Learn Japanese: Zara wo enai ざるを得ない

ざるを得ない (zaru wo enai) expresses that even though something is undesirable you have no choice but to do it. ざるを得ない is more of a written or formal style and isn’t commonly used in informal speech. It usually correlates with the English “no choice but to”, “nothing to do but”, “can’t help but ”, and “have to”. The more common informal form is しかない. [verb BI ざるを得ない]