Using casual form middle of polite speech

Japanese
#1

Hello,

This should be obvious but I realized I haven’t noticed an answer to this question myself so I wanted to get your opinions.

Let’s say we are talking in polite form, this example:

Terebi wo miteiru to denwa ga narimashita

As you can see, it is polite speech. However, in the middle of sentence, there is “Miteiru”, not “Miteimasu”. I think there could be hundreds of examples similar to this. Even if it is a polite sentence, if we use multiple verbs it seems we can use casual form in middle.

Ge-mu wo shitakatta noni shimasendeshita

This could be another example. This is more obvious since “shitakatta desu noni” would be weird.

Kantan desu ga mendokusai desu

There are “polite connectors” we can use in middle of sentence of course. But other than these, do we ever use polite forms of verbs in middle of sentence?

#2

You can use the polite form when the sub-sentences are basically complete sentences that could stand on their own (i.e. full clauses), or you’re directly quoting. See here: Japanese Sentence and Clause Structure

Tangential, but it might be the source of the confusion: words don’t really have a “casual form”, it’s better to think of it as “plain”, “standard”, or “dictionary” form. The sentence, as a whole, can have a casual / polite / familiar / humble tone instead. If you think about it this way, having the “dictionary form” in the middle of a polite sentence doesn’t sound that weird anymore. That’s the Japanese term too, 辞書形.

And a polite sentence is more than just a polite verb ending, it also involves word choice (金 vs. お金, する vs. やる), how you call your conversation partner etc. E.g. if you call your teacher by their given name, you can still be rude, even if your sentence is 100% fine otherwise. And of course, being overly polite can come off as distant/cold or sarcastic, which wraps around back to being rude.

5 Likes
#3

As hali-g mentioned, don’t think about the plain form as being neither polite nor impolite, as it could be either depending on the context.

Typically (key word) you’ll see the plain form being used in the middle of sentences, with the verb at the end marking the politeness level. However, sometimes you’ll also see the “polite form” (丁寧語) used in the middle of sentences, like in the last example you gave.

BTW, the plain form (a.k.a. short form) can also include other conjugations (て form, た form, ている, etc), not just the dictionary form. Think of the latter as part of the plain form.

HTH!

2 Likes