Slightly mundane question here. Do negative verbs translate as x "does not" do
this action or simply "not" e.g 食べない "not eat" as opposed to "does not eat".
The reason I ask is because On Tae kim's site all the verb examples are
translated as "does not", When suddenly 買わない becomes "not buy" - which is it?
I know it's a silly a question, but I'm pretty curious, so I'd really
appreciate any answers.
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2013-10-25T05:45:46.193
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2013-10-25T14:33:33.340
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question
conjugations
negative verb confusion
In English, the auxiliary verb _do_ is a meaningless verb that is inserted for
various reasons. For example, direct questions require an auxiliary verb in
modern English:

>  1a. *Like you the movie?  
>   1b. Do you like the movie?

When you form an English question like this, the subject and auxiliary swap
places. But the lexical verb _like_ isn't an auxiliary, so example 1a is
ungrammatical. You insert _do_ so that you have an auxiliary to switch with
the subject.

And in modern English, you need an auxiliary to add the negative _not_ or
negative affix _-n't_ :

>  2a. *She takes not the money. / *She takesn't the money.  
>   2b. She does not take the money. / She doesn't take the money.

The examples in 2a don't work because _take_ is a lexical verb. In this kind
of English sentence, you can only negate an auxiliary verb, so you insert the
meaningless verb _do_.

* * *

Japanese is completely different. It has a negator `-(a)nai` which attaches
directly to verb stems. There's no need to insert anything like _do_ , so
whether or not you translate it with _do_ depends on what's required in
English. It has nothing to do with Japanese.

To form the negative in Japanese, attach `-(a)nai` to the stem of a verb:

```

    　食べる　　tabe-ru　　　　　
    　食べない　tabe-nai
    
```

The stem `tabe-` ends in a vowel, so you add `-nai` without the `(a)`.

```

    　話す　　　hanas-u
    　話さない　hanas-anai
    
```

The stem `hanas-` ends in a consonant, so you add `-anai` **with** the `(a)`.
Adding this extra vowel prevents you from saying the consonants /s/ and /n/
with nothing in-between, which Japanese doesn't allow.

Your example 買う is a consonant stem verb, too, even though it doesn't look
like one. The stem is `kaw-`, so you insert the `(a)`:

```

    　買う　　　kaw-u
    　買わない　kaw-anai
    
```

The reason this seems weird is that /w/ disappears before every vowel except
/a/. So the /w/ disappears from `kaw-u`, and you're left with `kau` (買う).

The main exception to this pattern is ある, which becomes ない instead of *あらない.
And there are other negators (such as ん in ません, used to form a polite
negative). But I'm limiting this discussion to ない, since that's the negator
you asked about.

As you can see, there's nothing corresponding to _do_ in these Japanese
examples. Whether you translate these with _do_ or not depends entirely on the
requirements of English, and has nothing to do with the Japanese.
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2013-10-25T12:31:41.977
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2013-10-25T12:46:25.137
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answer
Tae Kim sometimes uses over-literal translations. I'm guessing the one that
confused you was "[As for me, not
buy](http://www.guidetojapanese.org/negverb.html)" (私は買わない).

Without context, this could mean:

1) A specific statement about the future: I'm not going to buy/I won't buy
(thing we were talking about)

2) A more general statement about your habits: I don't buy (thing we were
talking about)
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answer