So I ran across a verb conjugation form I haven't seen yet, on 2ch.

I was checking the details on an earthquake that I had felt last night in the Kansai region and noticed a reply that someone had put up.
"起きてた。ビクリした。” I understand what was being said but wonder if 起きてた is slang or not. The meaning should be "It woke [me] up." with an emphasis on the fact that the quake "forced him" (imperative form) to wake up. Can you actually conjugate this way sort of like 食べてた, 掃除してた、etc.

Thanks
-Vix

起きていた ＝ おきてた。

食べている ＝ 食べてる。

Colloquially the い is dropped.

Either that or...


What!?

The meaning is "I was awake", not "It woke me up", otherwise it would be causative form. Imperative form is a command, as in "Wake up (you lazy ass)!", which is not the form it is, or the form it would be if it meant what you thought it meant...

Plain Past Continuative = 起きていた (Was awake)
Imperative = 起きろ (Wake up!)
Plain Past Causative = 起こされた (I was woken up)
Plain Past Causative Continuative = 起こされていた (I was being woken up)

vix86 Wrote:I understand what was being said but ...

No, you don't. Guessing from context is fine, but be careful as it's very easy to guess wrong. Don't assume you understand or you'll draw the wrong conclusions.

Ah okay, that makes sense.

I'm pretty sure I've read that you can use the -て form for informal commands as well, ie: 母:「 食べて！」 教師：「書いて！」

Thanks

Codexus Wrote:

vix86 Wrote:I understand what was being said but ...

No, you don't. Guessing from context is fine, but be careful as it's very easy to guess wrong. Don't assume you understand or you'll draw the wrong conclusions.

That's true and important to keep in mind when making important decisions on stuff based on something you hear or read, but there's still point where you are going to have to say to your self "I think I understand this" if you walk around all the time being like "I probably don't understand this" then you'll never gain anything. Not only that its a bad attitude to have when it concerns language learning I think. Kind of like if you are reading a book and are always like "I probably don't understand this correctly" so you are always constantly looking up words, and even then, you may still be misinterpreting the entire sentence's structure. As a result you may never finish the book.

Regardless, for what the actual meaning was, I wasn't far off. I knew the person was awake to some extent and surprised, it just happened to be that he wasn't awoken from sleep.

There's a continuum from "I totally understand this" through "I think I understand this" and "I kind of get what this is about" down towards "I guess this is this but I'm really not sure" and right down "I have no clue at all". IMHO it's worth doing lookups *occasionally* on the "I think I understand this" level stuff just as a cross-check.

(The real nasties are the ones where you don't even notice that you haven't understood something properly, of course )

Another difficulty is the fact that you can't always easily verify you understand something unless you have a native speaker. Most software translators won't be able to translate Japanese passages to English very well. They can _sometimes_ do small sentences but even then...

vix86 Wrote:Ah okay, that makes sense.

I'm pretty sure I've read that you can use the -て form for informal commands as well, ie: 母:「 食べて！」 教師：「書いて！」

That's true, but you cannot use these imperative forms to mean that something forced someone else to do something. That's a different conjugation. There's no way you could make a Japanese sentence using 起きて！ to mean "I was forced [by something/someone] to wake up."

Also I think the answer was implied but perhaps not outright stated -- ている -> てる is not slang, it's just a contraction that often occurs in speech. It's no more slang than "It's" in English.

-te as a command is just short for -てください and can only be used in the same situations.

Tobberoth Wrote:-te as a command is just short for -てください and can only be used in the same situations.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the same situations", but it could be short for てくれ as well.

Ben Bullock Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:-te as a command is just short for -てください and can only be used in the same situations.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the same situations", but it could be short for てくれ as well.

Yeah, kudasai being a keigo form of kureru. By same situations, I mean it has the same grammatical use. Like yudanteki said, you can't use it in some wierd passive way, just like you wouldn't be able to use -te kudasai in such a way.

Tobberoth Wrote:

Ben Bullock Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:-te as a command is just short for -てください and can only be used in the same situations.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the same situations", but it could be short for てくれ as well.

Yeah, kudasai being a keigo form of kureru. By same situations, I mean it has the same grammatical use. Like yudanteki said, you can't use it in some wierd passive way, just like you wouldn't be able to use -te kudasai in such a way.

in order of politeness
~て！

～なさい (don't really know where this goes but I'm guessing it goes down here, and of course depends on the relationship with the other person)
～てくれ？

～てくれる？

～てくれますか　

～てくれない？

～てくれませんか

～てください (depending on relationship with other person)

～ていただけますか (depending on relationship with other person)

～てくださいませんか (depending on relationship with other person)

～ていただけませんか(depending on relationship with other person


the differences between 下さる｛尊敬語｝　and　頂く　｛謙譲語｝depend on your social status and relationship to the other person. No one is 'more polite' than the other, it's just one that you use if you're in this position or that position. The same applies for the くれる　conjugations.


