Breakdown of watasi no katei ha okanemoti de ha arimasen ga, minna genki de manzokusite imasu.
Questions & Answers about watasi no katei ha okanemoti de ha arimasen ga, minna genki de manzokusite imasu.
家庭 means the home environment or household as a unit (the “home” in a more abstract sense).
家族 means the family members (the people).
- 私の家庭はお金持ちではありません
→ “My household / home is not rich.” (Talking about the social/economic status of the home.)
If you said:
- 私の家族はお金持ちです
→ “My family is rich.” (Focusing more on the people, often implying they have money.)
In this sentence, talking about whether the home situation is rich or not sounds more natural with 家庭.
私の家庭は… is:
- 私の = “my” (possessive, using の)
- 家庭 = “home/household”
- は = topic marker
So the structure is:
- [私の家庭] は …
→ “As for my home, … / My home …”
の marks possession;
は marks the topic of the sentence.
They don’t conflict; they do different jobs. You can think of it as “My household, (speaking of that,) is not rich, but …”
お金持ち means “rich person” or “wealthy”.
- 金持ち by itself also means “rich person.”
- The お is an honorific/polite prefix, originally used to make the word sound more refined.
- In modern Japanese, お金持ち is very common and feels more neutral/polite than bare 金持ち, which can sound a little blunt.
Grammatically, お金持ち is a noun that can also function like a な-adjective:
- あの人はお金持ちです。
“That person is rich.” - お金持ちの人
“a rich person”
ではありません is the polite negative form of です for nouns and な-adjectives.
The breakdown:
- お金持ちだ = is rich (plain)
- お金持ちです = is rich (polite)
- お金持ちではありません = is not rich (polite, somewhat formal)
The で here is the 連用形 (conjunctive / te-like form) of だ, and はありません is the negative part. Together, ではありません acts as one unit meaning “is not.”
So:
- お金持ちではありません
= “(It) is not rich.”
All mean roughly “is not,” but they differ in formality and tone:
ではありません
- Polite and a bit formal.
- Common in writing, speeches, polite conversation.
じゃありません
- Polite but more conversational.
- Slightly softer than ではありません.
ではないです
- Polite, everyday spoken Japanese.
- Slightly less stiff than ではありません.
じゃないです
- Very common in spoken, casual–polite speech.
- Sounds natural in everyday conversation.
In this sentence, ではありません fits a polite, slightly formal tone.
Here, が is not a subject marker; it’s a conjunction meaning “but / although.”
- お金持ちではありませんが、みんな元気で…
→ “We are not rich, but everyone is healthy and …”
Japanese uses が this way very often to connect two clauses with a contrast, similar to English “but” or “although.”
So in this sentence:
- First clause: お金持ちではありません (We are not rich)
- Connector: が (but)
- Second clause: みんな元気で満足しています (everyone is healthy and satisfied)
In this sentence, みんな refers to all the people in the family/home (the members of 私の家庭).
- みんな = “everyone / all of us/them”
- みなさん = polite “everyone (you all)”, usually used to address a group directly.
Here, the speaker is talking about their own household, not addressing them, so:
- みんな (casual/neutral, can refer to “everyone in my family”) is natural.
- みなさん would sound like the speaker is formally talking to a group.
So:
みんな元気で… = “Everyone (in my family) is well and …”
元気 is a な-adjective (and also a noun). When you want to connect a な-adjective to what follows, you typically use で:
- 元気で、満足しています。
→ “(They are) healthy/energetic, and (they) are satisfied.”
Here:
- みんな元気で = “everyone is healthy/doing well, and …”
- Then it continues with another state: 満足しています.
So で is like a “and”/“being ~ and…” connector for な-adjectives (and nouns).
It means two separate states that both apply to the same subject:
- みんな元気で = Everyone is healthy/well, and
- (みんなが)満足しています = Everyone is satisfied.
So the overall meaning is:
- “Everyone is healthy and (everyone) is satisfied.”
The sentence doesn’t explicitly say that being healthy causes the satisfaction; it simply lists both conditions.
満足する is a verb meaning “to be satisfied.”
The form 満足している (polite: 満足しています) is:
- ている form of a verb that often expresses a current state resulting from something.
- So 満足している = “(they) are in a state of being satisfied.”
Using 満足しています:
- Emphasizes an ongoing state: “are (currently) satisfied / feel content.”
If you said 満足です, it’s grammatically possible, but:
- It sounds more like stating a simple property (“is satisfaction”) and is less natural here than the very common 満足しています for “are satisfied.”
In みんな元気で満足しています, the subject is understood from context and from the previous clause.
- The overall topic is 私の家庭 (my household).
- Inside the second clause, みんな naturally becomes the subject (“everyone [in the household]”).
In conversational Japanese, if something is clear from context, particles like は and が are often omitted:
- みんな（は）元気で、（みんなは）満足しています。
Adding は is possible (みんなは元気で…), but it’s not necessary and can sound slightly heavier. The version without は is smooth and natural.
You could drop 私, but 家庭はお金持ちではありません without any possessor can sound a bit unnatural or unclear, because 家庭 by itself is an abstract word (“home as an institution”).
More natural alternatives to avoid explicitly saying 私:
- うちはお金持ちではありませんが、みんな元気で満足しています。
(“Our place/our family isn’t rich, but …”) - 家はお金持ちではありませんが、みんな元気で満足しています。
Using うち or 家 is very common and often feels more natural than 私の家庭 in everyday speech, but 私の家庭 is perfectly correct and a bit more formal.