Plain and Polite Japanese: Forms, Tense, and Context

Politeness and tense are separate choices. 行く and 行きます are both non-past; 行った and 行きました are both past. Plain forms are also required inside many sentence patterns, even when the sentence ends politely.

Formation and use

Choose a sentence ending for your relationship and setting. A conversation with a new acquaintance commonly starts politely; a casual conversation between close friends may use plain endings. Plain does not mean inherently rude.

For verbs, the four plain forms are dictionary, ない, た, and なかった. The corresponding polite forms are ます, ません, ました, and ませんでした. Keep the meaning and time unchanged when converting.

Comparisons and common errors

Nouns and na-adjectives use だ in plain affirmative statements: 学生だ・静かだ. I-adjectives already end the predicate: 高い, not 高いだ. Polite 高いです is possible.

In 明日行くと思います, 行く is plain before と and 思います makes the ending polite. Do not mechanically make every verb in a sentence end in ます. Learn the attachment rule of each pattern.

Practise with explanations

Try the 10 questions below, or open the practice set. Check each answer or the whole set, read the explanation, and retry mistakes. First-attempt results are kept separately on this device.

Connected lessons

• Japanese Masu Form: Polite Present, Negative, and Past
• Japanese Nai Form: Verb Negatives and Exceptions
• To Omou: Express an Opinion or Prediction