Confused on conjugating verbs. I’m using CureDolly and Genki I.
When does one use って as the verb ending (for example, she uses others) versus ます like Genki uses? Hope this makes sense. She just didn’t use any of the verb endings Genki does and vice versa.
Not quite sure what do you mean by “verb endings”. Could you give examples which ones Genki uses and which ones are taught by Cure Dolly? I am only familiar with Genki.
〜て and 〜ます endings have entirely different purposes. 〜て would be the gerund form used when ending a verb clause or when combining a verb with something else to create a more complex tense.
〜ます is just the polite verb ending added to the verb stem.
EDIT:
Fixed, since the gerund form is not exactly the same. It would be closer to verb clause + のは, like in 飛ぶのは (literally “flying” as a noun, because of the の). There’s a bit of an overlap, but 〜て is more about the continuous tense, it feels.
Cure Dolly uses the ~て forms pretty exclusively. I didn’t know what they were called so thanks for that. Genki uses 〜ます so far so I wasn’t sure which one is used when because they seem hugely different.
Yeah, you’ll see other conjugation forms in Genki, including ones with helper verbs as well 
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With how often people praise Cure Dolly, I find that hard to believe… (I have never watched her content myself.) Can you post an example video/timestamp of where Cure Dolly is using て form nearly exclusively?
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It’s this video. Starts about 3:35. She didn’t use any other forms that I saw and this is early in her “learn Japanese from scratch” or whatever playlist so you’d think I’d understand it. But no.
Well, that video is specifically about the て form, so of course the て form is what will be used in that video. Everyone teaches differently, so for whatever reason she decided to teach て form early on, but both it and ます (and many other) verb forms are equally important.
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You don’t have to think of it as an exception. You can think through it using the explanation you just received:
なくて - sequential
ないで - simultaneous
You want the requested state of non-action to be maintained (‘while not’ or ‘without’), so you use ないで. There’s nothing sequential about it, and you don’t want the non-action to be one-off either. On the other hand, for most requested actions, you just need a one-off thing, or you can indicate a sustained state by adding いて to the て-form, so a regular て-form is fine.
Obviously, there’s a bit of a logical leap here, and it’s not a perfect explanation, but that’s how I remember which to use.
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The て form is more of a connecting form that’s used to connect a verb to other conjugations, like the ている、てある、ておく etc. phrases. When used on its own, it’s either a conjunctive “and (so)” when used in the middle of a sentence, or a soft request when used at the end of a sentence. Also note that it’s the て form, and not the って form, since not all verbs have the small tsu in their て form. Also some godan verbs in て form have a sound change which makes it a で. For example, ichidan verbs go to みるー＞みて, and some godan verbs go to e.g. およぐー＞およいで for their て form.
If you see something like みるって, that’s the quoting particle って and not the て form. I know it’s a lot to take in all at once but for now I guess just keep in mind that it’s not really a replacement for ます. The equivalent of たべます in plain form is just たべる.
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私の双子のお兄さんを知っている人々が私は訛りと言うこともある。
People that know my older sister and me sometimes say I have an accent.
I put that sentence up in Hello Talk but was corrected this
私の双子のお兄さんを知っている人々が, 私は訛りと言うこともある。
Why the comma needed? Would it not be fine without out?
I think the added comma makes the intent clearer. I saw a breakdown like this very often in the book I’m reading now and it’s clearer that these are 2 clauses then, especially that you put 私は in the second clause.
Also, the initial 私の isn’t needed, I think .
Hmm after some thought I’m not sure whether the second clause should not use が instead of は:
私が訛りと言うこともある。
Also, I think the も is not needed, unless the point is made in addition to something else:
私が訛りと言うことがある。
My older “brother”, you mean? Not お姉さん?
EDIT: Apologies for all the edits. It’s a process 
Thank you for time! I see! I guess I sometimes leave in the excessive watashi. What book are you reading that has lots of commas? Seems like good practice.
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It doesn’t have a lot of commas, just the usual amount one uses to kind of split sentences into clauses and also to sort of mimic the way one would read the sentences aloud.
I’m reading this one (怪人二十面相 by Edogawa Ranpo): かいじん二十めんそう
But beware of the kana to kanji ratio 
I sometimes see sentences with 分 after a verb, but I have a hard time figuring out exactly what it means. I don’t have a great example sentence right now, but I’ll post the one I have. If I find a better one later I’ll post it, but any explanation now if possible would be appreciated.
彼女は工房で商人と接している分、計算も得意だ。
(Replaced character name with 彼女 to remove some need for context.)
Is it from 本好きの下剋上? I noticed the writer really like this clause分clause and I also struggle with it. Some other sentences from the LN:
仕事場は活気に溢れている分、 忙しい。
外の方が太陽の光がある分暖かいと感じるほど寒い。
お兄ちゃんがひどいと叱ってくれる分、少し楽になったとルッツは言って いる。
彫像からお湯が出る分、湯船からは少しずつお湯が流れ出し
理由が察せられた分 、 落ち着いていられた。
I can vaguely feel that the proportion/quantity of thing happening in the first clause cause/correlate(?) what is happening in the main clause maybe… I would love to get more details too.
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There was a topic on that quite a while ago. Not many replies, but it is something to begin with.
The most common usage has some sort of opposing results which are proportional to the same source, such as most of the examples @Arzar33 gave:
活気に溢れている (good) x 忙しい (bad)
太陽の光がある (good) x 寒い (bad)
ひどいと叱ってくれる (bad) x 楽になった (good)
お湯が出る (water coming in) x 流れ出し (but also going out)
Your original quote doesn’t have that much of an opposing (unexpected) feeling to it, but I guess in a broader sense the proportional association is enough.
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I’ll go do a bit more searching after this, but for now, a preliminary answer of sorts is that it seems to be fairly similar to ほど, just broader. Here’s the relevant definition of 分:
④ 物事の様子・状態。また，程度。くらい。「この―なら大丈夫だ」
I think those words very roughly can substitute for 分 in the sentences that have been raised above. I’ll try looking around for more detailed explanations than this.
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That’s the impression I get too, but I feel like I still need a more detailed explanation. And thanks for the extra examples, they definitely help.
Thanks for the explanation. I’ll keep an eye out from now on to see if this “opposing results” aspect shows up most of the time. As you pointed out, it’s not really there for my one example, though I can definitely see it for the ones Arzar provided.
It’s definitely one of the grammar points that took a longer time to get a feel for, but i think this explanation is good.
Eh, I don’t think that’s the relevant definition. From the link I posted above:
その程度に応じて他の事柄の程度も進む意を表す
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Thanks! That explanation certainly seems to fit and confirms what I thought it meant. For things like this, I still find reading a translation or explanation in English at least once to be helpful. Hopefully I can start to understand these more intuitively now instead of thinking about it each time.
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