Must & Must Not

The most standard way of saying “to have to” in Japanese is to say, “if you don’t do (x) then things can’t go well” or “if you don’t do (x) things won’t become”. And we actually have three ways of constructing this logic, each of which follows a double negative pattern to create the expression of “must do”.

【Verb: Neg. conditional ～ば】【いけない or ならない】

【Verb: Negative】といけない

【Verb: nakute te form】は【いけない or ならない】

Note the effeminate omission of the auxiliary verb and のよ at the end.

This can seem like a tongue-twister at first. In casual conversation there are a couple of ways to abbreviate the phrase. Firstly, the conditional form なければ can be shortened to なくちゃ or なきゃ.

Alternatively, you can use a more simple word like だめ in place of “to go” or “to become”.

Or simply drop the final verb altogether.

One other way to express requirement is to modify the adverbial noun 必要ひつよう.

To form the negative expression we take the te form structure and turn the first clause into the affirmative.

【Affirmative te form】は【いけない or ならない】

Typically いけない is used..

The kanji 中 means “middle” and can often be added to other words to mean “during”.