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Please Don’t… Posted by on May 17, 2010 in Grammar

When you want to ask someone from refraining to do something, you can use the negative short form of the verb with でください.

Here’s an example :

ここで食べないでください = Please don’t eat here.

(ここ = here. = particle. たべないでください/食べないでください = please don’t eat)

If you’re unfamiliar with the short form, maybe this page will help :

https://blogs.transparent.com/japanese/informal-forms-of-verbs/

When you leave off the ください, the request becomes less polite. Let’s compare the two sentences below :

1) 行かないでください = Please don’t go.

2) 行かないで = Don’t go.

(いかない/行かない = don’t go)

Here are some polite negative requests that might be useful to you in the future :

ここで写真を撮らないでください = Please don’t take photos here.

(ここ = here. = particle. しゃしん/写真 = photos. = particle. とらないでください/撮らないでください = please don’t take)

テレビを見ないでください = Please don’t watch tv.

(テレビ = tv. = particle. みないでください/見ないでください = please don’t watch)

ここでたばこを吸わないでください = Please don’t smoke (cigarettes) here.

(ここ = here. = particle. たばこ = cigarette. = particle. すわないでください/吸わないでください = please don’t smoke)

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Comments:

  1. Nik Edmiidz:

    If someone says「ここで写真を撮らないでください」, but you really want to take it, you might want to confirm if it’s illegal. You can just ask “Is it illegal? 「違法ですか」”
    And if they say “yes it is 「はい、そうです。違法です」”or some variation of that, then you should thank them before they call the cops. Otherwise you can ignore this request is an ambiguous convention which nobody really knows where it comes from.