Japanese Revelations {Contractions}

Sorry it's been such a long time since I've posted! I've been really busy OTL

Anyways, I'm sure everyone that's tried to read manga intended for younger kids has come across a sentence or two that look like this:

バイトで遅くなっちゃった！（©ポンチョ、ページ73）

Or what about this?

読んじゃいけない・・・

These are the worst:

食べなきゃいきなくて ！

I don't know about you, but these sentences kill me. ESPECIALLY that last one. I just can't make heads or tails of them - I knew they were contractions, but I couldn't figure out what the original should be.
Not anymore! I found a handy little tumblr post, and I'm sharing it with you!
You can either go here, or just read the rest of this post.
So. The first sentence has a random ちゃった at the end. I could tell it was past tense, but I had no idea whether it was saying 'I was late because of work' or 'I wasn't late because of work'. Well, actually, I could tell from the context, but can you really tell when it's just this lonely little sentence? No! Of course not!
Unless you know that ちゃ is truly just て in disguise, with a little girly flair. It also, in my opinion, is easier to say - なっちゃった is much easier to say quickly than なってた, since there aren't a bunch of t's flying around everywhere. It can also serve as a contraction of ては when telling someone whether or not to do something. Like from the aforementioned tumblr post:
食べなくてはいけません＝食べなくちゃいけません
(Both mean must eat, but it's a double negative, so it's literally translated as Must not not eat. Confusing, I know, but you'll get used to it!)

Next up is じゃ. It's just like ちゃ, but it's the contraction for the te-form of verbs that end with で instead of て. Such as 読んで, which is where we take a look at the second example from before...

読んじゃいけない＝読んではいけない
(Both mean must not read. This one isn't a double negative, as 読んで is the positive te-form, of course.)

Finally, きゃ.
This little mofo is a contraction of a contraction! Honestly, Japan, that just isn't fair!
Here's the deal for this one:

きゃ→くちゃ→くて（は）

Does it make sense? Yes.
Is it really necessary? Probably not, but I guess we're always looking to contract things even further, so I can't blame the Japanese, I guess...
When it's not after a verb, the くて（は） looks a little strange, so let's add it to the right ending for 食べる.

食べなくて

Better? That's right, くて（は） is the te-form of the negative form of a verb. Apparently, Japanese wasn't already confusing enough for us foreigners, huh? Anyways, let's put this contraction to use:

食べなきゃ＝食べなくちゃ＝食べなくて（は）

Again, the は is only if you're gonna add いけます or いけません to the end to tell someone to do something or not to do something.

Whew! Ok, here's the obligatory TL;DR -
ちゃ＝て（は）
じゃ＝で（は）
きゃ＝くちゃ＝くて（は）

Until next time! \(^o^)/