Hey again everyone, another question for you all.
I’ve been studying negative verbs and was stumped on when to use -ません and -ないです, since they both polite negative endings. It seems that ないです is more semi-polite. Would ません then be used for extremely formal situations, such as meeting a government official, for example? And ないです is more for if you were talking to your doctor, or a teacher?
Thanks in advance!
I wouldn’t say ません form is extremely polite, just more polite than ないです. You wouldn’t use the latter with your doctor or teacher tho. Can’t say much more on it. But the ます form is just a polite standard, speaking to strangers and people you don’t know well, as well as people above you
It may be helpful to know that ます’s whole function is to allow the speaker to express politeness so since you’re going more out of your way to do so, it would be considered more polite.
As has been said, the ます form is the standard polite form in Japanese, also known as 丁寧語 (ていねいご). です would be an ever so slightly less polite, but still polite form of speaking. From my experience, both can be used with strangers, your teacher, or even at work. It just depends on the person you’re speaking to (who they are; their personality, etc).
However, there are two other politeness 敬語 (けいご) forms in Japanese, called 尊敬語 (そんけいご/Honorific Japanese) and 謙讓語 (けんじょうご/Humble Japanese). Don’t worry about these for now. You’ll encounter them as you enter into the N4 level grammar points, but I just wanted to mention them so you can see that the ます form is simply the standard polite speech in Japanese and that there are other ways to sound even more polite.
HTH!
Completely agree. Just wanted to add that I also have seen ないです be used in relatively formal situations. At work, at school, etc. It’s gotten to the point where it almost sounds more natural to me, but that might just be my environment (i.e. a school and BOE in Japan).