Verb Conjugation Guide with 酒!

Japanese Language Grammar
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I have various sources I’m learning verbs from, but this topic is a bit confusing as there seems to be many different English terms for various verb forms.

The following video seems to show the system rather logically and is easy to access for members on this board:

(Her voice is rather odd, but the info seems legit)

I have two resources that show the conjugations of many verbs, but they don’t provide example sentences. I just want to make sure I’m using each form correctly.

As such the following are example sentences I’ve made using the examples she used in the video above and in the order she went through them, while trying to keep the basic structure as similar as possible between the examples.

(私は)お酒を飲む。

お酒を飲みます。

I drink sake/I will drink sake (plain and formal).

お酒を飲みたい。

I want to drink sake.

お酒は飲み物です。

Sake is a drink.

お酒を飲まない。

お酒を飲みません。

I don’t drink sake (plain and formal).

お酒を飲ませる。

Let me drink sake/Make me drink sake.

お酒が私に飲まれる。

The sake is getting drunk by me.

お酒が私に飲まれた。

The sake got drunk by me.

Last 2 based on this video:

お酒を飲める。

I can drink sake.

お酒を飲もう。

お酒を飲みましょう。

Let’s drink sake (plain and formal).

And some basic た/て forms and a few additional forms:

お酒を飲め。

お酒を飲んで下さい。

Drink the sake (plain and formal).

お酒を飲むな。

お酒を飲まないで下さい。

Don’t drink the sake (plain and formal).

お酒を飲んだ。

お酒を飲みました。

I drank the sake (plain and formal).

お酒を飲まなかった。

お酒を飲みませんでした。

I didn’t drink the sake (plain and formal).

お酒を飲んでいる。

お酒を飲んでいます。

I am (currently) drinking sake (plain and formal).

お酒を飲んでいません。

I’m not (currently) drinking sake.

お酒を飲んでいた。

お酒を飲んでいました。

I was drinking sake (plain and formal)

お酒を飲んでいませんでした。

I wasn’t drinking sake.

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I think you can use 飲んで and 飲まないで without attaching 下さい, if you are talking to friends, but I’m not certain. I’m also not sure if 飲め and 飲むな are considered plain or actually rude, unless it was a situation where you were trying to stop someone from drinking something bad. So I’m a bit shaky on those rules.

So basically what I’m asking is, did I get those sentences right?
Or has Inigo Montoya had the last laugh?

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I don’t think the last part is quite right (but I’m a learner too, so…)

From what I understand,
お酒を飲みます。-masu form present polite
I will drink sake / I [habitually] drink sake

お酒を飲んでいます。-te form + iru (in masu form, polite)
I am drinking sake (now).

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This is correct, OP’s “I am drinking sake” is a mistranslation into the progressive tense.

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お酒を飲みますが、今お酒を飲んでいません。

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The imperative form (飲め・飲むな）is very rarely used in Japan as it is considered as being quite rude. You are correct in that it is more comment to just conjugate for 「下さい」and drop the 「下さい」. There are however a few exceptions.

  1. Stop signs. All over Japan, stop signs are written as 「止まれ」, using the imperative form. This is
    because it is in fact imperative that you stop, and politeness is waved.

  2. There are in fact even more polite versions of 「下さい」. In Japanese, the more convoluted and indirect the sentence, generally the more polite it is. Although 「下さい」is very common, a more polite form (honorific) would be 「下さいませ」. For example, you may hear a check out assistant say 「少々お待ちくださいませ」. There is also 「くれる」and all of it’s regular conjugations. If 「下さい」 is too polite but dropping it completely seems rude, then using the -te form and 「くれる」is also common practice. Below I have written a simple request, of “wait a moment” to increasing degrees of politeness.

  • 少々待て。(Wait a moment - imperative form).
  • 少々待って。(Please wait a moment - contracted 「下さい」)
  • 少々待ってくれる。(Can you give me the favour of waiting a moment (informal))
  • 少々待ってくれない。(Can’t you give me the favour of waiting a moment (informal))
  • 少々お待ってくれますか。(Can you give me the favour of waiting a moment (formal))
  • 少々お待ってくれませんか。(Can’t you give me the favour of waiting a moment (formal))
  • 少々お待って下さい。(Please wait a moment (formal))
  • 少々お待ち下さい。(Please do the thing of waiting a moment (a bit more formal))
  • 少々お待ち下さいませ。(Please do the thing of waiting a moment (honorific)).

