one thing teachers do is, they try to avoid information overload. that might be why your teacher didn’t mention it. kind of like mommy doesn’t mention that the bike has training wheels 
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I’m a former training professional, so I get it. But one of my first objectives is to teach someone how to use the tools they have available at any point in their learning process. Then move on to teaching the content they’ll find there. I was disappointed I still couldn’t look up a word (verb, anyway) in the dictionary (in a form usable by me) by the end of the class; that seems like a very basic thing to be able to do.
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For me learning the Masu form first screwed me up.
That said, I was a bit all over the place with my learning.
I’ve restarted a few times as I’ve had huge breaks in my learning and have had to relearn so many things over again. So I’ve learned how to make things more efficient each time.
My suggestion is to learn the dictionary form first, when you are introducing yourself to a new verb, but at the same time you should simply learn the rules for conjugating all verb “forms” into their Masu form. It’s pretty simple and intuitive to learn.
So each new dictionary verb you learn, you should be able to conjugate to Masu form immediately.
Here’s a good video for it. Just focus on the Masu part for now, until you’re ready for the rest.
I hate her voice, but it’s good info.
Cheers! ^ _ ^
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As some others have alluded, it’s important to point out that what’s most important to start learning Japanese. People bringing up having conversations with and/or talking with Japanese people in real life contexts are conflating two separate things. One being the start studying part and the other is the start speaking with native speakers part. Normal everyday interactions, knowledge of the polite forms are essential. But for studying, learning the dictionary forms first makes more sense progressively because polite forms are built from that.
Then one has to take into consideration where the learner is learning Japanese. If it’s overseas, then learning the polite form first doesn’t make a lot sense when the majority of speakers reside in Japan. You’re not going to offend other learners and the teacher should hopefully understand that you’re still learning. If one is in Japan, practical polite greetings (good morning, etc.), requests (～をください, ～てください, etc.), and expressions (ありがとうございます, すみません, etc.) can be taught fairly quickly for people to get by in life until their studies brings them to learning how these are theoretically formed.
No matter how you cut it, everyone starts out with broken language and builds from there. Knowing the the polite forms (or dictionary forms) won’t make the process any quicker either, but learning from dictionary form makes following the logical of the language easier to follow. Yes, there will be people who laugh at you (even when you use polite speech), and it’s because of a variety of reasons (e.g., pronunciation, inappropriate words for the context, etc.). It sucks to be the target of that but that’s relatively unavoidable.
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Yes, I think it’s a tough call for the teacher. During the first semester I took in my home country, the teacher did mention the dictionary at some point, which I think is the correct course of action. That did not help us look up stuff in the dictionary, but at least we knew why 
(I don’t think I even used a dictionary until much later though, since all the vocab relevant to the class was given as well)
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But you get letters you can add on your name afterwards.
I did, anyway. DipLang(Japanese).
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Clases may be inefficient, but they keep you accountable, and that’s what I needed in my studies.
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A study from Yoshito Saito-Abbott and Keiko Samimy (1997) found one of the biggest predictors of continued Japanese language study was the grade that a student received. The paper concludes that in the beginner-level classes, students need to feel like they are achieving goals. If you can convince someone that they are learning useful Japanese quickly, they are more likely to stick around. Pimsleur takes the same approach. At the end of the first lesson, I believe they have you say “日本語が少しわかります” and then reinforce that with a friendly “It’s true. Now you do speak Japanese a little bit.”
All that is to say that teaching –ますform and giving people set phrases in the beginning helps to get people excited and keep them interested in learning. The paper goes on to note that intermediate students experience higher levels of anxiety when trying to use the language because they realize how much they don’t know. Even Tofugu acknowledges this in their learning guide—the intermediate wall.
So which is better? ます or stem? I think that’s personal preference if you’re a self-learner. If you’re in a classroom where you’re being graded—and those grades might determine your scholarships—ますform might be best. I learned ます first as a part of my Japanese degree. Once I learned the stem/う-form, it wasn’t that difficult to switch. I just realized how much I had left to learn.
And like Dorotheian, classes held me accountable. I was 13 when I first started with Pimsleur CDs. I never made it past lesson 10. Once I had grades that determined if I got to pay rent, I took studying more seriously.
