Es gibt tatsächlich ein Unterschied:

you're not doing it - Du willst es machen, aber ich verbiete es Dir
you aren't doing it - Du solltest es machen, aber tust es trotzdem nicht

ich empfehle "you are not" zu schreiben. Machen native speaker m.E. auch so.

Ich würde "you are not" nur sagen wenn ich es betonen will.

In Sätzen wie "you aren't/you're not the most discreet person I know", macht es kein so großer Unterschied - kommt manchmal auf den Dialekt an. Als Schotte würde ich nämlich "you're not" wählen.

Hm. Meine erste Englischlehrerin - aus England - hat uns beigebracht, diese Abkürzungen nicht zu schreiben. Ich bilde mir auch ein, das ich das bei native speakers/n eigentlich nie sehe. Gesprochen sieht das natürlich wieder anders aus.

@ Uli: Klar, am besten schreibt man keine Abkürzungen als man anfängt zu lernen, aber auch in geschriebenen Englisch verwendet man sie ganz oft. Nur in Geschäftsbriefe verzichtet man lieber darauf.

hmhm. Würde dazu gern mal einen native speaker hören.

Auch ich habe in der Schule gelernt, daß man diese Abkürzungen in formellen Texten besser nicht verwendet und auf keinen Fall in offiziellen Geschäftsbriefen. In persönlicher Korrespondenz ist es aber gang und gäbe (wird das so geschrieben???) Meine Söhne, die gerade das 1. und 3. Schuljahr in England absolviert haben, haben jedoch hart daran gearbeitet, die Abkürzungen auch schreiben zu können (wir haben viele Arbeitsblätter mit are not = aren't, cannot = can't, do not = don't etc.) bearbeitet. Also muss es zumindest im allgemeinen Schriftverkehr auch unter Muttersprachlern üblich sein, die Abkürzungen zu verwenden.

Times are changing... Ist halt schon etwas her, meine erste Englischstunde. Habe trotzdem immer noch das Gefühl, das die native speaker hier im Forum eher keine Abkürzungen schreiben. Vermutlich, weil die eher in meinem Alter sind..

I'm a native speaker, 29 years of age!

Ed, but then you 'fessed up to being Scots; so perhaps you're not regarded as "native" native ;-)

So you are much younger than I am. ;-) Ed, I have to praise your german, I did not even consider you are not german.. Damit wäre das also geklärt.

Ganz einfach: Die Abkürzungen gehören zur Umgangssprache und werden in erster Linie in der gesprochenen Sprache verwendet. Geschrieben werden sie nur dort, wo man "Umgangssprache" schreibt, also z.B. in privaten e-mails, sms, Briefen an Freunde (da ist es schon Geschmackssache)etc., auch hier im Forum ist es Geschmackssache, ob man Abkürzungen verwendet. In allen förmlichen Texten (Geschäftsbriefe, Aufsätze, Zeitungsartikel etc.) sind Abkürzungen wie "can't", "don't" etc. fehl am Platze. Ich glaube, das war schon immer so und hat sich in den letzten Jahren auch nicht geändert.

  related discussion:Swearing in English
It doesn't particularly help that my family don't really swear at all.
Would be grateful for any assistance (particularly if you're about 15-20 years younger than me - sigh - I'm feeling middle-aged all of a sudden!)
Lis GB
Lis, isn't it nice that you have a family that doesn't swear at all! ... I've come across this with a number of Germans who think saying F*** you or F***ng sounds really cool. I believe that because they're using words in a foreign language they really don't understand how bad they sound. But actually, that's no excuse.
Bahama Mama
it's a bit different if you hit your thumb with a hammer, isn't it ?
odondon irl
it's always hard to decide how rude something is
Archfarchnad -gb-
what a relief to discover I'm not the only one who had to swallow soap as a child!
Sue
I'll try and remember some more.
neilo
At home, the occasional F word might be used as we're not the sort of parents to have a fit of the vapours on hearing it. They wouldn't use it in front of an older person outside the immediate family
Anne(gb)
Swearing in a foreign language doesn't work very well, because one doesn't usually have a good sense of all the connotative meanings. It doesn't "feel" like swearing, which is precisely why one shouldn't do it.
Amy-MiMi
if your students wouldn't do those other things in public in real life, they shouldn't swear either.
hm -- us
Indeed there's a law that's in force that 'offensive language/behaviour i.e. swearing etc' is not permitted on public transport.
Ly
Lis, I'm probably at least as old as you are
Joe W
Lis - why don't you make a "Mind Your Language" project with your students? Mary (nz/A)
Not in Canada, Mary. You'd have the morality squad out! (kidding) ...
If I'm not mistaken, we do have a sort of censorship (I suppose I should know, but don't, about how formalized it is).
RES-can

