So, I’m currently a bit confused about the grammar of なんか面白いことないかな…
I feel like I understand the pieces of it, but when it’s all put together I just don’t fully grasp why ない is there. I understand that 面白いことない basically means that a fun thing/ something fun doesn’t exist or that there isn’t anything fun (amusing, interesting, etc) and I get that they are hoping/ wondering for something fun or if there will be something fun…
Deepl translates it as “I need something interesting”… I see it as I hope there’s something fun or I wonder if there’s something fun to do (or something along those lines). Which brings me to wondering why it isn’t just こと since I think would yield a similar translation and the negative doesn’t make sense to me since then it would be something like “I wonder if something fun is nonexistent” or “I wonder if there isn’t something fun” (which kind of makes a bit more sense?)
Is there some nuance where the ない is needed to indicate that there currently isn’t anything fun, but that they’re hoping there will be?
Essentially I’m experiencing the grammar version of being on the tip of the tongue (Also apologies if this is confusing or rambly it’s a bit late and I’ve been staring at this for a while )
If your question is based on this being how a machine translation site handles it, then I would say… don’t worry about it unless you have some evidence that it’s actually what it means.
Not saying it’s impossible to translate it that way, just that I wouldn’t use machine translation as a launching point for this kind of thing, personally.
Thanks! I think this helps it make more sense. So, it’s closer to when I thought it might be along the lines of “I wonder if there isn’t something fun”? If I think of it as indicating a rhetorical question as opposed to being strictly how I consider negative it makes more sense to me.
I understood the tone, but I think I was just really having trouble getting it to click in English. I really like how you translated it! Funny enough it does start with a ふあ so the sigh is dead on. This makes a lot of sense thanks!
Oh that wasn’t the basis, but I can see how it could look that way. I way just having a bit of trouble understanding how ない was being used since my brain was unsure how to translate the sentence with a negative in it, but I thought having another translation could be helpful.
This article from Tofugu has a section dedicated to this particular use of かな (as well as many others):
Going on with the theme of “doubt,” you can also make it into “hope” with the help of a different grammar construction. If you’ve got any experience with Japanese hypotheticals and expressions of necessity, you’ll know they can be a bit weird: generally they take the negative form even if the translated meaning is positive. That’s the case here with hoping. So, make the ending negative with ~ない add かな on the end and you’re set!
It seems it’s best to think of かな as an “uncertainty particle” rather than trying to wrangle it into a 1:1 equivalence with “I wonder”.
This helps a lot! It kind of answers my question of why ことない instead of こと. If I see it as the ない being paired with the かな instead of the こと things make a lot of sense!
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This makes a lot of sense thanks!