Hope this helps!

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ありがとう！
Ah, that was actually a copy and paste error, which is why I missed all the progressive forms. They somehow got swallowed up when I was moving things around.
I’ll add it to the bottom of the post.

That’s what I get for not looking at it closely when reviewing as I assumed I would have the most basic form correct. > _ <

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Thanks for the reply.
I’ll have to look at it after I’ve had some sleep, but I suspect it’s going to make me cry…

Edit:

Thank you for the examples, and yeah had to shed a tear on those. I’m guessing it comes easier when you’re being exposed to it though.

What about my examples when you are telling someone not to drink something because it’s bad or deadly like poison. Would you use the ruder versions or drop the 下さい from the more formal version?

Cheers ^ _ ^

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Hi! Welcome back!

Another helpful post! Thank you~~~ <3 !

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Hey AC! hugs

Yeah, I’m just not sure all my translations are correct…
I think they are, but it’d be cool to get some more feedback on them.

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I can’t help you with the conjugations, but I think in that case I would just spring across the table screaming and knock it from their hands.

Practical language learning everyone.

sorry, I just had to be a smart aleck

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You probably already know this but for the sake of clarity for anyone reading the thread I wanted to add this.

Using ～てくれる when asking someone to do something for you can come off as being pushy. By default, てくれる makes the giver the subject and puts a bit more focus on the directionality of the action (e.g., you–>me). So in essence, 少々待ってくれる? would sound more like “Will you wait a moment?”. Though at face value, it doesn’t sound that bad but depending on the situation it can give the impression of being forceful. According to this article, it’s best to use ～てもらう when asking for things from someone else because it makes the receiver the subject and sounds more indirect in the end.

For a more in depth look for higher-level learners, I also found this article informative about the properties of もらう and くれる.

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Cheers!

Do the verb forms I posted look correct to you?

And are there any important ones I’m missing?

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There are some more negative ones like 飲まず、飲まぬ that came to my mind. I see ず a lot in manga and ぬ also appears here and there from time to time.

Tae Kim on more negative verbs
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/negativeverbs2

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For doing something right now, I am drinking sake (right now), you use the dictionary form or ます form depending on who you are talking to.

酒飲む。
お酒を飲みます.

An actual Japanese person taught me that.

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The non-past forms (that you just mentioned) mean either “I drink sake (habitually)” or “I will drink sake”.

“I am drinking sake (right now)” would be 酒を飲んでいる.

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For the most part. I’m just not a big fan of these kind of things because it oversimplifies how some aspects and tenses work. What I mean is that with the verb “drink” there are translations that make sense while the verb “know” will give a different meaning because it’s a different kind of verb.

I’ll include some notes on your sentences that I immediately noticed, though.

～ている form does have the present progressive aspect with it, but also additional meanings too. Please see this site about some of them and this other site has some more.

One quick example how this can change is by adding a time expression of frequency to your sentence:
（彼は）毎日お酒を飲んでいる。 He drinks alcohol every day.

～させる or the causative usually means “let~” when it’s in the て-form followed by something like ください, もらう, or something like that. Here’s a source to refer to.

The causative-passive form ～させられる is also mentioned in that link.

Another form that you could add is the conditional.
～ば, ～たら, ～なら, or ～と
Here’s a source that basically explains it.

Wish you the best with your studies!

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What about my examples when you are telling someone not to drink something because it’s bad or deadly like poison. Would you use the ruder versions or drop the 下さい from the more formal version?

It depends on the situation. If they’re about to drink it and you need to yell at them to stop you would probably use 飲むな, e.g. 飲むな！！危ないよ！

If there’s no imminent danger and you want to just inform them it’s poisonous and shouldn’t be consumed you could use something like 飲まないでね、危ないから

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Or maybe それ飲んじゃダメだよ。That’s not a direct translation of “Don’t drink that.” It’s more like, “Drinking that is bad!” which might also serve as a warning.

But certainly 飲むな！ if they’ve raised the bottle to their lips.

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