Help with the "ない" in "たまには自分を解放してあげないとね"


> たまには自分を解放してあげないとね

My Japanese is pretty poor and I have trouble with dividing sentences into
parts.

So I've seen a translation for the above sentence that goes like "you should
let yourself relax once in a while" and my question is: since it has a ない in
it, shouldn't it be a negative sentence? As in "you should _not_ let yourself
relax".

Or am I looking at this sentence the wrong way? If that's the case, what is
the correct way to do it?




> たまには自分を解放してあげない **と** ね

You are correct that ない makes this negative, but the translation you have seen
is still a reasonable one. The key to understanding how, is the と that comes
afterwards.

This と is a conditional, but the rest of the sentence is unspoken. You have to
fill in the implication for yourself. " **If** you **don't** let yourself
relax once in a while ...".

Examples conclusions would be "you'll get overly stressed", "you'll become
unbearable", etc. Basically, whatever you want that fits the context. In
Japanese, leaving sentences hanging like this is really common, but you can
imagine that even in English you wouldn't necessarily finish this sentence.




> たまには自分を解放してあげない **と** ね

You are correct that ない makes this negative, but the translation you have seen
is still a reasonable one. The key to understanding how, is the と that comes
afterwards.

This と is a conditional, but the rest of the sentence is unspoken. You have to
fill in the implication for yourself. " **If** you **don't** let yourself
relax once in a while ...".

Examples conclusions would be "you'll get overly stressed", "you'll become
unbearable", etc. Basically, whatever you want that fits the context. In
Japanese, leaving sentences hanging like this is really common, but you can
imagine that even in English you wouldn't necessarily finish this sentence.

