Do you think it is better to start with the dictionary form or the polite Form in Japanese?

you will learn both anyway, and the order isn’t important, because you’ll still suck long after both come naturally to you.

this is one of those topics that people think way too much about.

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You know what I’m talking about. I already talked about teaching polite expressions first. You will never convince Japanese teachers that it’s okay to send the students out the door on day 1 using non polite expressions.

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I never thought about that, since I never thought about ません beyond “that’s the way it is” :thinking: then it’s just ません+でした
I remember I did go “but why though” when I learned かもしれません though, and -なければなりません which they did teach us as a set structure rather than decompose it in its base elements.

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I think the real answer is that it depends on your learning style and your short term goals.

Are you learning so you can speak to strangers, or to friends (or not at all)?
Are you motivated to tackle complex grammar that might not be obviously useful?

For me, focusing on dictionary form early was the correct choice. :relaxed:

I don’t think anyone is saying to not teach/learn polite grammar. That would be an incomplete education.

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Then they have to learn both at the same time on day 1?

Like I said, it depends on the learner. Classes obviously can’t cater to everyone, but self-learners can pick the method that they prefer.

Shouldn’t day 1 be set expressions though?

This argument that if you suck it doesn’t matter what order you learn them in doesn’t make much sense to me.

Okay whatever day you start teaching how to make a sentence. Your first sentence is not going to be one the teacher wouldn’t be comfortable having you say to mere acquaintances (which most of your class would probably be).

I was looking into the grammar from a “Japanese perspective”, it is taught quite differently there. (You can’t conjugate ぬ to the past, so です is added as well. And ます is conjugated in the “old” style.)

With the western method you might end up thinking that every verb conjugates in two ways, instead of learning how to conjugate ます just once. It works anyway of course, but I think it misses to build a foundation that makes you comfortable with verbs, they are impressively regular.

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it does for me. the argument that you’d come across as anything but cute (and not “rude”, “formal” or whatever) should lead you to the conclusion that usefulness as learner is what matters. that’s the main point of people like pereira, and he’s not wrong there.
the fallacy comes after: that either or is better because it leads to better/faster learning.

it’s irrelevant. you’ll still be a cute foreigner by the time you can communicate on a basic level, and using formal/casual correctly in the right situation is not expected for a long, long time.

rule of thumb:

when japanese people stop praising you, and when people stop trying to train their english with you, you’re on the way to being expected to express yourself adequately.

that’s why “you suck anyway” is relevant in context.

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Teaching people something that will only emphasize their cluelessness seems cruel.

Can you imagine the angry threads? No one told me I was being impolite to everyone until we learned the ます form!

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Sure, that makes sense in a classroom where speaking is the focus. I personally didn’t need to speak to anyone right away, and I didn’t go to Japan until about 6 years after I started learning Japanese. That’s plenty of time to learn both in any order.

If you want to be able to speak to strangers/acquaintances in a socially acceptable way from day 1, then it yes it does make sense to start polite.

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nothing cruel about it. if someone wants to use their japanese as soon as possible, teach formal.
if they’re in it for the long haul, either is fine, but it’s easier to start with whatever is available, and most textbooks start with formal.

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Sure it is, if a teacher told me “oh, I didn’t bother explaining this aspect of Japanese interactions or giving you a polite baseline because everyone you talk to will be laughing behind your back no matter what you do anyway” I don’t think I’d be back for more lessons.

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they don’t laugh behind your back. they’ll just instantly know you’re still studying and won’t mind.
the fact that learners make the exact same mistakes a 2 year old makes, your accent, and your obviously serious effort make you endearing and adorable.

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Why wouldn’t the teacher tell the students that? lol

Anyway, I don’t think teachers should change, so I don’t think I have anything productive left to offer to the debate at this point. It was nice arguing with you! :heart:

(@Toba did you know what you were getting into with this thread? :sweat_smile:)

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It does matter about the order in which you teach forms. People acquire language forms in a specific order. I used to have the order language learners acquire Japanese grammar from one of my linguistics classes, but I don’t know what happened to it. In any event, I don’t think it makes sense to teach a polite form over dictionary form, which is more universal form.

I feel that since most people learn Japanese with ~ます and ~です first, it may be construed that it is better that way. Many people felt the same way about teaching kanji to foreigners as well, but there are other ways. Although there are benefits to knowing polite form first, I think teaching dictionary form first actually helps students can learn the basics of Japanese sentence properties more easily. As an agglutinative language, it follows the natural logic of how grammar is added to a base form. Starting with the polite form and learning dictionary form isn’t as intuitive to understand that property of Japanese. .

People have written topics about how do I make Japanese sentences on the forums, and I feel that this is symptomatic of how Japanese is taught. Yes, it’s nice to be polite, but if you can’t do anything but formulate short simple sentences, there’s no possible way you’re going to understand what the other person says with their more complex sentences that include dictionary form and the other connecting forms that stem from the dictionary form until they study that later.

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Because otherwise you have a situation where they explain politeness but then don’t teach polite Japanese at the same time, which is hard to imagine.

Perhaps people think my focus on the classroom is narrow, but I don’t see much use in discussing what would be done for individuals studying without a teacher or textbook. It’s basically impossible to say anything that would apply to them across the board.

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from a purely pedagogical approach (and i’m speaking here as someone who teaches instructors, albeit in english), it’s not important. both masu-stem and dictionary forms are easy to handle and lead to the same results.
for simple sentences, both are fine. for subordinate clauses, you will need the dictionary form, but the masu-stem is the true root of verbs, and until you get where either has relevance, you’ll have to have learned both anyway.

of course the order of grammar matters in language acquisition, but formal and casual forms are equally valid for the only stage where it matters, and neither can do any real harm.

however, i cringe when i hear foreigners hear speaking in casual when in formal situations, so there’s that - my personal preference.

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For ichidan verbs the stem and the masu-stem are visually identical, but I think you meant just “stem” there.