Hi, I hope that this video helps to clarify what 'masu' is and what it does. I don't have access to my actual microphone at the moment, hence the worse voice quality, so I apologise for that. To clarify, there are definite differences between Japanese spoken in formal settings, and normal everyday language. However, what I wanted to achieve with this video, is to explain how the conjugation differences between 'masu' and 'plain form' Japanese really doesn't make up two separate systems of conjugation. Masu is just an auxiliary verb that makes a Japanese verb more formal/polite. I.e., 食べます (tabemasu) is the more formal/polite version of 食べる (taberu).
Thank you so much for this video! I love the fact that more people are understanding ます forms not as conjugations, but as auxiliary verbs added onto verb stems. It helps making Japanese grammar much more understandable and regular
@@gustavovillegas5909 thank you for the kind comment! I really struggled with Japanese, until I began to try and find out the Japanese logic behind their own language and it all suddenly began to click more easily :)
@@tonythesopranos5310i feel depressed that ppl are actually getting the etymologies and nature of jp finally on yt... It feels like I haven't gone far at all though I know the basic fundamentals people don't usually know...
@@railvolt thank you :) it's only 13 minutes long, but you'd be amazed at how even simple editing like this takes, probably took a good few hours to make. I'm looking forward to making more though!
What the hell!? 😂 I accidentally stumbled upon this gem; I wanted to find some more only to find it's one of the few ever made.😢 Good job, really interesting dive in the grammar ❤ Will wait for some new uploads
Great video! At 4:24, I will say that the main function of the auxiliary verb "to do" in this sentence isn't to express the past tense, but acts as an intensifier to the verb "to go." English has a past tense conjugation of "to go," which is "went" so it wouldn't need an auxiliary verb to express the past. However, since English does not have a future tense conjugation, it DOES require the modal auxiliary verb "will" to express the future
Ooh, I didn't know that. That's very interesting thank you. As English is my native language, it never occurred to me that English doesn't have a future tense conjugation. I just had a quick look at your channel, the production quality is insane. I've subscribed :)
That rote versus conceptual memorization is literally why I suck at math. It's all gibberish to me. Always has been. I need there to be meaning behind things to understand them. it's all abstract. Also this is the first video I've seen from you but I'm subscribing. Very well done, clear, nice to look at, helpful, and informative. I would love to see more etymology videos.
@@GustafUNL I've always been terrible with maths, I just can't conceptualise many of its rules. I always find it quite dull 😅. Thank you for your kind words.
As someone with terrible memory, I can't relate. I have a good understanding of math, so I am decent at it and find it fun, but the moment large amounts of memorisation is required, I get a headache lol
rote memorization has never worked for me, I need to know the WHY for stuff, so I'm so glad this graced my recommended. Where can I find more Japanese linguistic history content? I want to be BUREID IN IT!!!
