Taking 食べる as an example:
If 食べません is “to not eat” and 食べましょう is “let’s eat”, what is “let’s not eat”?
As in “let’s not eat at your grandma’s home, let’s eat at a restaurant.”
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It’s 食べますまい (or just 食べまい in plain form), but I can honestly say I’ve never, ever seen that form used. I imagine there’s a more natural grammar structure that is more likely to be used, but I couldn’t really say what that is. 食べたくない maybe?
In the example above, wouldn’t expressing the negative part with just the negative be fine? I don’t see why the “let’s” has to enter into that part.
おばあさんの家で食べなくて、レストランで食べましょう。
This is with the usual caveats that Japanese people prefer not to say negative things directly if they don’t have to though.
So it’s possible a natural sentence would avoid that altogether.
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So does the form simply not exist in Japanese?
What if I change my example to something else. Like a “negative suggestion”:
“Let’s not drive on route66, I heard there was an accident earlier.”
Again, it might be possible with an imperative, but a “let’s not” way of putting it might be less forceful. And I am interested in whether there is a “let’s not” form at all.
As mentioned, ～まい is the negative volitional form. But it’s based on archaic grammar and thus sounds stiff and formal.
And just a reminder, the “let’s” part isn’t even really a part of the Japanese in the first place. It’s just a volitional form that based on context could apply to multiple people.
If you want to suggest something negative, then a negative conditional with どう思う? or something appended seems appropriate.
Literally “what do you think if we don’t do x”
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Couldn’t you pull this off with a より?
お祖母さんの家で食べるより、レストランに行きましょうか？
Probably still a little unnatural, but something like that? Or as a response, それより、レストランに行ったらどう思う？Etc., etc. Actually not sure what the most natural way to suggest the restaurant invitationally would be either, though I know plenty of ways to somewhat clumsily suggest it.
(You could also be more tactful with something like ここで食べるのもいいんですが… (食べてもいいですが？) and then suggest an alternative. Again, not sure that’s the most natural way to actually phrase that, but I mean the basic idea suggesting it wouldn’t be bad to eat here either, but what about (alternative)?)
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I feel like pointing out that even the English examples sound weird. I don’t know when I’ve really heard someone say “let’s not~” except when being pretty cheeky. I guess I can think of a couple examples, but… mostly you offer an alternative, as you would in Japanese.
Like I would say “there was an accident on 66, we should go a different way.”
Or
“Can we eat at a restaurant instead of your grandma’s?”
And in my experience you usually use similar expressions in Japanese. Things like 方がいい or 行きませんか？ to offer alternatives rather than a pure negative volitional.
I do hear まい used, but it always seems to be used by stuck-up assholes in TV.
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If someone asks in Japanese if you want to do something – like, do you want to go shopping – and you want to say “let’s not go shopping,” the best thing to say is: それはちょっと。。。
A big aspect of Japanese is actually not expressing certain things or phrases. A good chunk of it is context.
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What about something like “食べなければどう？” It’s not grammatically the same as “let’s not” but it seems like the same idea to me.
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Off topic, but I learned a new proverb from searching around for まい stuff.
The pheasant would not be shot but for its cries
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Aye, the old “lets jump off this cliff” “Yeah, let’s not, and say we did”.
Or expressing a very strong desire not to do something in a relatively polite fashion. The example sentence given - “let’s not eat at your grandma’s home" - reads to me like “I really, really don’t want to eat at grandma’s home”.
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alright then, thank you guys 
Wait, what?
I learned 〜まい as meaning something like 〜ないだろう (just more formal) and all usages I’ve seen of it have been consistant with that.
googles
What the… it is also the negative volitional.
もう絶対お酒は飲むまい
I agree with @Belthazar that I’ve never seen it used that way. (Or maybe I just didn’t notice; One of the example sentence 「もう言葉にするまい」 feels like I could have misunderstood it)
It has even more uses in classical grammar.
Probably. It’s the first use listed on the reference I found.
The second one is the only one I have seen in scientific publications though. (Well, you usually don’t express will/opinion in scientific publication, so that makes sense)
Let’s not drive on route66, I heard there was an accident earlier.”
Again, it might be possible with an imperative, but a “let’s not” way of putting it might be less forceful. And I am interested in whether there is a “let’s not” form at all.
Follow up: I don’t think there’s a commonly used, 1:1 “let’s not” phrase for immediate circumstances, like that. (I’d go with ～ないほうがいい, which is more like “it’s better not to,” inclusive of the listener).
However, I’d be remiss to not point out that for habitual practices, there is ～ないようにしましょう, which is essentially “Let’s try not to～.” Ex. 遅れないようにしましょう (Let’s try not to be late.)
This also finishes in the imperative して quite often as a form of polite advice/instruction. ようにする can also be paired with affirmative phrases and is a general construction you’ll likely learn beginning intermediate study. It’s pretty handy.
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More recommendations from natives in the meantime
しないでおこう
やめておこう
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〜ないほうがいい is another i’ve heard often
i spotted a 〜まい in deltarune the other day, i’ll see if i can’t find it again…
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Also two suggestion from A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar (mashou - page 242 -point 6). (Sorry for the Romaji; I only have Korean and English on my work computer…)
Paatii ni iku no wa yamemashou / yoshimashou
(Let’s not go to the party.)
Fureddo ni wa iwanaide okimashou.
(Let’s not tell Fred)
Hope this help!
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Think you might need to double check this.
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