TAKOBOTO

Japanese dictionary & Nihongo learning tool. Use it online here or download an offline app
The Japanese grammar content is from jgram.org licensed CC BY-SA 2.0.
ないことは(も)ない
naikotohanai
JLPT N2 Author: dc
Meaning
it isn't the case that 〜 not 〜; it is not that 〜 not 〜
It's not that I don't read newspapers, but very rarely do I read them.
Phrases
No man is so old but he may learn.
#4661 Author: Miki

It's not that I cannot handle chopsticks, but I do better with knives and forks.
#679 Author: bamboo4

I would not say I _don't_ eat natto, but I don't like it very much.
#755 Author: Amatuka

It's not that I don't read newspapers, but very rarely.
#6299 Author: rubyhatchet

"Isn't Japanese difficult?" "Yes, it is difficult, but I think that the difficulty of Japanese is overemphasized."
#6300 Author: rubyhatchet

"The native place of Mr Tanaka is an area where much snow use to fall so it a good occasion for skiing I guess, don't you agree?" "No, it is not that I can't, but there is a long time already that I don't go skiing..."
#6734 Author: 赤毛

Discussion and comments
The words and kanji on this web site come from the amazing dictionary files JMDict, EDICT and KANJIDIC. These files are the property of the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group , and are used in conformance with the Group's licence. The example sentences come from the projects Tatoeba and Tanaka Corpus. Kanji search by radicals is based on the Kradfile2 and Kradfile-u files containing radical decomposition of 13108 Japanese characters. Many thanks to all the people involved in those projects!