@@mayanightstar thank you for your comment. A History of the Japanese Language by Bjarke Frellesvig is a great book. However, it is very detailed, and without a background in linguistics, some of it just flies over my head. Honestly though, I'd just read through the Japanese language Wikipedia page. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language. Wikipedia gets a bad wrap sometimes, but honestly, for some topics it's great. I think it does a great job of explaining the development in terms that non-linguists such as myself can understand. Unfortunately though, a lot of this stuff just hasn't been translated, or isn't codified in one place for an English reading audience. I only know about these little language tidbits from just studying the language over the years and finding the information here and there. I hope that helps! And I totally agree, if you can't explain how something works to someone else, you don't really understand it in my opinion. Without conceptual knowledge you're just a very humanoid parrot repeating information 🦜
Your language lessons about Japanese are great! they explain like a lot of things and reveal things, which are like very hard to discover, because they either hidden in very depths of internet, or textbooks, dictionaries and other resources instead of normally explaining things give false information, like translating one kanji or particle with multiple english translations, all of them mean different things and contradict each other, and at the same time they do not even match the actual japanese meaning of kanji/particle, lol. and you telling things, which I would discover like only after years of studying japanese. I would like it if you will make more of these videos. for example i interested in how 本 end up being at the same time morpheme to indicate idea of root, something from which something grows, book and classifier for cylinder-shaped things(and not only them, but for example as i know computer softwares). These things are so unrelated, i am interested in hearing the story of how 本 end up convey all of these things. or maybe I would like to hear more about common Japanese pronouns like boku, watashi, ore and maybe others. Yes, maybe on the internet there are already many videos already about these pronouns, but I think you would just explain it better. or i would like to hear more about morphemes like san, sama and お. Or maybe about particles like で, に and を. or maybe i would like hear explanation and linguistic history of 気. This is not like very necessary for you to make all these videos about all these suggested topics, I understand that you can have like different things in life, and you maybe not always have time for videos, but I would be happy if you make a video about some of these topics or I hope at least provided good ideas for new videos. and yeah I have one question. I think 気 means something like energy, but not like in sense of physics, but more as a resource, which you spent to do things, and if you don't have energy(気), you can't do things and feel all exhausted and tired and meeeehhh. How accurate is my understanding? and can be 気 viewed as karma from Naruto? I think they are quite similar. is this would be correct to explain 気 as karma from Naruto?
@@r-duppcreatstah8815 thank you very much for your long comment, it's very appreciated. Those are some great ideas, I've written them down :) I've never watched Naruto, but to my understand 気 is just a borrowing from Chinese. 気 is read as Chi I believe in modern Mandarin, and like you say, it's about one's own person vitality, energy spirit etc. Rather than a literal resource like coal or fuel. I looked up Karma because I'm no expert on Hinduism/Buddhism/Indian theology. 'Derived from the Sanskrit word karman, meaning 'act'. If Chi means something like 'life force' and Karma means an 'act', I'd guess they're different. But again, I've not seen Naruto so I'm not sure. I wanted to do a video on Chinese language influences on Japanese, so Japan's adoption of the Chinese term 気 would be a great video to do. Thank you again for your comment.
@@tonythesopranos5310 Wait..... i'm stupid. I had no clue how chakra spelled in english, and i called chakra from Naruto karma, and i haven't noticed this until now, lol. well i often do stupid mistakes like that even in my native language lol Well in any case, thanks for your answer and you are welcome;3 wish you all best and keep up in doing great videos!!!!!!
@@r-duppcreatstah8815 thank you! That's very kind :) I don't want to hurt your feelings at all, but I would be doing you a disservice if I wasn't honest. I can understand everything that you're saying, but sometimes some of the grammar/word choices are a bit different from what I would use personally. But it's great that you're practicing. It takes a lot of courage to make mistakes and learn by using a different language. Keep up the studying and I'm sure you'll be great.
Interesting history, but I don’t fully agree with the argument that understanding automatically makes you remember language better… I speak Russian and we also have a polite form and a casual form of words, similar to Japanese. For example: Принеси платок - prinyesi platok - casual form Принесите платок - prinyesitye platok - polite form (it means, bring me headscarf) I just think of it like you’re sticking a modifying particle onto the end of the verb to make it polite. You stick other “particles”/suffixes on to do other things as well, like conjugate into imperative form or whatever.
'I just think of it like you’re sticking a modifying particle onto the end of the verb to make it polite' - Is this just not another way of understanding the language though, no?
@@tonythesopranos5310 yes… it is more of an analysis on how the language works, but I didn’t learn it because of this observation, the observation came as I learned it 😅 I also didn’t study much of English grammar, I just acquired it through immersion. But maybe part of my problem with grammar books is that I was forced to use them in school and it didn’t make sense because I was dumb as a kid, haha. So, maybe if you’re a highly intelligent and analytically-minded person, studying grammar rules would make sense, be enjoyable, and helpful in learning the language. But for most people, it would tend to be confusing and unnecessary after a certain point (of learning the basic structure of the language).
