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I want to say "I am not your dad" in Japanese. Google Translate say that it
would be

> 私はあなたのお父さんではない  
>  (Watashi wa anata no otōsande wanai)

But why is it Watashi wa anata no otōsande arimasen
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2017-07-21T23:14:31.697
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2017-07-22T04:44:49.550
2017-07-21T23:58:39.087
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question
particle-は negation copula
Wanai vs Arimasen
I think I'll split this answer into two parts. From the comments there are
obviously technical aspects of grammar that I seem to be glossing over too
readily. So, the first part of the answer will be just a general overview and
the second part will flesh out the particulars in a manner less glib about
grammatical distinctions.

[under **re** construction]

First ではない and ではありません only differ by their level of politeness.

In English we have one verb "to be" which you wish to translate into Japanese.
When doing so there are various distinctions made in Japanese that are rather
less apparent in English: levels of formality and distinctions between the
literary and spoken language.

Part I:

The English verb "to be" is translated into Japanese variously as だ
(informal), です (formal), or である (informal, but literary). Since in Japanese,
negative requires inflected forms, the negative forms of each is as follows

> だ (postive) -> ではない (negative) じゃない (negative, spoken form)  
>  である (positive) -> ではない (negative)  
>  です (positive) -> ではありません (negative)

So you can translate, "I am not your father" variously as

> 私はあなたのお父さんじゃない。 (spoken)  
>  私はあなたのお父さんではない。 (informal)  
>  私はあなたのお父さんではありません。(formal)

Part II:

In English, the verb "to be", which is definitely a verb from the perspective
of English grammar, exhibits a high degree of _suppletion_ in its inflected
forms: I _am_ , you _are_ , it _is_ , I _was_ , etc. (another common example
of such a verb in English is "to go" whose past tense is "went"). I bring this
up because perhaps that can help understand the fluidity with which a native
speaker can switch between such forms without any thought about it. It's done
so unconsciously that native speakers sometimes even must be taught this.

In Japanese the situation is complicated by matters of formality. The forms だ,
です, and である are not strictly speaking considered verbs. Instead, だ and です are
termed 助動詞{じょどし} (auxiliary _verbs_ ) and である is termed 連語{れんご} (compound
word) composed of で＋ある, hence the ability to insert は into the inflected form
for negation.

I think that for someone who's starting off in their studies of Japanese, at
least for an English speaker, these finer details can either be helpful or a
hindrance. It depends on your inclinations for distinctions of grammar.

Final point regarding thinking about は:

Also, は, though pronounced "wa", is here functioning like the contrastive
particle は, but in this context it's almost a fused form. I'm uncertain
whether anyone says "でない" (though that would actually be easily confused with
出{で}ない "isn't poking out/isn't leaving". But regardless, in this context the
informal verb isn't "わない" as your title would seem to suggest.
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2017-07-21T23:19:30.500
50607
2017-07-22T01:42:28.353
2017-07-22T01:42:28.353
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answer
This has to do with keigo, or polite speech. ーありません is the polite way of
ending that sentence, whereas ーはない would be more informal.

Both are valid, but it depends on how polite you want to be. Sans context,
it's tough to say which would be appropriate.
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2017-07-21T23:20:53.177
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2017-07-22T04:44:49.550
2017-07-22T04:44:49.550
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answer