Quote:
Originally Posted by IcewindDude
I assume (like many of us) that you aren't fortunate enough to have a Japanese teacher to help you out atm. I, myself, only used books and the internet to get through learning the majority of what I learned.
I would recommend you get yourself a good book/guide that will act as a good study and reference. (I liked Japanese Step-by-Step by Gene Nishi when I began). I do recommend branching out like you are doing, if just to familiarize yourself with conjugations and such. But, you need to build your basics first.
First off, the -masu and -te have different functions in a sentence all together (they can even be used together). The -masu (-mashita, -masen, -masen-deshita) adds politeness to your verbs while the -te has a variety of purposes which actually change the meaning of the sentence.
In any case, definitely learn the -masu conjugation inside and out. Learn to conjugate to it and find the base verb from it. It will be used all the time. The -te you will probably learn first is the imperative conjugation. It is more advanced and should be learned a little later.
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I completely agree. I learned the ~masu form first, then the ~te form, then the ~ru (well, dictionary) form last.
Yuusuke put learning the ~te form in such a complicated way...to me, anyways; that's not what I learned at all even after I learned the dict form. After dropping the ~masu part, you get the stem of the verb:
Weak verbs: Verb stem+ te
Strong verbs, if it ends in:
i/chi/ri, drop and add tte
mi/bi/ni, drop and add nde
ki, drop and add ite
gi, drop and add ide
shi, simply add te
Irregular:
shite (to do)
kite (to come)
itte (to go)
atte (to have/exist (inanimate object))
That's why you should learn ~masu first. It's very useful when you want the stem of a verb to convert it to the dict form eventually, as well as other forms.