っこないno way; never going to
A casual, emphatic "no way": you are sure something can't be done or won't happen. You say it to friends and family.
There's no way I can do a problem like that.
There's no way we can beat that team.
How to form it
Verb ます-stem + っこない
できます → できっこない, 分かります → 分かりっこない, 勝てます → 勝てっこない. Mostly on できる, 分かる and potential ("can") forms, or on a verb for how things turn out: 間に合う, 終わる, 受かる.
- Said to
- Friends and family. To a teacher, a boss or a customer it is too blunt; there you say できそうにありません.
- Tone
- Emphatic. Often giving up before you start, or brushing an idea off.
- Where you'll meet it
- Conversation, and the dialogue in manga, dramas and novels. Not in formal writing.
In use
Even if we leave now, there's no way we'll make the last train.
Beginners will never understand it from that explanation alone.
There's no way I could pay that much money.
It can sting, or reassure
There's no way my little brother will get into that university.
About what someone else can do, it can be a put-down.
After studying that much, there's no way you'll fail.
About what someone is afraid of, it cheers them up.
Close neighbours
とても～ないN3
"Can't possibly". Neutral, so it works in polite talk and in writing too. とても goes before a negative that means "can't".
Even if we start running now, we can't possibly make the last train.
The negative of the "looks like" そうだ: "doesn't look like it will". A judgment from how things look now, not a flat "impossible", so it softens a no.
The train is more than an hour late, so it doesn't look like I'll make the meeting.
わけがないN3
Much the same "no way", less casual. It can also deny what something is or was; っこない goes only on a verb.
It's this cheap, so there's no way it's the real thing.
はずがないN4
The same kind of denial, from what you know: "it can't be".
Tomorrow is the shop's regular day off, so it can't be open.
Check yourself
1Your teacher asks whether you can hand in the report tomorrow. Which do you say?
Choose an answer to see why.
2Which one is right?
Choose an answer to see why.
More sentences
In this rain, there's no way we can play a match outdoors.
With traffic like this, there's no way we'll make the meeting.
Even if we start now, there's no way it will be finished today.
No one is going to believe a rumor like that.