Formal/Informal and みんなの日本語 I

Bunpro
#1

Hi, I have another question about the みんなの日本語 I path. I’m on chapter 12 in my classroom and have so far reviewed up to chapter 8 on here. I’m finding it really useful as a companion to my class and thinking about subscribing when my free trial ends next week.

However, from chapter 5 onwards I’ve started getting a mix of formal and informal verbs in my reviews. I’m aware of -る and -う verbs from wanikani but haven’t properly ‘done’ them in class yet - they don’t appear in みんなの日本語 I until chapter 18. I’m aware that the Bunpro grammar order covers these much earlier. Would there be a way to filter out the informal verbs from reviews if you haven’t yet studied -る and -う verbs? Otherwise I’m having to jump quite far ahead in order to make this work for me.

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#2

To be honest, there is no way to filter out the short form at the moment.

To solve the issue, I would advise learning short form from other sources, instead of jumping many chapters ahead in the book.
https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/12
https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/26
https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/51 (less important)
https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/41 (less important)

In most cases, you will need a dictionary form and non-past negative form.
Which are fairly easy to learn.
You can also guess the short form of verbs you already know from their ます form.

You simply remove ます, and then:

if the part with ます removed ends with a syllable that ends with i, you change that to u. Now you have a perfectly fine う verb.
So. for 起きます（おきます - to wake up） -remove ます-> 行き - ki to ku -> 行く

働きます (はたらきます - to work) -> 働き -> 働く

休みます (やすみます - to take a rest, take a holiday) -> やすみ -> 休む

終わります (おわります - to finish) -> 終わり -> 終わる

貸します (かします - to lend) -> 貸し -> 貸す (う verbs ending with す tend to have only 1 kanji, as opposed to する verbs, but remember this is

EXCEPTION:
来ます (きます - to come) -> くる
(there are only two irregular verbs you have to learn, する and くる)

if the word doesn’t have syllable ending with i after removing ます then it is
る verb (いちだん, ichidan verb), then after removing the ます you simply add る
食べます -remove ます->食べ-add る->食べる

IRREGULAR

if the word is made from word of Chinese origin (in most cases made of 2 kanji, many exceptions here, but should be enough for a while) or English loanword with suffix します, you change します to する
勉強（べんきょう）します -> 勉強する
コピーします (to copy) -> コピーする

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#3

What a patronising reply. In what way is learning from other sources not equivalent to jumping ahead in my textbook? I’m presuming you’re bunpro staff by your icon so it looks like I won’t be subscribing after all, since the website can’t actually do what it claims to do ie allow me to practice alongside my textbook.

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#4

As another source, I meant of course lessons on Bunpro which I linked.

The difference is that when you jump a few lessons in a textbook the grammar points from lessons you have skipped might appear and make it harder to understand. That is why I suggested those Bunpro lessons instead.

Also, answers both in polite form and short form are accepted.

I am awfully sorry if my answer was patronizing or rude in any way, my only intention was to help to the utmost of my ability. :bowing_man:

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