Negation with ではありません vs. じゃない


I tried to say "I'm not a high school student". But I read you can use じゃない to
'deny' something. In this case which one should I use? ではありません or じゃない?

私{わたし}はこうこうの学生{がくせい}ではありません。or 私{わたし}はこうこうの学生{がくせい}じゃないです。?




First of all, you would use で **は** , not で **わ**. It's the particle `は`, the
same one as `私は` at the beginning of your sentence.

Second, you have many options here. `じゃ` is just a contraction of `では`, and
`ない` is just the informal form of `ありません`. So you have four choices that are
all correct.

>   * じゃない → most informal
>   * ではない
>   * じゃありません
>   * ではありません → most formal
>

So it really depends on the context, who you're speaking to, and how formal
you want to be. Whether or not you want to say `では・じゃないです` instead of just
`では・じゃない` is another issue, but you may want to [look at this
topic](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/2574/78) regarding that.




First of all, you would use で **は** , not で **わ**. It's the particle `は`, the
same one as `私は` at the beginning of your sentence.

Second, you have many options here. `じゃ` is just a contraction of `では`, and
`ない` is just the informal form of `ありません`. So you have four choices that are
all correct.

>   * じゃない → most informal
>   * ではない
>   * じゃありません
>   * ではありません → most formal
>

So it really depends on the context, who you're speaking to, and how formal
you want to be. Whether or not you want to say `では・じゃないです` instead of just
`では・じゃない` is another issue, but you may want to [look at this
topic](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/2574/78) regarding that.

