Graded Readers and Parallel Texts "Book Club"

It’s the て-form of 見る which is used as a mild command here: “Mum, look!”

This is also in て-form so it’s also a mild command: ”Wait a moment"

Happy reading! :blush:

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I didnt know て form could be used as a mild command, I was trying to fit it into a continuous form. There isnt any way to tell how the て form is being used besides context, is there?

Thank you!

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The full form would be ~てください, but in casual speech the ください part often gets dropped. Here is a Tae Kim article about it if you would like to see some more example sentences.

Context is of course a strong indicator. Also if there is nothing following the て-form, that would also be some kind of hint. Although in casual speech it might indicate that somebody just started a thought and never got around to finishing it… I think telling this apart is something you will get used to with more practice.
(And it’s especially hard in my opinion to read very short sentences in direct speech, because there is so little context…)

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I didnt know you cold say ください without saying ください

Wouldnt the て form is a continuing verb be at the end of a sentence without anything else too.

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It’s casual speech only, e.g. when talking to friends or family. It’s of course less polite when you leave it out, but it’s ok in many situations.

The てform, when used as continuous form, has the meaning of “and” or “and then”. So it would only make sense to have something before it and after it, like e.g.

りんごを食べて、お茶を飲みました。I ate an apple and drank tea.

In regular Japanese, e.g. normal written text, you wouldn’t have a standalone “continuous form” at the end of a sentence. I have only seen that happen when somebody speaks casually and has a train of thought and gets stuck in the middle, like for example when talking like “I did X, and then I did Y, and then I did Z, and then” but nothing follows afterwards because they ran out of steam from talking or something.

Does this make sense somehow?

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Yes, some how I got the impression て form was like the english -ing. Now everything is much clearer. Thank you.

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If it has the meaning of -ing, it is followed by いる. てcan also be followed by a number of auxiliary verbs, by the way, which mean various different things (depending on which auxiliary verb is used). But if it’s just て, with nothing behind it, then those cases don’t apply.

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Another question from the same book.

I get the jist of the sentence “エル got a present too.”
But I cant figure out what the ん in くれたんだ is doing.

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The precise meaning would be “But you gave エル a present” (there is nothing in it that says “too”).

For the んだ, it adds an explanatory tone (as if a very subtle “that’s why” was added to the sentence).
I think Wasabi has a very nice explanation:

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Ah, thank you. I think I imagined the too because it fit the context haha

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I am back with another question


What does でも mean in the context of this sentence? The most common definition I can find for it is “but” which doesn’t make sense.

Translation

“Can we look at the album together?”
Seems to be what is being said.

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In this case, でも is used to mean something along the lines of “or something” ^^

[noun] でも [suggestion] is used to suggest or propose something. “Shall we look together at an album or something?”

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Ahh, thank you! I guess I need a better means of quick grammar reference

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でも | Japanese Grammar SRS (bunpro.jp)

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Huh, could have sworn I checked Bunpro but I guess not.

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you might have…so much of bp depends on how you search… kana / kanji / english… not to worry…just thought I’d throw it there :wink:

Honestly I read that as で + も
Let’s also look in the album together… same idea but not the right grammar so good review for me too

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Ohh that makes more sense で being at, and も being also? I thought で meaning at was for places.

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it is also for places… isn’t learning Japanese great haha… mind you what I was thinking is how I first read it disregarding any grammar I apparently should have remembered :slightly_smiling_face:

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で id also for means of doing things. ^^ バスで学校に行った。“I went to school by bus.”

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Thats exactly how I read it too. But my grammar is still lacking =P

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