So much casual

Bunpro
#1

This has been bothering me for a while now, but more often than not, verb conjugations seem to require casual.
I feel, as an N4 learner, that if I’m talking to someone with that level of Japanese, I’ll probably not be close enough to them for casual speech. While it is obviously important to learn these points, there just seems to be an overwhelming disparity between required casual and required polite.

Ultimately, it’d be great to supply either casual or polite, depending on what you’re preferences are, but maybe I’m just asking too much.

It’s also entirely possible that there’s equal amounts of casual and polite, but since I’m biased to one side the other seems more prevalent.

Thoughts?

#2

I think part of the confusion is treating “plain form” as synonymous with “casual speech.” Japanese conjugations aren’t inherently polite or casual in quite that way. Plain forms are required by lots of grammar patterns even inside otherwise polite sentences.

So learning plain-form conjugations at N4 doesn’t mean you’re expected to speak casually to strangers. You still need them to construct perfectly polite Japanese; です／ます politeness is often expressed at the end of the sentence rather than on every verb within it.

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#3

Speaking is one aspect of learning Japanese, but so is reading and listening. You will encounter plain form many many times as you read and watch more Japanese content. If you only ever focus on ます you’ll end up having a harder time with comprehension.

For example in Japanese music I hear the occasional ます but plain form is far more common.

And to second what @DuckDave said, I don’t think you’re going to have trouble remembering to use ます or です in conversation. Context switching becomes quite natural the more conversations you have.

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