Why is で necessary in the following sentence?


I used Google Translate to say "I'm not Korean."

I expected something like:

> 私は韓国人はない

However, I got this:

> 私は韓国人ではない

Why is the で used in this situation?




'to be (a thing)' is a bit of an odd complex verb thing, involving both で and
ある. Your first sentence, lacking で, simply means 'I have no (inanimate)
Koreans'. The negative is, a bit unusually, ではない in most cases rather than
just でない, but the で cannot be omitted - it's part of the verb である(～だ), and
without it, all you have is ある (which is only 'for an inanimate thing to exist
or be located').




If you mean you expected "I'm not Korean." to be written 私は韓国人はない, then it
seems you forgot that it's not は, but じゃ.

> 私は韓国人じゃない。

There are several ways of writing this simple negative statement, of varying
degrees of politeness/formality.

じゃない。  
じゃありません。  
ではない。  
ではありません。

Someone with a better grasp of grammar can probably tell you what function で
plays in this construction...

Actually I found a previous Q&A that applies and goes into slightly more
detail in the link below:

[What does では mean in this
sentence?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/45020/what-
does-%E3%81%A7%E3%81%AF-mean-in-this-sentence)