@@soleursuelos3616 Hi, sorry I am not sure that I fully understand the question. You take する, put it into its 連用形 (renyoukei) form which is し and put ます at the end. So you're just sticking ます onto the 連用形 form. する is one of the very few verbs in Japanese where the sound change is 'inconsistent'. If する followed the Ichidan verb rules exactly it should be すます. If it followed the Godan verb rules exactly it would be しります. However, there's an exceedingly small amount of verbs in Japanese that are a bit 'inconsistent' like するand くる. So to clarify, する turning into します is consistent with ます being added to the 連用形 form, but, for whatever reason, する turns into a し sound in its 連用形 form. There could be a linguistic reason for this that I don't know about, or it could just have been a random historical development.
I noticed how you didn't quite understand the use of the small tsu (っ) so I wanted to clarify if you didn't already know. You need to know that when this small tsu comes before an S or Sh sound, it lengthens the sound. Like in ma_suru (まっする) because an s sound comes after the small tsu, unlike all other stop consonants which pause, sounds like s and sh after it lengthen instead. So instead of ma_suru it's more like massuru. I'm not sure if the same thing happens to other fricatives like H/F but I'll find out soon or later.
I am not sure that I agree sorry. This is one of the sources I used, see how it is written as : まっする (www.nihongo-books.com/desu-masu/masu/), and that is how I have written it at 9:18 in the video. I am not quite sure what you are trying to tell me? (That isn't meant to sound passive-aggressive). I have studied Japanese for a few years now, I very much understand how っ works. Again, I don't want to sound defensive. I just don't really understand what you are trying to teach me.
@@tonythesopranos5310 he’s talking about you stopping after ま in まっする, when because of S sound being not a stop fricative, you say it as massuru(long s), not ma…suru. Not sure whether it’s intentional, but it feels like っす should be read as ssu. Correct me if im wrong, please.
I agree, the pronunciation in the video is not very consistent throughout. "まっする" should be pronounced "mas_suru" not "ma_suru". You should pause AT the doubled consonant, not before to double it. "いった" for example sounds like "it_ta/ itta", not "i_ta" or "ita". Perhaps the author represents an old or non-standard pronunciation? Hmmm I would explain "っ" as follows: "いった" being the example say "it" but instead of releasing hold it in the t position not making the t sound actually, then release it saying "ta".
His pronunciation is not very good at any point in the video, and sounds like the Japanese of someone who has not had much opportunity to speak to native speakers and practice with them, but the content itself is very good, so how about forgiving him the pronunciation and being grateful instead for the effort and research he's put into this video.
Japanese to English transliteration is awful. I do it directly myself, for example 柔道 is not Judo, but Juudou. Directly from hiragana. No point in studying two different set of rules.
@@JariSatta Oh definitely, I agree. It's a bit like Katakana transliteration. There is little standardisation, it just feels like the spellings are chosen based on 'vibes' more so than anything else lol.
Hi, I hope that this video helps to clarify what 'masu' is and what it does. I don't have access to my actual microphone at the moment, hence the worse voice quality, so I apologise for that. To clarify, there are definite differences between Japanese spoken in formal settings, and normal everyday language. However, what I wanted to achieve with this video, is to explain how the conjugation differences between 'masu' and 'plain form' Japanese really doesn't make up two separate systems of conjugation. Masu is just an auxiliary verb that makes a Japanese verb more formal/polite. I.e., 食べます (tabemasu) is the more formal/polite version of 食べる (taberu).
Thank you so much for this video! I love the fact that more people are understanding ます forms not as conjugations, but as auxiliary verbs added onto verb stems. It helps making Japanese grammar much more understandable and regular
@@gustavovillegas5909 thank you for the kind comment! I really struggled with Japanese, until I began to try and find out the Japanese logic behind their own language and it all suddenly began to click more easily :)
I bet this would make Cure Dolly sensei happy 🥲🥲🥲
@@giuseppeagresta1425 I miss Cure Dolly, I hope they are okay.