Reference
Saito-Abbott, Y., & Samimy, K. (1997). Factors of Attrition in Japanese Language Enrollments. Texas Papers in Foreign Language Education .
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funny, pimsleur was the first thing i did. 3 months, every night in the bath tub. i finished the course, then went on to michel thomas. after that, japanesepod101. then i came to japan, started wk, quit, restarted 3 years later.
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All grammar is connected, so yes ます form is in 丁寧語と敬語. But learning the ます form first doesnt help someone with that as completely different verbs are used along with different constructs with the verb stem.
Why not start with the dictionary form? The vast majority of Japanese will not hold you to the code of politeness especially if the speaker is foreign and beginner-intermediate level.
Also, for high school and college aged students, potential friends they make in Japan will most likely use casual language. One of the biggest complaints I hear from foreigners is that they are surprised that the Japanese people do not speak in ます all the time. They end up having trouble following people because of this.
Anyhow In my opinion, building good foundational habits especially at the beginning of language learning is important. I think it is better to have people thinking from the dictionary form first rather than the ます form being the first to come to mind.
Because there’s tons of learning material specifically targeting total beginners that use formal Japanese.
There’s basically nothing pre-made that starts you on the language in it’s casual form, and if you’re a total newbie, you have no clue what there even exists out there.
I mean, just take the damn pill. It’s not gonna kill you or so. You’ll get to do the casual stuff anyway, because it’s being used for grammar points you need to master in order to achieve any level above “complete noob”. The moment you start on subordinate clauses, you’ll use it (even though some natives do not, lol).
So, really, who even cares, it’s only a matter of weeks, not years.
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No one is going to have a few lessons in Japanese and then go to Japan and have a conversation.
If you only know the ます form you will struggle to say or understand anything. So hardly an argument for starting with it.
I am reading a grammar guide at the moment (Tae Kim - hope I spelt that right as didn’t go back to check). Their argument is that Japanese courses usually start with the ます form and try to get students speaking with attempts to transliterate English to Japanese whereas Japanese is very different from English and it is better to start with how Japanese think and use the language and build from there. Using that approach then starting with the dictionary form makes sense as that is the base for the language. I prefer that approach.
Also - I suspect that most learners are exposed to anime, TV and manga/books before going to Japan and the short forms dominant in everyday Japanese so better to learn them first.
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People go to Japan with just a little Japanese and give it their best shot all the time. People who just started lessons find language partners on Skype and whatnot. This isn’t unusual at all.
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I voted ます, but I might have misunderstood the question. I think you need to learn at least the 原型 before anything else, for anything to make sense as far as conjugations, but after that I recall learning conjugations in the polite form first, which then made cutting back to the plain form easier, as there’s actually more going on there grammatically. (Past-tense plain-form conjugations, for example, are more difficult than ました, but that gives you a basis and it’s an easy jump after learning the て forms.)
So I am pretty sure my earliest classes went 原型→ます→polite past-tense and て-form→everything else. I thought that felt pretty seamless. Maybe someone who’s read through Genki more recently can confirm that’s the order it goes in.
oh boy… this escalated quickly. I didn’t think that I would stir up this huge discussion about it but I’m glad I did.
I’ll try to get through it all and work around the arguments and see.
To Clear things up I already learned Japanese for some years myself as well, but I just got in this argument at a time. And couldn’t get my point across that my baseline (because I learned it first) is the ます form in Japanese and therefore it was and is pretty complicated to get first back to the Stem to get into the more complicated grammar ^^
Thanks everybody for all the input so far
I didn’t say people won’t have a go at some stock phrases but maintain you can’t have a conversation (meaningful dialogue with a native speaker discussing a range of topics) without a lot of Japanese.
I don’t see how that means you shouldn’t address the people you do talk to politely.
People can say that Japanese people will forgive your lack of tact if you don’t know the polite forms yet, but I just don’t see that as a reason not to start there. Again, I’m talking about lessons and teachers and textbooks.
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Does anyone know where I can learn the Japanese way of conjugation with renyoukei and misenkei and stuff?
It seems waaaay more convenient but I can’t really find a lot of information.
I used this grammar series. It’s not all on conjugation, but you can find what you asked about there.
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