Edit: you could also do the conjugations for the raw verbs kudasanai and itadakenai but it doesn't really make sense to use any keigo verbs in their plain form. At least I think so anyway
　

liosama Wrote:~て！

～なさい (don't really know where this goes but I'm guessing it goes down here, and of course depends on the relationship with the other person)

I would reverse these; なさい sounds like a command from a superior, where as て can just be a casual request.　　ちょっとペンを貸して is fine, but ペンを貸しなさい sounds too rude even to a friend.

Quote:Edit: you could also do the conjugations for the raw verbs kudasanai and itadakenai but it doesn't really make sense to use any keigo verbs in their plain form. At least I think so anyway　

In this case you're right; things like くださらない？ are found in somewhat old-fashioned women's speech, but AFAIK even most women nowadays don't talk like that. The only place you're likely to see it "in the wild" is in fictional stuff.

(Now, of course keigo verbs can be used in plain form when you are (for instance) talking to a friend about a teacher/boss, or when the keigo verb is being used in a grammatical structure that usually takes plain form.)

Tobberoth Wrote:

Ben Bullock Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:-te as a command is just short for -てください and can only be used in the same situations.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the same situations", but it could be short for てくれ as well.

Yeah, kudasai being a keigo form of kureru.

Ok then.

Tobberoth Wrote:By same situations, I mean it has the same grammatical use.

Now I understand.

Tobberoth Wrote:Like yudanteki said, you can't use it in some wierd passive way, just like you wouldn't be able to use -te kudasai in such a way.

Ok, I understand you perfectly now. Thanks for making it clear.

yudantaiteki Wrote:ちょっとペンを貸して is fine, but ペンを貸しなさい sounds too rude even to a friend.

I must have some really rude friends then, since people often talk to me like that or even worse: 飲みな or something.

Ben Bullock Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:ちょっとペンを貸して is fine, but ペンを貸しなさい sounds too rude even to a friend.

I must have some really rude friends then, since people often talk to me like that or even worse: 飲みな or something.

Actually somehow 飲みな sounds less rude to me than 飲みなさい but I could be way off there.

Although yeah, I probably have a skewed idea of what's rude because most of my good Japanese friends are female. There's also a lot of difference in dialect.

(I still think that 貸して is less rude than 貸しなさい or 貸しな, but I perhaps should not say the latter is "too rude".)

yudantaiteki Wrote:

Ben Bullock Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:ちょっとペンを貸して is fine, but ペンを貸しなさい sounds too rude even to a friend.

I must have some really rude friends then, since people often talk to me like that or even worse: 飲みな or something.

Actually somehow 飲みな sounds less rude to me than 飲みなさい but I could be way off there.

Although yeah, I probably have a skewed idea of what's rude because most of my good Japanese friends are female. There's also a lot of difference in dialect.

(I still think that 貸して is less rude than 貸しなさい or 貸しな, but I perhaps should not say the latter is "too rude".)

Like you, my opinion is just based on my exposure and experience, but I have the same feeling. なさい is typical parent -> child, so it definitely feels like it puts down the one being spoken to, while -て just feels like a less polite/formal version of -てください. So for me, -te just lacks politeness while nasai includes a feeling of authority.

It's not rude, it's just a superior talking to an inferior. It is the westerner's lack of acceptance of higher and lower positions that translates that into "rude".

Jarvik7 Wrote:It's not rude, it's just a superior talking to an inferior.

If that's the context. If a friend says it to another friend, that's not superior to inferior.

Quote:It is the westerner's lack of acceptance of higher and lower positions that translates that into "rude".

I can guarantee you that if I went around telling my friends to do stuff with なさい, at least some of them would be offended or upset (assuming they didn't think I was joking).

It's assuming a position of superiority where none exists that creates offense, not the grammar itself. Similarly using keigo with someone who thinks that they are your friend is rude, but that hardly means that keigo itself is rude.

In the context, though, we were talking about using なさい with friends.

vix86 Wrote:there's still point where you are going to have to say to your self "I think I understand this"

I'm totally in favor of inferring meaning from context, but until you've seen a construct enough times to be sure what it means, it's a bit bold to go as far as saying:

Quote:I understand what was being said but wonder if 起きてた is slang or not. The meaning should be "It woke [me] up." with an emphasis on the fact that the quake "forced him" (imperative form) to wake up.