Hello everyone,
I’m not sure where to post this question… I hope someone can explain this grammar pattern to me 
It’s asking me for the standard (not formal) progressive form:
Why does it use “います” and not “いる”
Oh and maybe someone can explain to me why “あそぶ” changes into “あそん” and “て” to “で”
Thank you all and have a nice day 
To be honest, I haven’t really paid attention to what standard means when it’s a prompt for reviews, I usually just opt for short form responses and then if the only thing was wrong was that it wanted long form I usually just backspace and give it to myself.
For the conjugation though, I can help: the て form of a verb is determined by its dictionary form. In this case verbs that end in ぶ will turn into んで for the て form.
Here is an article from tofugu that explains the て form and provides its conjugations
I would assume standard means dictionary form (e.g. 食べる) whereas 〜ます would be “polite” but I haven’t paid enough attention during reviews to say.
For the て form, it conjugates (technically not a conjugation I think, but that’s semantic) a bit differently depending on how the verb ends.
For る verbs like 食べる you just replace the る with て. For う verbs:
those ending in う/つ/る replace the last kana with って;
those ending in ぶ/む/ぬ replace the last kana with んで;
and lastly, replace く with いで and ぐ with いで.
It works the same with past tense btw, just substitute て/って/んで/いて/いで with た/った/んだ/いた/いだ respectively 
The lesson before ている is for the て-form, haven’t you done that one yet? You should probably do the lessons in the right order. 
Hey everyone, just popping in to hopefully shed a little light on the subject of this thread as the person who personally worked on all the tense hints.
The objective of the tense hints are to point learners towards the conjugation the question is looking for. Just as @Rukishou mentioned, ‘Standard’ is used when the answer being looked for should be in plain form, (such as 食べる or 買う), while ‘Polite’ is used when the answer is using the -ます or -です form. These hints only specifically point to how the response ends.
So using the sentence mentioned in this thread, the tense hints are ‘Progressive, Standard’. ‘Progressive’ points towards the answer being in the progressive tense (～ている・～でいる), and ‘Standard’ points the specific answer being looked for using the plain ender (る・う・etc).
That being said, the tense hints point towards the specific answer being looked for, but it’s not necessarily the only right answer. As with this example, we’ve set it up so that any learners would ideally answer with あそんでいる. However being that あそんでいます and あそんでる are not ‘wrong’, they’re currently also accepted as answers. This is something that may or may not change in the future, but for now we don’t see a need to be overly strict with this and other particular grammar points.
If you have any other questions about tense hints or whatnot, feel free to tag me anytime and I’ll pop by and (hopefully) shed some extra light on the subject. 
@Brightly As some other very helpful users have also pointed out, the reason あそぶ becomes あそんで and then あそんでいる is because when we create the progressive form of a verb, we change the verb to its て form (in this case verbs like あそぶ and とぶ that end in ぶ drop the ぶ and add んで) and then add いる. Although in casual speech and writing you might see the い dropped, resulting in things like あそんでる instead.
As @Keaka has already explained thoroughly, the question is expecting いる, but since います is also ‘not wrong’, it also accepts it.
The ‘secret’ to your confusion on this question is those little dots (three of them in this case) below your answer:
○●○
This is Bunpro’s little indicator that you are looking at the second of three possible acceptable answers (the second circle is filled in). The first would be indicated by ●○○ and the third by ○○●.
To view alternative answers when you see these circles, you can press A on the keyboard to see the next answer, or Shift-A to see the previous one. I think you can also click on the individual little circles to show a particular one, if you’re not using a keyboard.
So, it’s simply a case of you entering one of the correct answers, but not the ‘main’ answer, and so it doesn’t mark it wrong, and also doesn’t automatically switch to the ‘main’ answer, even though it might fit the clue “Progressive, Standard” better.
I just got used to tapping ‘A’ on my keyboard after answering to see what the other options are.
What about stuff like :
なくてはいけない
なくてはならない
なければいけない
and so on… I really struggle with hints on these grammar points and confuse them
The answer to why 遊ぶ changes to 遊んで is the て Form Conjugation, verbs with different endings get conjugated differently in て form.
うつる → って
ぶむぬ → んで
く → いて
ぐ → いで
etc…
There’s a song to memorize this.
(66) Your New Favorite TE FORM Song | て形の歌 - YouTube
Thanks you all so much for explaining (and the funny song 
) 
Now I know which problem to tackle first! (I read the て-form lesson but didnt notice that I didn’t understand it properly… sry!)
All the tipps (how the reviews are build up) are quite usefull and will surely become handy from here on out!
I hope you all have a nice day
This is a good question, and one we get somewhat often. The simplest and largest difference between the three is that the ならない version is considered more formal than the いけない versions. In the tense hints we’ve tried to show this by adding the hint ‘Literary’, which implies something more common in writing or formal situations.
The differences between the two いけない versions however are much more subtle and basically also boil down to formality. However the difference in formality here is much more minor than that of ならない and いけない.
Anecdotally speaking, which means I could very well be mistaken, the two いけない variants can be used almost completely interchangeably. I’ve asked quite a few native speakers about the difference and no one was able to pinpoint an exact nuance or feeling difference between the two. Just that なければいけない feels -slightly- stronger in nuance in general.
Because of this, we recognize it can be difficult to tell which of the two a specific question is looking for at the moment, and it’s something we’ve been looking into to see if there’s a way we can make it clearer without giving away the answer outright. For the time being, questions involving the two should have the other listed as an alternate answer that prompts a hint rather than being marked incorrect outright. I’ll go in and double check just to make sure as well.
