. Here is a very important point. Notice that all examples I gave are written in casual Japanese. As I mentioned above, using 全然 in positive sentences isn't correct grammar. I would never use it in polite situations where I speak in teineigo. Even if you used it in your casually talking post on italki, people might correct you. It's grammatically incorrect, but getting conventionally accepted in casual speech. That's why I shared it with you ;) Hope this helps.