I have never seen it explained like that. Thank you. I am wondering if writing it without the い is confusing to students of Japanese.

No problem. You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours.

As for whether this confuses students of Japanese, I'm not sure. I did not get hung up on it. I asked a friend a few questions about something in a manga (my profs refused to help on the basis that they didn't want to encourage poor grammar (or maybe because I asked what クソばば meant ;))).

Still, I had had linguistics classes already, so I self-explained a ton of novel Japanese constructions by finding analogues in English. Not so I could remember the constructions more easily, but so my mind wouldn't nag me with "that makes no sense! that is illogical!"

But now that you mention it, I think maybe I've seen people thinking something like 食べてる is a dictionary form after having seen verbs like 育てる.

I imagine that it would be. I've never studied Japanese as a foreign language so you guys would know better.

I don't think a native speaker would say 鳴っているぞ～　in any natural situation in the first place. I wouldn't. This is because the "dictionary" form いる　and the "informal" sentence ender ぞ create an awkward imbalance between them.

鳴ってるぞ～ sounds much more natural and in Kanto, you will even hear the one-step more informal version 鳴ってんぞ～. I think it's a pretty universal linguistic tendency to want to say things quicker by having to utter fewer syllables.

鳴っているぞ～ = 5 syllables
鳴ってるぞ～ = 4 syllables
鳴ってんぞ～ = 3 syllables

I understand that is how it is being said, but my question would be, is that a proper way to write it?

Can't and don't are still correct English (even if not formal English) but I don't remember seeing this form in any textbook I have looked at.

In writing, no. That is unless you're talking about casual notes or letters between friends. Use 鳴ってる、住んでる、読んでる, etc. outside of a direct quote in a compo for school, and you will be corrected. Needless to say, you won't see it in the printed media, either.

Then I am thinking writing it correctly might be a better idea for what is being used as a video textbook.

I think if you're going to write ほ〜ら instead of ほら, then you should い-delete.

I guess it depends on the goal. If the video is to help improve listening, I say い-delete. If it's being used to teach grammar, I say do not い-delete.

Point well taken.

I would just hope the individuals taking these lessons know that the words are not being written properly.

That is something we can all agree on. :)

Hmm, interesting.. yeah the whole い being left out never bothered me except at when I first saw it with a verb whose dictionary form ended in つ because then it was hard to tell if it's the potential form or not. e.g. 待ってる ("I'm waiting") and 待てる ("I can wait") and at the time I couldn't remember if the potential form had a っ. Anywho, I've always thought of the contraction of the い sound similar to the colloquial loss of the final 'g' in english progressive forms, e.g 読んでいる-> 読んでる is similar to "I'm reading" -> I'm readin' ;)

I could maybe put in a parenthesis the omited い like what I did when the girl says 起立, she omits the つ so in the romaji subs I wrote "Kiri(tsu)" so I could do it like this; "鳴って (い)る" or do the parenthesis just make it more confusing? Haha. :D

Sorry for how slow I've been, my computer has been crapping out on me D: