Hi Athenian,

Yes! You are right, the "ne" is often dropped in speech, but you will not be marked correct in quizzes on the site.

Hope this helps.

Jim

I have never heard the "ne" dropped in "ne c'est pas". You'll often hear a dropped "est", making it sound like "ne c'pas". But never without the initial "ne".

Chris,

I think the initial query was about "ce n'est pas"    which becomes "c'est pas" in speech.

@Jim: It's not entirely clear to me from the initial question. But with both of our answers we've got all bases covered.