Nice piece of laborious work. And I was caught being lazy - did not actually check the entries I was referring to.. ty natives! ;-)

Sometimes "natives" avoid contractions in writing because it's so damn hard to type an apostrophe. ;-)

Ich bin dankbar das ihr euch rege an meiner Frage beteiligt, aber -Umgangssprache hin oder her - das beantwortet nicht meine Frage.

Mich würde interessieret, was die anderen von Ed's erster Anwort halten:
you're not doing it - Du willst es machen, aber ich verbiete es Dir
you aren't doing it - Du solltest es machen, aber tust es trotzdem nicht

Wenn ich hier eins gelernt habe, dann dass die "Natives" nicht immer einer Meinung sind.

Ich kann das Ganze noch ein wenig komplizierter machen: M.E. kommt es nämlich auf die Betonung an.
Beispielsatz: You're not painting

Situation 1: A ist Künstler und sagt zu B, dass er zum Malen in sein Atelier geht. Später geht B dort hin und findet A aber nicht malend, sondern essend, schlafend oder lesend vor. Dann kann B ausrufen: "You're not painting, are you?!" oder aber "You aren't painting, are you?!", mit der Betonung auf "not" bzw. "aren't". Also die Feststellung "du solltest/wolltest zwar malen, tust es gerade aber doch nicht".

Situation 2: A ist Schüler und soll seine Matheaufgaben machen. Seine Mutter B kommt nun in sein Zimmer und findet A stattdessen Mit dem Pinsel in der Hand vor dem Malblock vor, da A nun einmal lieber malt als rechnet. Dann ruft sie aus: "You aren't painting, are you?!" oder "You're not painting, are you?!", jeweils mit der Betonung auf "painting". Also die Feststellung "du solltest eigentlich etwas anderes tun, stattdessen malst du aber".

Ich glaube, daß Dragon und ich haben beide recht.

Es gibt tatsächlich Fälle, wie von Dragon beschrieben, wo es ziemlich egal ist welche man wählt, denn es kommt hauptsächlich auf der Betonung an.

Es gibt aber auch Fälle, wo man eine statt die andere wählen muss, um die Bedeutung klar zu machen - zum Beispiel, um jemandem klar zu stellen, daß er etwas NICHT machen darf, was er noch nicht tut, müsste man "you're not..." sagen. Obwohl "you're" immer noch eine Abkürzung von "you are" ist, die Tatsache, daß man "are" verschweigt, ändert die Bedeutung leicht ins "you will not". In Situation 1 von Dragon sollte A eigentlich malen, also daher passt "you aren't..." auch.

Written/spoken

In formal written English contractions are not used. In informal writing (such as in forums, text messages (or should I say txt msgs?), informal emails, etc.) general conventions of written English are normally ignore these days, so that contractions are quite common. In spoken English, even in the most formal of settings, contractions are the norm, unless one wants to place particular emphasis on a particular word & thereby stress the sentence more ("We are NOT going to win the election, if we carry on like this").


As for the question of you aren't -v- you're not
 
I agree with Dragon, that it mainly depends on the way the sentence is pronounced.

I disagree that the distinction, if there is one, is as clear cut as Ed suggests- for example, it would be quite conceivable for a parent to end a discussion with "you aren't going, and that's final".

I would have said that there is no discernible difference.

I don't think there's any difference at all between "you aren't XXing" and "you're not XXing".

As a parent I would happily use either to tell my children what they are not allowed to do.

Some examples, albeit from silly sources...

"You're not getting your nose pierced, and that's that!" : "Aw, Mom, all the kids at school have nose rings." " http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/19/m...

