I thought I would write a quick reference to help people understand some contractions which I have found to be incredibly common in popular media and casual speech, but which most textbooks tend to gloss over or ignore. My hope is that I can save some of you from spending as much time as I did being puzzled over some of these.
This isn’t a guide on when or how to use these forms (although as a general rule most of them are casual speech, some of them are only seen in fiction), it’s just a reference to help people match up their standard textbook Japanese knowledge with the Japanese they might actually encounter reading a manga or light novel, watching an anime, playing a game, or even reading a youtube comment. If you don’t understand the basic grammar points before they’re contracted, you can find them explained in virtually any grammar resource but I personally recommend A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar. If not, you can always ask here or in another thread.
I assume most people know the following three points, and most grammar resources do cover these since they’re so incredibly common, but I’m listing them since they’re essential and prerequisites for everything else:
い sound can vanish after -て form
Examples:
愛している → 愛してる
見ていない → 見てない
見ていてくれ → 見ててくれ
出ていけ! → 出てけ!
出て行った → 出てった
の can become ん
何をしてるのだ? → 何をしてるんだ?
学生なのです → 学生なんです
では becomes じゃ
ばかではありません! → ばかじゃありません!
死んではだめだ → 死んじゃだめだ
Ok, with that out of the way here are the contractions I actually wanted to cover:
あい and おい at the end of words can become ええ
行きたい → 行きてえ
信じられない → 信んじられねえ
すごい → すげえ
おもしろい → おもしれえ
ない can become ん
知らないよ → 知らんよ
ら row sounds can become ん when they precede a な row sound.
何をしてるの? → 何をしてんの?
来るな!! → くんな!!
分からない → 分かんない
Special case: Two ん’s won’t appear together, so ら row sounds instead disappear when preceding ん
何をしてるんだ? → 何をしてんんだ? 何をしてんだ?
-てお becomes と
書いておく → 書いとく
覚えておけ! → おぼえとけ!
今、何しておる? → 今、何しとる?
-ては becomes ちゃ
見てはだめ → 見ちゃだめ
行かなくてはいけない-> 行かなくちゃいけない
-てしまう → -ちまう → -ちゃう
買ってしまった → 買っちまった → 買っちゃった
-でしまう → -じまう → -じゃう
死んでしまう → 死んじまう → 死んじゃう
れば becomes りゃ
見れば分かる → 見りゃ分かる
勉強しなければ合格しない → 勉強しなけりゃ合格しない
けりゃ becomes きゃ
勉強しなけりゃ合格しない → 勉強しなきゃ合格しない
行かなければ → 行かなけりゃ → 行かなきゃ
Clarification note: ーなけりゃ and ーなきゃ are not completely grammatically equivalent. ーなけりゃ can’t be used by itself to indicate “must” or “have to” in the way that なきゃ can, for instance 食べなきゃ by itself means “I have to eat” but 食べなけりゃ can’t be used by itself to mean that.
りゃ and きゃ can be further shortened
I’ve only seen this very rarely, but sometimes なきゃ will get even further shortened to にゃ or りゃ will get combined with the sound before it, e.g. 見りゃ → みゃ
いけない , ならない , だめ can be ellipted after a negative conditional indicating must or have to
Most textbooks mention this and I alluded to it in some of the earlier points but I thought I’d also mention it for completeness.
仕事に行かなきゃならない/いけない/だめ → 仕事に行かなきゃ
勉強しないといけない → 勉強しないと
Topic particle は can combine with the syllable before it
それは → そりゃ
何だこれは → 何だこりゃ
私は耳が聞こえない → わたしゃ耳が聞こえん
いう can become ゆう
そう言うことだ → そうゆうことだ
-られる can drop the ら when it’s forming the potential with an ichidan verb.
ichidan potentials are normally formed the same as the passives, e.g.
Dictionary: 見る Passive: 見られる Potential: 見られる
Sometimes on the potential only the ら is dropped and only れる is added. This differentiates it from the passive and makes the potential more closely resemble the potential formation of godan verbs.
見られる → 見れる
食べられる → 食べれる
って contractions
って can be a contraction of a variety of quotation と related expressions. Here are the four I think are most common and useful to be aware of:
- と
- という
- とは
- というのは / は (i.e. expresses a topic)
Examples:
- もうすぐ着くと言ってたよ → もうすぐ着くって言ってたよ
- 中村と言う人が来たよ → 中村って人が来たよ
- タグ付けとは何? → タグ付けって何?
- あなたは親切な人ね → あなたって親切な人ね
といっても and としても can become たって
逃げようとしても無駄だよ → 逃げようたって無駄だよ
登山と言っても、ハイキング程度さ → 登山たって、ハイキング程度さ
If there are any errors let me know so I can fix them immediately. Also, if there’s anything you think I should add let me know. I’d like to add some actual real world examples at some point if I remember to make note of them when I see them.
If people like this post and find it useful I might do a similar one focused on 役割語.