Softening The Blow
“From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.” - Socrates
“To Love” and “To Hate” are both really strong words. You can’t just throw them around and hope nobody gets offended. The Japanese language and culture is all about being passive and not all that opinionated. The nail that sticks up gets hammered down, so to speak.
So, now we’re going to take some grammar points you already know, and use them to soften すき and きらい. It’s a lot easier than it sounds (or maybe it’s just as easy at it sounds). Take a look at these sentences:
しごとがすきです
I like my job
しごとがきらいです
I hate my job
These two sentences are pretty straight forward… too straight forward, in fact. You need to be able to say something in between these two things. Something like… this!
しごとがすきじゃありません
I don’t like my job
しごとがきらいじゃありません
I don’t hate my job
See what we did there? Instead of using です, we used じゃありません. It completely changes the meaning of these sentences and “softens the blow” on them.
Instead of saying “I hate my job” you can say “I don’t like my job.”
Instead of saying “I like my job” you can say “I don’t hate my job.”
The change is small, but now you sound a lot more passive (and polite) about your feelings towards your work. Let’s try it out on some other things.
Instead of saying “I hate autumn” can you say “I don’t like autumn”?
あきがすきじゃありません
Instead of saying “I like medicine” can you say “I don’t hate medicine”?
くすりがきらいじゃありません
Instead of saying “I hate sugar” can you say “I don’t like sugar”?
さとうがすきじゃありません
Technically you can do this with your 大すき’s and 大きらい’s as well, but it’s not quite as useful as being able to say “don’t like” or “don’t hate.” If you used 大すきじゃありません or 大きらいじゃありません, it would probably be because you’re explaining to someone that in fact you don’t really love something or don’t really hate something. For example:
Someone asks you “You love rain??!?” The thing is, you don’t actually “love rain.” You kind of like it, but you don’t love it. So, you have to explain that you in fact don’t love rain.
あめが大すきじゃありません
Or, someone asks you “You really really hate snow??!?” But, they misunderstood. You don’t like snow, sure, but you certainly don’t hate it that much. So, in order to explain that, you have to say “no, I don’t really really hate snow (like you say I do).”
ゆきが大きらいじゃありません
As you can see, the usage is a little different. For now, I’d stick with the basics: すきじゃありません and きらいじゃありません. Really, these kinds of sentences should have a little more to them, but that would involve things you don’t know yet (and probably aren’t quite ready for), and you know I like to stick with what you know.
Speaking of which, let’s take the things that you just learned and expand on it just a little bit more – then, we’ll practice again.