17. Polite Japanese and the volitional

Index

• ます (polite helper verb) is the polite helper verb.
• です (polite copula) is the polite copula.

ます

• ます is irregular in that its negative form is ません rather than the expected まさない.
• ます is a sentence-ender, it comes after everything else to make the sentence polite.
• お-stem is ましょう rather than the expected まそ (another irregularity).

ませんでした

• ません has no past-tense form.
• In order to make it into the past tense you must append the past-tense form of です (でした).
• ませんでした = did/was not (formal).
• This is an irregular aspect within Japanese and unique to ます/ません.

です

• です copula is added to the end of い-adjectives in polite speech.

The volitional