LEARN + JAPANESE / Note 97 JLPT N4
Have To (〜なければならない)
なければならない attaches to a verb or adjective’s negative stem and expresses obligation, literally “if not, it won’t do.” It’s built from two pieces you already have, ば (if) and ならない (won’t become okay), stacked together into a single fixed phrase.
In this class, homework has to be turned in by 5:00.
We have to memorize 300 kanji.
In Real Life
The literal shape is “verb-ば-negative + ならない,” if you don’t do it, it doesn’t work out. In practice it just reads as a plain obligation, “have to,” with none of that literal if-then logic surfacing in translation.
For this to sell, it has to be environmentally friendly.
Does this report have to be written in Japanese?
In Real Life
い-adjectives swap い for くなければならない (優しくなければならない), and な-adjectives and nouns add でなければならない (便利でなければならない), following the same negative-stem pattern that なくて also builds on.
Vocabulary
| Japanese | English |
|---|---|
| to memorize | |
| to submit, turn in | |
| composition, essay | |
| to sell (well) | |
| environment | |
| kind, gentle | |
| target | |
| or below, and under | |
| to throw away | |
| to wash | |
| rice bowl | |
| to hold | |
| a person of higher status | |
| twenty years old | |
| to review | |
| vocabulary word | |
| report | |
| to present | |
| important | |
| obligation, duty |