"I need you, we need you - you aren't going and that's that." http://books.dreambook.com/bettyloulewis/main.html

(Normally, though, I'd say: You're not going to get your nose pierced, and that's that!)

And while I regularly use contractions in letters, informal emails etc, I would not use them in a formal piece of writing.

I totally agree with Richard and Archfarchnad.
Contractions should not be used in formal writing, unless a direct quote is given (where it was also used and is in quotation marks).
This is not always properly done by native speakers either.

I admire the laborious work hunting down all the NS quotes from previous threads (mine included), but the forum is like a discussion group, not a good example of formal writing.

I sort of see the difference Ed saw; that is, if you really want to emphasize a statement, or to be more serious or more formal, I think you are probably more likely to use the full word 'not,' because it's easier to stress it. But the opposite doesn't necessarily hold true; as several people noted, you *can* make a contraction more emphatic as well, just by using accent and tone of voice.

I also agree that contractions are out of place in formal writing. However, it's equally important to note that *failing* to make the expected contractions is out of place in *informal* writing, which includes all the writing we do here in the forum. If you say 'I don't agree' you sound normal and casual, but if you say 'I do not agree' you can easily come across as angry or arrogant. The more formal, stiffer choice of words almost implies that extra emphasis: 'I do NOT agree.'

Thanks to all natives for their comprehensive explanations. To avoid appearing arrogant, I will use contractions from now on. ;-) Even though my English teacher would be quite unhappy. ;-))

Uli - What struck me about your statement was that you said it was your _first_ English teacher that told you not to use contractions. Of course, I don't know your situation, but in my experience the _first_ teacher has to oversimplify a lot. For example, in the US many German teachers teach (or practice) only the formal second person - Sie, not du. The theory seems to be that the students at this level can't be expected to know anyone well enough to be per du with them, and so there is no need to confuse them.

The result of this was, when we first moved to Germany my husband would often turn to me at the cash register when he didn't have enough change and say "Haben Sie zehn cent?", which always made me feel like he was asking strangers for money.

I oversimplified too - when I said "many German teachers" I meant "many German teachers teaching absolute beginners", and I still should have qualified it better by saying "in my experience" or something, so please just read "many" to mean "more than 5", not "most" or anything crazy like that, please!

Nachfrage an Dragon :
Muß es in dem Beispiel"You aren't painting, are you?!",nicht
...,aren't you? heißen (nach meinen Englisch Lektionen, dachte ich der Verneinung müßte immer eine Verneinung auch in der Nachfrage folgen).
Wenn ja macht das einen Unterschied zur ersten Version, weil es nur eine indirekte Verneinung ist?

Nein. Mögliche Sätze sind:
You're painting, aren't you? (Du malst doch gerade, nicht wahr?)
You're not painting, are you? (bzw. You aren't painting, are you?) (Du malst doch nicht etwa, oder?)
und auch
You're painting, are you? (So, so, du malst also gerade?), wobei ich diese letzte Konstruktion nur Muttersprachlern empfehlen würde. (hat auch einen leicht drohenden Unterton)

Es geht _nicht_: You aren't painting, aren't you.

@girly-girl<us> First, I have to say that this is nearly 30 years ago, and I think, she was also somewhat old-fashioned. So this is maybe a quite old fashioned point of view, too. However, it was not like she did not teach us contractions at all, she simply told us not to use them in written English.
I believe she was a very good teacher, so here is my big "Thank you, Mrs. Withers". (A bit late, though.) Still I'm glad my first teacher was a native speaker.

The first comment written by Ed explained the difference in wording straigt to the point, all else here is pretty much just hot air discussion that pretty much leads to the same meaning as he originally stated. My suggestion is leave it at that and stick to Ed's original comment.

@ Cor - actually if you read carefully you'll see that I disagreed with Ed and provided some examples which clashed with his point of view.

Well @Archfarchnad, the difference is so extremely subtle that it very much depends on the tone or situation in which it is used and is more often than not negligable, but in some cases that which Ed has pointed out, makes the two cases different when something is implied. The only difference that I have understood is in that which is being implied.

I'm always willing to breathe some hot air to improve my English! Thanks for all your input.

you ain't

... sollte man m.E. zumindest der Vollständigkeit halber ebenfalls erwähnen

;-)