じゃ meaning

[anon20554942]

Hello everyone,

I was studying Spirited Away movie and there’s a segment that Chihiro talks with her mother about her bouquet . I transcripted the dialogue below:

Chihiro: 初めてもらった花束がお別れの花束なんて悲しい
Mother: あらっ、この前のお誕生日にバラの花をもらったじゃない
Chihiro: 一本ね。一本じゃ花束って言えないわ

On the last sentence, she uses じゃ as a particle or something. I got the translation is something like “we can’t say that one rose is a bouquet”, but I’ve never seen じゃ being used like that, just as じゃない or じゃありません. Could someone explain じゃ meaning in this context for me?

Sorry any English mistakes, I’m not a native speaker.
Thanks for any help!

[Leebo]

It’s a contraction of では, same as in じゃない.

では can have a lot of meanings.

〜では… 〜ない is a fairly common sentence structure.

[Stay_coolXD]

Not sure if it is for this context. But i know じゃ means then
じゃどうしよう(casual)
Then what should i do?

[RoseEater]

You’ll see other contractions like this, too, within the ‘obligation’ category.

では => じゃ
ては => ちゃ
なければ => なきゃ

Just googled and there’s a good article that goes through this in some detail:

https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-grammar/how-to-express-prohibition-and-obligation/

[smearedink]

(sorry)