@@tonythesopranos5310i feel depressed that ppl are actually getting the etymologies and nature of jp finally on yt... It feels like I haven't gone far at all though I know the basic fundamentals people don't usually know...
Love this video! I found the background images and edits to be pretty engaging (and funny). Looking forward to more!
@@railvolt thank you :) it's only 13 minutes long, but you'd be amazed at how even simple editing like this takes, probably took a good few hours to make. I'm looking forward to making more though!
What the hell!? 😂 I accidentally stumbled upon this gem; I wanted to find some more only to find it's one of the few ever made.😢 Good job, really interesting dive in the grammar ❤ Will wait for some new uploads
@@marcipanovics that's very kind of you to say, thank you!
I love etymology! It helps me so much and I've wondered about masu for ages! Thank you!!
@@glltyt no worries, that's great to hear
I always seen ます as an auxiliary verb, but it's very interesting to learn that it came from まいる
I was always wondering why it doesn't have a kanji
this video is amazing. when explain like this it becomes so simple to understand how we got to masu from its former use. thank you.
@@trontrontrontron4 that's very kind, thank you!
Great video! At 4:24, I will say that the main function of the auxiliary verb "to do" in this sentence isn't to express the past tense, but acts as an intensifier to the verb "to go." English has a past tense conjugation of "to go," which is "went" so it wouldn't need an auxiliary verb to express the past. However, since English does not have a future tense conjugation, it DOES require the modal auxiliary verb "will" to express the future
Ooh, I didn't know that. That's very interesting thank you. As English is my native language, it never occurred to me that English doesn't have a future tense conjugation. I just had a quick look at your channel, the production quality is insane. I've subscribed :)
Holy sht the quality is insane ❤. Textbook underated channel.
@@sherlockholmes6332 thank you detective sherlock 🙏
That rote versus conceptual memorization is literally why I suck at math. It's all gibberish to me. Always has been. I need there to be meaning behind things to understand them. it's all abstract.
Also this is the first video I've seen from you but I'm subscribing. Very well done, clear, nice to look at, helpful, and informative.
I would love to see more etymology videos.
@@GustafUNL I've always been terrible with maths, I just can't conceptualise many of its rules. I always find it quite dull 😅. Thank you for your kind words.
As someone with terrible memory, I can't relate. I have a good understanding of math, so I am decent at it and find it fun, but the moment large amounts of memorisation is required, I get a headache lol
@@sandpaperunderthetable6708 I can remember facts and information pretty well. Because it has meaning. Can't remember mathematical processes though.
rote memorization has never worked for me, I need to know the WHY for stuff, so I'm so glad this graced my recommended. Where can I find more Japanese linguistic history content? I want to be BUREID IN IT!!!
@@mayanightstar thank you for your comment. A History of the Japanese Language by Bjarke Frellesvig is a great book. However, it is very detailed, and without a background in linguistics, some of it just flies over my head. Honestly though, I'd just read through the Japanese language Wikipedia page. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language. Wikipedia gets a bad wrap sometimes, but honestly, for some topics it's great. I think it does a great job of explaining the development in terms that non-linguists such as myself can understand. Unfortunately though, a lot of this stuff just hasn't been translated, or isn't codified in one place for an English reading audience. I only know about these little language tidbits from just studying the language over the years and finding the information here and there. I hope that helps! And I totally agree, if you can't explain how something works to someone else, you don't really understand it in my opinion. Without conceptual knowledge you're just a very humanoid parrot repeating information 🦜
Excellent video!
@@OmegaTaishu thank you!
