Friday, 6 January 2017

grammar - How to say "ever" in this context


I want to say:



I don't think cats are ever friendly.



The only "ever" I know is using ことがある but that doesn't seem appropriate. My attempt without the "ever" is:



猫が友好的じゃないものと思います。




Btw, have I used もの correctly to make this into a statement about cats in general?



Answer



I would personally suggest using 「決{けっ}して~~ない」 to say "not ~~ ever ~~" as in:



「ネコは決して人{ひと}なつっこい生{い}き物{もの}ではないと思{おも}います。」


「ネコは決して人なつっこくないと思います。」



「友好的{ゆうこうてき}」 sounds pretty stiff, so I changed it to 「人なつっこい」.


「じゃない」 is OK even though I used 「ではない」. 「じゃない」, however, can replace 「ではない」 only in my first sentence. In the second sentence, you cannot say 「ひとなつっこくじゃない」 or 「ひとなつっこいじゃない」.



(「じゃない」, for some reason, is very popular among J-learners, but using it is not as easy as many of them seem to think. For instance, if you said 「人なつっこいじゃない」, it has an affirmative meaning --"friendly, eh?". the negative form of the i-adjective 「人なつっこい」 is 「人なつっこくない」. One cannot say it using 「じゃない」. 「友好的じゃない」, however, is grammatical because 友好的 is a na-adjective.)


I would not feel too comfortable if you used 「もの」 instead of 「生き物」 to talk about animals.


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