Japanese what is te form

The implication is that the explanation is done by following the order of some series of events. You can also think of this in terms of explaining things at the same time as following the order, but I find the adverbial interpretation easier to understand.

There can be times where you are able to intuitively understand a passage, but trying to translate using a stream of temporal actions may sound awkward. This is an interesting case because it should be possible for the subject to say something after being surprised. By the way, if we render this as a temporal sequence of actions in English, the result feels arguably a little unnatural:. Alternately, if we think of the two actions happening at the same time, we might end up with something like this, which is even less natural:.

Here is one:. The te-form is really difficult to rationalise in the mind of a speaker of an Indoeuropean language since we have nothing like that; not at least in English or Spanish which is my mother tongue.

While I think it is interesting to try and interpreted explain verb tenses, and there is some merit in your approach, ultimately I think no single explanation will be sufficient. Your email address will not be published. Both verbs and adjectives have te forms. Conjugating to the affirmative te form is very easy once you know the standard simple past tense for each verb.

All we need to do is replace the final syllable of the past tense like so:. For na-adjectives we change to the negative form of the auxiliary verb. As mentioned above, the te form has many different usages but the big five are as follows:. However, you rarely ever hear the te form used in this way—it is too direct and it is more natural in Japanese to opt for indirect expressions, especially when a request is being made.

Essentially, the phrase is asking the other person to deign to do something. This would sound far more better as two clauses rather than individual sentences. Firstly, note that the te form also dictates the chronological order of events—first you met your friend then you had lunch. Secondly, note that the tense of the entire sentence is determined only by the final verb. In English, for each individual clause in the sentence we need to adjust the tense of the verb accordingly.

Nor are we limited to using the te form only once. Overuse, however, sounds just as unnatural in Japanese as it does in English. The te form can also be used to express a means or reason for a subsequent action or event. With positive sentences the difference in grammatical usage between expressing sequential order and expressing a means or reason can be a little ambiguous. There are actually around a dozen uses of te-form with other grammar patterns. But many of them start to get a bit advanced.

Here are a few ways to can use te-form:. I know learning such a big grammar pattern can be a bit overwhelming, but take it one step at a time. Next up, why not start learning the most important Japanese kanji , or check out some amazing Japanese dramas to binge-watch so you get practice listening for te-form! Caitlin is a content creator, fitness trainer, zero waster, language lover, and Star Wars nerd.