Te Form

[DietWeebs]

‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎

[kuronekoaus]

No it doesn't make sense. At least I didn't get it
A song I was taught to remember:
I chi ri -te
Mi ni bin -de
Ki -ite
Shi -shite

With a little tune...

[masaegu]

Originally Posted by DietWeebs

My teacher taught me this.. Ku i Gu i Su shi Mu n Bu n (etc i forget)

but that an action verb ending the uppercase letters (Ku, Gu, Su, Mu, Bu,) are all dropped when making a TE form and the lower case letters (i, i, shi, n, n,) are added at the end along with TE to make a TE form... does that make sense ?

Is there an easier way to remember this ?

This formula looks very interesting and I've certainly never seen it before. Surprisingly, it does work with many of verbs that I've just tried. But I have a few questions/comments.

1. When you say 'te form', do you include the 'de form'? Let us take the verb 'nugu' (to take off clothes) for example. According to this formula, you will have 'nuite'. In reality, however, we the native speakers of Japanese never says 'nuite'. We will all say 'nuide'. The same goes with verbs like 'yomu = to read', 'shinu = to die', 'kogu = to row a boat', etc... We say 'yonde', 'shinde', 'koide', etc.

2. The formula talks about upper case and lower case, but when would you ever expect to see an upper case letter in the middle of a Japanese verb written in romaji?

3. Suppose one comes up with a perfect formula (and I'm actually starting to feel that it may be possible with only a few exceptional verbs. ), could the Japanese learner carry it in a corner of his brain and make the te and de forms before he verbalizes them? I highly doubt that one could do it because one has to conjugate verbs all the time as in any other language, let alone the te and de forms. I would suggest that you say all the conjugated forms out loud repeatedly every time you learn a new verb...so that verbs incorrectly conjugated will sound 'foreign' to your own ear.

[Shadowulf]

haha yeah, iv enever seen it before as well
in fact, i learnt -te/-de forms from speaking to a native japanese speaker so i dont excatly use a 'formula'

it just takes practise, both writing, reading, and even thinking (err at school sometimes i think in japanese and then i speak in english o_O" weird..)
writing out sentences is the best way to practise them though imo
just write out sentences using verbs and sentence structures that uses the -te form and stuff
eventually you should reach the stage where you dont even think about "-te form" or "dictionary form" or stuff like that

[Sachiko]

Originally Posted by kuronekoaus

No it doesn't make sense. At least I didn't get it
A song I was taught to remember:
I chi ri -te
Mi ni bin -de
Ki -ite
Shi -shite

With a little tune...

OMG I WAS TAUGHT THE SAME SONG!!!
ahahahahaha
noice!!
it was to the song "oh ma darlin" or sumthin

[LearnAmazingJapanese]

When I first started studying Japanese (1986...probably before most of you were born), my teacher taught us this song:

To the tune of Silver Bells (the first verse, not the chorus):

U tsu ru tte
Bu mu nu nde
Ku ite, su shite
Gu ide are the te and ta bases

U tsu ru tta
Bu mu nu nda
Ku ita, su shita
Gu ida are the te and ta bases

So...the te and ta forms for verbs ending in u, tsu, ru = tte/ tta
verbs ending in bu, mu, nu = nde/ nda
verbs ending in gu = ide/ ida

Man, I'm old.

Sore ja.

[mutiny1190]

i was taught:
minasan wo
minasan wo
te form oboemasho
u tsu ru tte
bu mu nu nde
ku ite gu ide
su shite

thers a little tune, but it works.

[WanderingWarrior]

Originally Posted by masaegu

This formula looks very interesting and I've certainly never seen it before. Surprisingly, it does work with many of verbs that I've just tried. But I have a few questions/comments.

1. When you say 'te form', do you include the 'de form'? Let us take the verb 'nugu' (to take off clothes) for example. According to this formula, you will have 'nuite'. In reality, however, we the native speakers of Japanese never says 'nuite'. We will all say 'nuide'. The same goes with verbs like 'yomu = to read', 'shinu = to die', 'kogu = to row a boat', etc... We say 'yonde', 'shinde', 'koide', etc.

2. The formula talks about upper case and lower case, but when would you ever expect to see an upper case letter in the middle of a Japanese verb written in romaji?

3. Suppose one comes up with a perfect formula (and I'm actually starting to feel that it may be possible with only a few exceptional verbs. ), could the Japanese learner carry it in a corner of his brain and make the te and de forms before he verbalizes them? I highly doubt that one could do it because one has to conjugate verbs all the time as in any other language, let alone the te and de forms. I would suggest that you say all the conjugated forms out loud repeatedly every time you learn a new verb...so that verbs incorrectly conjugated will sound 'foreign' to your own ear.

Well hopefully this will make sense to someone. The way i was taught to put verbs into the "te" form goes like this. When the verb is in the dictionary/original form and ends in "mu" (Ex. noMU - To drink, suMU - To dwell, kuMU - To scoop) the "te" form becomes "nde"
Example Nonde, Sunde, kunde.
These verbs are conjugated 'irregularly' compared to Taberu -To Eat, Neru - To sleep, Okiru - To wake which all end in "ru" in there dictionary/original form. These verbs when put into the "te" form are Tabete, Nete, Okite
Hopefully that clears things up for you, and any native speakers please correct me if I'm wrong

[enyafriend]

Hey, I find this thread very interesting, don't you agree?

We have seen many Q & A threads all over, but this came to my mind. How about something interesting that we had learnt from somewhere before. It could be from a book or from a friend or your Japanese teacher. Please feel free to contribute to this thread. It can be like:
- a unique way to remember hiragana/katagana
- a grammer form that rhymes away
- a learning tip that goes like a song
- etc.

If I know how to move all this to a new thread under a new name, I would. I'd probably call it JAPANESE LEARNING TIPS or something like that.

[8May1993]

Originally Posted by DietWeebs

My teacher taught me this.. Ku i Gu i Su shi Mu n Bu n (etc i forget)

but that an action verb ending the uppercase letters (Ku, Gu, Su, Mu, Bu,) are all dropped when making a TE form and the lower case letters (i, i, shi, n, n,) are added at the end along with TE to make a TE form... does that make sense ?

Is there an easier way to remember this ?

if you know plain form (dictionary form) there is an easy way to remember te form.

く = いて
ぐ = いで
うつる = って
ぬむぶ = んで
す = して

just change one of those (last sounds of plain form verbs) to the te form they correspond with.
for example:

買います　－　買う　－　買って　（うつるって)