The Total war profiles are giving me flashbacks xD
underrated
@@DanielMemeSmith thank you 🙏
bro upgraded the school in his province to get mr takahashi
@@gentlemengamings worth every koku
Nice
Your language lessons about Japanese are great! they explain like a lot of things and reveal things, which are like very hard to discover, because they either hidden in very depths of internet, or textbooks, dictionaries and other resources instead of normally explaining things give false information, like translating one kanji or particle with multiple english translations, all of them mean different things and contradict each other, and at the same time they do not even match the actual japanese meaning of kanji/particle, lol. and you telling things, which I would discover like only after years of studying japanese. I would like it if you will make more of these videos. for example i interested in how 本 end up being at the same time morpheme to indicate idea of root, something from which something grows, book and classifier for cylinder-shaped things(and not only them, but for example as i know computer softwares). These things are so unrelated, i am interested in hearing the story of how 本 end up convey all of these things. or maybe I would like to hear more about common Japanese pronouns like boku, watashi, ore and maybe others. Yes, maybe on the internet there are already many videos already about these pronouns, but I think you would just explain it better. or i would like to hear more about morphemes like san, sama and お. Or maybe about particles like で, に and を. or maybe i would like hear explanation and linguistic history of 気. This is not like very necessary for you to make all these videos about all these suggested topics, I understand that you can have like different things in life, and you maybe not always have time for videos, but I would be happy if you make a video about some of these topics or I hope at least provided good ideas for new videos.
and yeah I have one question. I think 気 means something like energy, but not like in sense of physics, but more as a resource, which you spent to do things, and if you don't have energy(気), you can't do things and feel all exhausted and tired and meeeehhh. How accurate is my understanding? and can be 気 viewed as karma from Naruto? I think they are quite similar. is this would be correct to explain 気 as karma from Naruto?
@@r-duppcreatstah8815 thank you very much for your long comment, it's very appreciated. Those are some great ideas, I've written them down :)
I've never watched Naruto, but to my understand 気 is just a borrowing from Chinese. 気 is read as Chi I believe in modern Mandarin, and like you say, it's about one's own person vitality, energy spirit etc. Rather than a literal resource like coal or fuel. I looked up Karma because I'm no expert on Hinduism/Buddhism/Indian theology. 'Derived from the Sanskrit word karman, meaning 'act'. If Chi means something like 'life force' and Karma means an 'act', I'd guess they're different. But again, I've not seen Naruto so I'm not sure. I wanted to do a video on Chinese language influences on Japanese, so Japan's adoption of the Chinese term 気 would be a great video to do.
Thank you again for your comment.
@@tonythesopranos5310 Wait..... i'm stupid. I had no clue how chakra spelled in english, and i called chakra from Naruto karma, and i haven't noticed this until now, lol. well i often do stupid mistakes like that even in my native language lol
Well in any case, thanks for your answer and you are welcome;3 wish you all best and keep up in doing great videos!!!!!!
@@r-duppcreatstah8815 thank you! That's very kind :)
I don't want to hurt your feelings at all, but I would be doing you a disservice if I wasn't honest. I can understand everything that you're saying, but sometimes some of the grammar/word choices are a bit different from what I would use personally.
But it's great that you're practicing. It takes a lot of courage to make mistakes and learn by using a different language. Keep up the studying and I'm sure you'll be great.
Interesting history, but I don’t fully agree with the argument that understanding automatically makes you remember language better…
I speak Russian and we also have a polite form and a casual form of words, similar to Japanese.
For example:
Принеси платок - prinyesi platok - casual form
Принесите платок - prinyesitye platok - polite form
(it means, bring me headscarf)
I just think of it like you’re sticking a modifying particle onto the end of the verb to make it polite. You stick other “particles”/suffixes on to do other things as well, like conjugate into imperative form or whatever.
'I just think of it like you’re sticking a modifying particle onto the end of the verb to make it polite' - Is this just not another way of understanding the language though, no?
@@tonythesopranos5310 yes… it is more of an analysis on how the language works, but I didn’t learn it because of this observation, the observation came as I learned it 😅
I also didn’t study much of English grammar, I just acquired it through immersion.
But maybe part of my problem with grammar books is that I was forced to use them in school and it didn’t make sense because I was dumb as a kid, haha. So, maybe if you’re a highly intelligent and analytically-minded person, studying grammar rules would make sense, be enjoyable, and helpful in learning the language. But for most people, it would tend to be confusing and unnecessary after a certain point (of learning the basic structure of the language).
