In [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJaareN2z00&feature=player_embedded)
Bump of Chicken song, the line 笑えないかな is used a number of times.

For example:

> 全て受け止めて笑えないかな
>
> If only I could just accept everything and smile.
>
> 誰かに優しく出来ないかな 全て受け止めて笑えないかな
>
> If only I could be kind to someone. If only I could accept everything and
> laugh.
>
> 笑えないかな
>
> If only I could laugh.

The translations are a combination of those provided online, my native speaker
friends and mine. If I translate 笑えない literally I come up with "I can't
laugh." With 笑えないかな, I get "Can't I laugh?" So how does "Can't I laugh?"
become "If only I could laugh." I see the correlation in meaning but I am not
100% there in understanding it. I guess verbない + かな has this nuance of "If
only.."

The more literal way of saying this phrase would be ”笑えたらいいのになぁ” "If only I
could laugh." But how does this colloquial version work?
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colloquial-language
How does this meaning of 笑えないかな work?
`か` makes a question, but it does not make a tag question as you thought. And
in this case, it can be interpreted as a rhetorical question.

> 笑えない  
>  'I can't laugh.'
>
> 笑えないか  
>  'Can't I laugh?' (Rhetorical question with the expectation: 'I can laugh.')  
>  → 'I expect/wish that I can laugh'.

The expectation that follows from the question is the opposite of how you
translated. I don't know where your idea of translating it into a tag question
came from.
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2011-12-21T23:34:21.423
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2011-12-24T16:10:39.880
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Building off of sawa's answer my understanding is now this:

> 笑えない 'I am unable to laugh.'
>
> 笑えないか 'Am I unable to laugh?'

The next logical thought would perhaps be, "I am unable to laugh, but if only
I could laugh." I understand this line of thinking but it is still a bit of a
jump in meaning for me. I guess the な at the end makes the sentence even more
rhetorical, forcing the concluding thought. I don't understand exactly how the
final meaning corresponds to the grammar, but I will remember this as one of
the meanings of 笑えないかな.
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`笑えないかな` literally means "can't (I) laugh?" but it looks like it has a number
of different meanings depending on context:

  * "I wish to laugh" or "if only I could laugh"
  * "I think you'd laugh if..." or "I think you'd have a happy time if..."
  * "isn't that something you can't laugh at?" or "can you really laugh at that?"

In this context, it does seem to be a rhetorical question. A literal
translation might be "can't I laugh?" here, though it clearly doesn't have the
same meaning in English if it's translated that way:

> 全て受け止めて笑えないかな  
>  Literally: "I wonder if I can't stop everything and laugh?"  
>  Means: "I wish to stop everything and laugh."
>
> あなたと楽しく笑えないかな  
>  Literally: "I wonder if I can't laugh together with you joyfully?"  
>  Means: "I wish to laugh together with you joyfully."
>
> 笑えないかな  
>  Literally: "I wonder if I can't laugh?"  
>  Means: "I wish to laugh."

I think these kind of rhetorical questions can't always be directly translated
to English and that it might need to be taken from context:

>   * 笑えないかな  
> "I wonder if I can't laugh" (with the implication that "I can laugh")
>   * 彼がそんなことをするだろうか（＝彼は絶対にしない）  
> "I suppose he'd do that sort of thing?" (he would absolutely not do that)
>   * そんなことがあり得ようか（＝あるはずがない）  
> "Is that sort of thing possible?" (that doesn't happen)
>

See also the Japanese Wikipedia page on [rhetorical
questions](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%8D%E8%AA%9E). I'm not sure
there's going to be a simple answer to this question as rhetorical questions
in Japanese seem very different to English.
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2011-12-24T05:44:59.547
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笑えないかな can also be taken to mean something like "I don't think I can laugh".
Whether this ambiguity is intentional by the lyricist, I do not know...

In any case, it seems like you're having trouble internalizing the "I wish I
could ..." meaning of ～ないかな, so I'll give it a try.

Most of the analysis in the other answers focuses on just the question part,
but I think the key to the understanding lies in な (or maybe the combination
かな)

な has many nuances and usages, but in the combination かな, I would translate it
as "I wonder if ...".

> 明日は雨かな I wonder if it will rain tomorrow
>
> 笑えるかな I wonder if I can laugh
>
> 笑えないかな I wonder if I can't (couldn't) laugh

Once we've got this far, the jump to "I wish I could laugh" might not be so
painful.
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