So I am just studying the use of まま and I came across this sentence:
手がきたないままではいけないよ。はやく洗って。
And I think I get the meaning (something like your hands are still dirty. Wash them quickly) but I don’t understand why there is ではいけない after まま。All I know so far is てはいけない as an ender to say don’t do this. But then we’d need a verb with a te form right? But kitanai is not a verb and not in the te form either.
Can somebody help me out? Thanks
いけない is the verb that ends the sentence. では is the particles で and は together. It’s basically like… Whatever comes before that is not okay.
It’s this verb, the “to go well” meaning.
I’m actually pretty sure in では, as in ではありません this is a particle that is で but it is actually the 連用形 of だ/です. I wouldn’t worry about it so much, but it’s good to realize
I wasn’t saying that では is always で plus は. I was just talking about this sentence.
I was actually talking about in this sentence. This is just ては becoming では with a noun before it, because the で is what I mentioned.
Minor edit: Example sentences like この村は昔のままだ support the theory that it’s that で as だ is what would belong on the other end if the sentence was just 手が汚いままだ
@Thofte - This is the same as how ても becomes でも when in front of a noun. In Japanese the part of speech relies on the last word, and functionally here まま is a noun.
I would like some context, but without it the sentence is just “You can’t must not leave your hands dirty, hurry up and wash them.”
So then まま is treated like a noun?
まま (not to be confused with まあまあ) is basically an adverbial noun. Some reading in an English discussion on adverbial nouns might help explain.
Basically in Japanese Adverbs only exist before the thing they’re modifying. So what we really have here is an adjective, 汚い, describing まま, which is somewhat hard to translate directly into English, but you can think of it as “keep in state of being dirty.”
So to break up the sentence we’ve got: 手が + 汚いまま + [では]いけない Which I think might help with the idea of how it should be parsed. I’m putting では in brackets because it’s complicated, as you can see above, but I think it’s perfectly find to think of this as ではいけない
ですか vs でしょうか
Help me make sure I study this correctly:
でしょうか is more formal than ですか.
ですか is more factual, like "is it?"
でしょうか is more like “could it be?”
Anything else worth mentioning about this? In what context would you guys use でしょうか？Thanks 
I don’t believe that でしょうか is more formal than ですか, but your other statements agree with my understanding. I guess we can check grammar resources, or wait for other responses to see who’s right or get more clarification.
woa, that is quite complicated. Thank you for your answer!
でしょうか is more polite and ですか is more certain.
For example:
お名前は（何ですか）？
その人は（あなたの）彼女でしょうか？
I picked extreme examples to make the differences in assumption clear. Asking some questions based on making tenuous assumptions can be a bit rude if you’re completely off base. So my understanding is でしょうか can be used to express even less certainty as well as being quite polite when asking such questions. Additionally it can be used in place of ですか to convey an even more indirect (i.e., more polite) question.
It’s like how “could” or "would’ lends an air of politeness in English questions, because they sound less presumptive.
なるほど！@LucasDesu your examples made this very clear, thank you for the explanation ^^
@Leebo, that’s a pretty good way of looking at it! Tyvm
is ほしい rarely used in desire/want to sentences? What is a better form to use when constructing these kind of sentences?
It depends what kind of sentence you mean. Casual? Polite? Friends and family scenario?
In polite or formal situations, it might be avoided because it’s quite direct.
But in casual scenarios, I don’t think there’s any issue with using it. I often say things like コーラがほしいなぁ or something to my girlfriend.
It’s also not used for ordering, whereas in English you might say “I want a Coke” to a waiter.
The tai ending is good.
すしを食べたい
I want to eat sushi.
けんこうに なりたい
I want to become healthy.
And if you mean when talking about other people, it’s true that you wouldn’t want to use it with other people’s thoughts or feelings, but that goes for any way of saying things about other people’s thoughts and feelings. At the very least, you’d want to use the ～がる ending. 彼はコーラがほしがる / ほしがります
It’s a way of describing other people’s thoughts and feelings without sounding like you’re presuming to know them, I guess. You can use it for the たい ending too. 知りたがりますか (Do you want to know?) or other adjectives 怖がらないで (Don’t be afraid)
for ordering something, what’s best?
おちゃ ありますか？
おちゃ おねいがいします。
If you’re asking an employee for something, おねがいします or をください are both good.