Doesnt suru turn into shimasu? Wouldn't that count as a conjugation
You drop the ru like ichidan, but change su to shi jak godan, it's bona fide exception
@@soleursuelos3616 Hi, sorry I am not sure that I fully understand the question.
You take する, put it into its 連用形 (renyoukei) form which is し and put ます at the end. So you're just sticking ます onto the 連用形 form.
する is one of the very few verbs in Japanese where the sound change is 'inconsistent'. If する followed the Ichidan verb rules exactly it should be すます. If it followed the Godan verb rules exactly it would be しります. However, there's an exceedingly small amount of verbs in Japanese that are a bit 'inconsistent' like するand くる.
So to clarify, する turning into します is consistent with ます being added to the 連用形 form, but, for whatever reason, する turns into a し sound in its 連用形 form. There could be a linguistic reason for this that I don't know about, or it could just have been a random historical development.
I noticed how you didn't quite understand the use of the small tsu (っ) so I wanted to clarify if you didn't already know.
You need to know that when this small tsu comes before an S or Sh sound, it lengthens the sound. Like in ma_suru (まっする) because an s sound comes after the small tsu, unlike all other stop consonants which pause, sounds like s and sh after it lengthen instead. So instead of ma_suru it's more like massuru.
I'm not sure if the same thing happens to other fricatives like H/F but I'll find out soon or later.
I am not sure that I agree sorry. This is one of the sources I used, see how it is written as : まっする (www.nihongo-books.com/desu-masu/masu/), and that is how I have written it at 9:18 in the video. I am not quite sure what you are trying to tell me? (That isn't meant to sound passive-aggressive). I have studied Japanese for a few years now, I very much understand how っ works. Again, I don't want to sound defensive. I just don't really understand what you are trying to teach me.
@@tonythesopranos5310 he’s talking about you stopping after ま in まっする, when because of S sound being not a stop fricative, you say it as massuru(long s), not ma…suru. Not sure whether it’s intentional, but it feels like っす should be read as ssu. Correct me if im wrong, please.
@@tonythesopranos5310great video though, i’d say the best there is on this topic!
I agree, the pronunciation in the video is not very consistent throughout. "まっする" should be pronounced "mas_suru" not "ma_suru". You should pause AT the doubled consonant, not before to double it. "いった" for example sounds like "it_ta/ itta", not "i_ta" or "ita". Perhaps the author represents an old or non-standard pronunciation?
Hmmm I would explain "っ" as follows:
"いった" being the example
say "it" but instead of releasing hold it in the t position not making the t sound actually, then release it saying "ta".
His pronunciation is not very good at any point in the video, and sounds like the Japanese of someone who has not had much opportunity to speak to native speakers and practice with them, but the content itself is very good, so how about forgiving him the pronunciation and being grateful instead for the effort and research he's put into this video.
Japanese to English transliteration is awful. I do it directly myself, for example 柔道 is not Judo, but Juudou. Directly from hiragana.
No point in studying two different set of rules.
@@JariSatta are you saying the system of transliteration is awful? Or that how I've written it is awful?
@@tonythesopranos5310 The system itself. There is much unnecessary memorization, challenges in lexical categorization of words, etc.
@@JariSatta Oh definitely, I agree. It's a bit like Katakana transliteration. There is little standardisation, it just feels like the spellings are chosen based on 'vibes' more so than anything else lol.
じゃ、日本語出来る？
@@apt1313 努力すれば、何でもできると思います！
@@tonythesopranos5310まあ、質問に答えたね。『君は日本語が話せる』と聞きたかったんだ。僕は今日本語勉強している、もしこの文が変、教えてください。
@@apt1313 [君は日本語が話せる]私にとって風通の日本語の文法だと思います。
@@apt1313「もしこの日本語が変だと思ったら、教えてくだだい」と言った方が自然だと思う
@@sanny8716 ありがと