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Nov 4, 2023 · The Significance of Name + Desu. In Japanese culture, it‘s respectful to say your surname + desu when stating your name. Some examples: Watashi wa Tanaka desu. Boku wa Yamada desu. This politely translates as "As for me, I am Tanaka" or "As for me, I am Yamada." The desu signals you are courteously identifying yourself.
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- Conceptualizing です and だ in Speech
- Nuances of だ in Spoken Japanese
- Nuances of です in Spoken Japanese
- Conceptualizing です and だ in Writing
- Traditional Writing Styles and Rules
- Genres with Consistent Style
- Genres with Mixed Writing Style
- だ Takeaway
We'll begin our learning journey by comparing how です and だ add meaning to a spoken statement in Japanese. This section will feel very abstract, so we'll use images to make the ideas we introduce clearer. To start, take a look at the image of だ below. As you can see, the speaker is surrounded by a bubble, which we will call "personal space." When a ...
When we make だ statements, we are stepping away from the need to perform in a socially calculated way, and instead we emphasize our personal thoughts and feelings. In other words, だ statements allow us to avoid considering our relative social status compared to our listeners' because the statement is conceptually staying inside our personal space. ...
Now that we've covered the ins and outs of だ, let's switch our focus back to です. To begin, let's summarize what we have learned so far. だ statements are directed at the speaker rather than the listener and serve to communicate self-expression. They are used to convey emotions, among other things. On the other hand, です is used to direct a statement ...
Now that you have been initiated into the secrets of だ and です, let's turn our attention to how they are used in different types of writing. Along the way, you will see how the general concepts of だ and です we've seen in speaking can also be applied to writing, albeit with sometimes differing effects. You will also get a feel for the differences betw...
Japanese writing can be divided into two major styles, often called です・ます style and だ・である style. The term です・ます style is simply another way to refer to the polite style with です that we have already looked at in the speaking section. This style follows the same broad concept that です represents in speaking. In other words, です shows engagement with so...
As we just learned above, a basic rule of Japanese writing is to stick with one style. So if you start with です・ます style, don't switch to だ style or である style halfway through your composition. In this section, we will walk you through a variety of genres that tend to uphold this rule. We're going to start with the formal end of written Japanese and ...
So far we've examined genres of writing that are stylistically consistent, but there are plenty of situations where writers can depart from convention and rules can be bent or broken. When's the last time a novel moved you to tears? Or made you feel excited, sad, or scared? Novelists have a whole host of tricks up their sleeves to make their writin...
Who would have thought that there is so much to learn about です and だ? While this article was long and winding, we hope you can see how the basic concepts of です as socially-oriented and だ as self-oriented have remained consistent throughout. The effect that these concepts have on communication can vary depending on context, but underneath it all, th...
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Jul 13, 2021 · Da (だ) is also a copula and acts the exact same way as “desu” most of the time. If you want to say “this is a pen” but using “da” instead, just replace the “desu” with “da”: “kore ha pen da” (これはペンだ). The message is conveyed across just the same. While “desu” is more formal, “da” is more informal ...
Feb 17, 2018 · But if writing or speaking in polite style ですます体 desu masu tai or 丁寧語 teineigo, sentences usually end in some form of です or ～ます. Don't forget that there are other forms of です and ～ます including past (でした、～ました), negatives ～ません, volitional (でしょう、～ましょう), etc.
May 2, 2021 · Indeed, as you mentioned, である can replace だ/です for formality; notably in literature. This much is true. …where it's used, in the middle of [a sentence], clearly [doesn't] allow for …desu/da to be inserted haphazardly. Correct, that's an important observation. In the famous book A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar, they ...
Oct 14, 2020 · Watashi wa ke-ki wo taberu. I eat cake. Kore wa pen da. This is a pen. If you da after a noun, or you use the dictionary form of a verb, you speak in what’s called jyotai, or direct style in Japanese. It is one of the most basic ways to speak or write, although it comes off a little bare bones or informal. 2.
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Jun 4, 2007 · da だ （ ）: This is the most informal version of "desu." It's short, easy to say, and used amongst people who know each other fairly well (friends). Just like every other version, it's used interchangeably with "desu," and is fairly common in speech. desu です （ ）: This is the most common form of "desu" (duh).
