It can't be helped — a verbal shrug at things outside your control.
Used for weather, delays, bad luck, and anything already decided. It is acceptance rather than defeat, and it appears constantly in Japanese conversation. 仕方がない (shikata ga nai) is the slightly more formal twin.
From 仕様がない — literally "there is no method."
Reading a definition isn't the same as saying it to someone. Lingo Kaiava is a voice tutor set to Japanese — it uses しょうがない the way locals do, corrects you in the moment, and never "fixes" the way real people actually talk into textbook Japanese.
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