In the last lesson, I was talking about sentences like this:

5時間しか寝てない。
ごじかん　しか　ねてない。
I only slept five hours.
Literally: "five hours + しか + have not slept."

...and it got me thinking.

Particularly, I find it curious how this sentence could have been translated as:

I've only slept five hours.

Literally, it's saying something like:

Except for five hours, I haven't slept.

In other words, in English it could be expressed in present perfect continuous tense. (←Gross!)

All of the perfect tenses in English are more or less a nightmare for Japanese people.

The reason is that Japanese has pretty simple tenses.

Consider this:

A:
昨日飲みに行ったんだ。
きのう　のみにいった　んだ。
I went out (drinking) last night.
Literally: "yesterday + went drinking + んだ."

B:
えーっ、行きたかった！
えーっ、 いきたかった！
What?! I would've liked to go!
Literally: "what?! + wanted to go!"
Note: This small っ just indicates that the sound of えー cuts off sharply. It's hard to convey in writing. On another note, a more natural translation of this sentence would be: "What?! Thanks for inviting me! // What?! Why didn't you invite me?!"

Take a look at that literal translation of B.

Complicated English: I would have liked to go!
Simple Japanese: Wanted to go!

Similarly--and this is what we saw yesterday--present perfect progressive can be expressed just as present progressive.

In English terms that means:

If you wanted to say: I have not eaten

Then you could say: I am not eating.

Examples, of course...

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Wait! Not so fast.

First, we have boring prep stuff. Feel free to skip this if you already know how to conjugate verbs.

Say we take a verb like: 寝る（ねる // to sleep）.

If you want to put that into present progressive tense, you first need to know how to put it into te-form.

Explaining verb conjugations makes me hate life, so you should probably just google it. In the case of 寝る, it's...

寝る（ねる// to sleep）←Dictionary Form
寝て（ねて// sleep）←Te-Form
寝ている（ねている// am sleeping）←Present Progressive Form
寝ていない（ねていない// is not sleeping）←Negative Present Progressive Form

In casual Japanese, we'll drop the い off the auxiliary verb:

寝ている → 寝てる
寝ていない → 寝てない

That last one is the verb form we're using today.

What we're looking at now, the negative present progressive form, is the same as the negative present perfect continuous form.

The what is the same as the what?

*_*

Sorry. Simplified once again, that's:

If you wanted to say: I have not eaten.
Then you could say: I am not eating.

For example, these two sentences are the same, but their translation differs based on context:

食べてない（たべてない // I am not eating. / She is not eating.）
食べてない（たべてない // I have not eaten. / She has not eaten.）

Wow, that was rough. Let's keep moving...

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A:
お腹すいた？
おなか　すいた？
Are you hungry?
Literally: "stomach + got empty?"

B:
まだすいてない。
まだ　すいてない。
Not yet, no.
Literally: "not yet + has not gotten empty."
Super-Literally: "not yet + is not being empty."

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A:
チリの地震のニュース見た？
チリ　の　じしん　の　ニュース　みた？
Did you see the news about the earthquake in Chile?
Literally: "Chile + の + earthquake + の + news + saw?"

B:
見てない。
みてない。
No, I haven't.
Literally: "haven't seen."
Super-Literally: "am not seeing."

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A:
５時集合って言ったじゃん！
ごじ　しゅうごう　って　いった　じゃん！
I told you we were meeting at five!
Literally: "five o'clock + gathering + って + said + じゃん (didn't I?)！"

B:
そんなの聞いてないよ！
そんな　の　きいてない　よ！
This is my first time hearing about it!
Literally: "that kind of thing + have not heard + よ！"
Super-Literally: "that kind of thing + am not hearing + よ！"

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A:
ニコ見た？
ニコ　みた？
Have you seen Niko?
Literally: "Niko + saw?"

B:
見てないよ。どうした？
みてない　よ。　どうした？
No, I haven't. What's the matter?
Literally: "have not seen + よ. + what's the matter?"
Super-Literally: "am not seeing + よ. + how + did?"

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A:
仕事終わった？
しごと　おわった？
Are you done with work?
Literally: "work + finished?"

B:
終わってない。あともうちょっと。
おわってない。 あと　もうちょっと。
Not yet. I still have a little bit left to do.
Literally: "has not finished. + after + a little bit more."
Super-Literally: "is not being finished. + after + already + a little."

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Hope I didn't confuse you too much.

If you still have the energy to explore tenses even more, I recommend checking out this article on my site: Choosing the Right Verb Tenses in Japanese.