Sunday, April 10, 2011

Let's go.

This lesson is about the "let's" or "mashou" form of verbs. Recall that 'masu' is the polite present ending for verbs. Taking off the masu and replacing it with mashou changes it to "let's --", where the -- is replaced by whatever the verb means.

Examples:

masu formEnglishmashou formEnglish
tabemasuto eattabemashoulet's eat
nomimasuto drinknomimashoulet's drink
yomimasuto readyomimashoulet's read
kakimasuto writekakimashoulet's write
ikimasuto goikimashoulet's go
kaimasuto buykaimashoulet's buy
mimasuto watch/seemimashoulet's watch
kikimasuto listen/hearkikimashoulet's listen

Using the previous lessons and some vocabulary, you should now be able to say all of the following.

Examples:

Kouen ni ikimashou.
Eiga o mimashou.
Ongaku o kikimashou.
Tegami o kakimashou.
Hon o yomimashou.
Tabemashou.
Nomimashou.
Kuruma o kaimashou.
Nihongo o benkyou shimashou.


Let's go to the park.
Let's watch a movie.
Let's listen to music.
Let's write a letter.
Let's read a book.
Let's eat.
Let's drink.
Let's buy a car.
Let's study Japanese.
The mashou form is also a nice way to ask people if they want to do something with you. Just add the particle ka to the end of the sentence to make it "shall we~?".

Examples:
Kouen ni ikimashou ka.

Shall we go to the park?

Nihongo o benkyou shimashou ka.

Shall we study Japanese?

A more formal way to ask if someone will do something with you is to use the masen ka ending. This is more like asking "Won't you do this?"

Examples:

Zasshi o yomimasen ka.
Gakkou e ikimasen ka.



Won't you read a magazine?
Won't you go to school?

Vocabulary:

tabemasu
nomimasu
yomimasu
kakimasu
kikimasu
mimasu
kaimasu
benkyou shimasu
ikimasu

-masu
-mashou
-mashou ka
-masen ka

eiga
hon
kouen
kuruma
ongaku
tegami
nihongo
zasshi

to eat
to drink
to read
to write
to listen
to watch
to buy
to study
to go

present/future positive verb ending
"let's" verb ending
"shall we" verb ending
"won't you" verb ending

movie
book
park
car
music
letter
Japanese language
magazine

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