Here’s a post that covers the difference between なくては~ and なければ~ なくてはいけない vs なければいけない
As for the differences between ~いけない and ~ならない this is what I’ve learned (although, I don’t believe bunpro hints at this at all so I’m not sure it’ll help in reviews):
いけない - subjective (you feel the need to do something due to personal reasons)
ならない - objective (you feel the need because that’s what’s expected)
I learned this a long time ago from Japanese Ammo
For example:
試験に合格しなければいけない - I need to pass the exam (subjective - the speaker feels the need for personal reasons)
試験に合格しなければならない - I must pass the exam (objective - the speaker feels the need due to them feeling that’s what expected of them due to laws, social norms, etc. (they need to fulfill their obligations)).
Here’s some example sentences from youtube where I’ve seen this to be true.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShjV3TaqeXw 2:48 - 3:07
「…しかもこれ ２時間放置しないといけないんだよね？２時間放置して４日間地キープ出来る。さあ それを皆さんは どう思いますか？手間とか時間とねその4日間は楽できるけど２時間そのまま つまり佐川急便やヤマトが来た場合このまま出なくてはならない…」
I think this is a really good example, because I think it really shows how いけない is likely to be used over ならない in situations where you might expect ならない to be used. You’ll notice the first time, Risa uses ~いけない in a situation where it seems like it’d make sense to use ならない. She’s doing her eyebrows, and is talking about how you need to leave it there for 2 hours - which I would assume is a “rule” otherwise it won’t turn out well. But, that isn’t how she feels so she uses いけない instead because this is more “subjective” and she feels like she needs to leave it there for 2 hours otherwise (it may not turn out as good). Then, later on she says 出なくてはならない implying that this is something she must do (despite not wanting to). The context here is that if say Sagawa Express or Yamato Transport (parcel delivery company) ends up coming, she’ll have to go (to the door) because that’s what’s expected (she most likely does not want to go to the door, but has to because she’s expected to answer the door). However, she could still express this with ~いけない, but the nuance will change to her subjectively feeling like she has to go to the door now.
Another example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CEukakNrB4&t=182s 3:00 - 3:08
「電子顕微鏡でものを見るためには顕微鏡の中を真空の状態にしなければならないんです」
Here the speaker uses ならない because he wants to get across that you must (objective) create a vacuum in order to see using an electron microscope.
Hopefully that helps!
Thanks, it’s very helpful i will certainly look closely into that.
What was confusing me even more is there is also ないと who is slightly different but which is apparently only used with いけない
“Must” in japanese is something that looks very complex
Thank you, @Keaka , @josh , @NicolasCoutinho for your tips. They were very helpful. And thanks to @Eodis for bringing up ikenai, naranai, etc. I had been puzzled too.
I’ve been making a lot of mistakes on the reviews and often it was the て form I got wrong, not the grammar. Apart from memorizing the rules, is there anywhere online or paper form where I can practice conjugating て form (also negative form) of the verbs (just reviewing that and nothing else)? Also is there a complete list of all the exception Ru-form verbs that conjugate as u-form? I’d seen somewhere that there was a book listing all the Japanese verbs but I can’t remember what it is, where it’s mentioned or whether it would even be helpful. Any tips welcome!
One way you could study the て form of verbs would be using our cram feature. On the browser version this will be under the Practice menu at the top of your screen, and in the apps it should be visible in the dashboard menu. From there you can select the grammar you’d like to cram, the て form of verbs being N5 Lesson 5: 9/12. The て form of negatives, なくて, can be practiced with N4 Lesson 1: 12/18. Then in the cram menu it will ask you how many questions you’d like to practice with per grammar point, so feel free to just do a bit at a time, or crank it up and go wild with it! Then just hit the Cram button and you’re off to the races!
Kind of in line with this thread the inconsistency with how Bunpro accepts/declines answers has been puzzling to me sometimes. There are some times where, for example, you will write 遊んでいます and it will refuse the submission and give you a little “Check the tense, silly! =)” message allowing you to correct it to 遊んでいる. There are other times where it will just tell you it was wrong without any prompt/warning whatsoever. I have no proof, but I’m fairly certain I’ve experienced this functionality with different sentences belonging to the same grammar point as well.
There’s a couple of sites that let you practice conjugating verbs.
Don’s Japanese Conjugation Drill (wkdonc.github.io)
Random Verb Conjugation Practice | Steven Kraft (steven-kraft.com)
Japanese Verb Classification Flowchart
To help me learn how to distinguish verb types, I’ve been working on the flow chart above. To my knowledge, it’s complete in the sense that it will help you distinguish any Ichidan verb from any Godan verb (but feedback to the contrary is greatly appreciated).
Thanks, @NicolasCoutinho
I’ve tried both for te-form and it was great practice. I tried steven-kraft again just now for Negative and Casual forms and I was getting weird errors… Turns out I have to go back to the main page and select which topic I want to practice on.
Thanks, @keaka. I knew there was a cram session but hadn’t looked into using it until you mentioned it. Cramming just 1 lesson (or 2 if they were related grammar points) is the best way for me to practice the lessons I’m having difficulty remembering.
During my cram session for ikenai and naranai, I was still seeing inconsistent results when it’s looking for ‘Standard’ - usually ikenai is correct but sometimes it’s looking for naranai. I’m not sure what it is exactly and it’s no big deal as I just switch from one to the other until I get a correct answer… unless you think it is a big deal.
