[ファブリス]

A random article I've found while looking up some grammar, it looks quite interesting.

If someone can comfortably read the whole thing feel free to post a quick summary (^_-)v

http://homepage3.nifty.com/taketoki/omou.html

...

In fact what I was looking up is the apparent presence of formal and informal endings in one phrase when you have something like:

....だと思います.

It's so frequent I thought there was a particle だと but no. So the first clause ends with だ but the sentence ends with the formal ます. In any case, it doesn't seem like ですと思います is valid, so I'll use だ for now...

I think I read on Tae Kim's guide that the only time when a polite masu form may be used in the middle of a sentence is when quoting someone's words.

Also my book "Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Comminication" shows example sentences with quotes that end in masu and desu.

ヘレンさんは「９時に来ます」と言いました。

佐伯さんは｢社長は今電話をかけています」と言った。

正子さんは「オペラはすばらしかったですね｣と言いました。

知らない人が私に｢今何時ですか」と聞きました。

By the way, this book may be a useful resource for anyone who does reviews by sentences. It has 142 essential sentence patterns with about 9 examples in each pattern. That's over 1200 sentences to start your collection with.

vosmiura Wrote:I think I read on Tae Kim's guide that the only time when a polite masu form may be used in the middle of a sentence is when quoting someone's words.

JimmySeal may have something to say about that. As a matter of fact, so do I.

There are plenty of cases where this 'rule' could be shown to hold. BUT just because it's true a lot of the time doesn't mean it's true ALL the time.

e.g.

明日東京に行きますので、今夜早くねます。

I've had a quick look at the article Fabrice posted. Seems to be some guy talking about foreigners not using forms of 思う in their essays correctly.

Yea, there are quite a few situations where -masu can appear in the middle of a sentence. Using the plain form before が (but) is quite blunt in polite spoken Japanese, while the plain form is ok before けど (though using -masu is by no means wrong).
People looking to be especially polite will use the -て form of -masu (-まして) to connect two parts of a sentence instead of using the plain -て form.


I only skimmed the article, but it looked like it said that you should use 思っている when conveying what a third party thinks, and usually 思う when talking about your own thoughts. On the other hand, it says, when you want to say "I'm thinking of ~~ing," you would usually use 思っている. Though I only read half of it and may have missed something. So don't take my word for it.

He deduces that language students use some kind of intermediate language in which they make up their own grammar rules (no surprise there). Then he goes on to explain the difference between 思っています and 思います, comparing them with the plain form (without 思う). You need to use 思っています when the subject of the sentence is not yourself (when you're expressing someone else's thoughts), but the rest of the article explores the use when the subject is 'I'.

He distinguishes between statements that express feelings and those that express facts. For feelings, the difference between the three forms is small, with the plain form being the most blunt, the 思っています form the most feeble, and 思います closer to the plain form.

For facts, there's a second distinction whether you're talking to someone in a superior position or not. If not, the 思います (compared to the plain form) form indicates uncertainty; if you are, you can't use the plain form as it would sound offensive, you have to use the 思います form to convey that you know it for a fact. In both cases, the 思っています form is weakest, and is to be used when you're quite uncertain about it, and that someone else might know better.

He ends with pointing out that 思っています is the continuous form of the verb, thus expressing something which is transient and might change in the future. The difference between "I think" and "I'm thinking", right? Who could ever get that wrong?

Errors and liberties taken in this translation are completely my fault. As if I'd care. (I think I don't. Well, actually, I'm thinking I don't. No, no, I'm thinking I think I do. I don't!)

JimmySeal Wrote:Yea, there are quite a few situations where -masu can appear in the middle of a sentence. Using the plain form before が (but) is quite blunt in polite spoken Japanese, while the plain form is ok before けど (though using -masu is by no means wrong).
People looking to be especially polite will use the -て form of -masu (-まして) to connect two parts of a sentence instead of using the plain -て form.

When speaking very politely (eg. in business), it's not uncommon to use the ます form in just about any grammar construct. It's not just the -て form.

eg. 東京に着いたら・・・　→　東京に着きましたら・・・
東京に行くと・・・　→　東京に行きますと・・・

I've been spoken to in this form by shop assistants and so forth. I think it's important to be careful though because can easily become overkill on the politeness scale.

From what my teacher taught me in my Japanese classes, だと思っている is the proper form when expressing what you or someone else thinks (kind of like だと言っている). The だ is there because the form that needs to precede the と思っている is the short from of the verb. In the case of ~です the short form is だ. That's why だ appears there. It's not a particle.

just wanted to point out that you don't use だ if it's an いー形容詞

i.e. 「怖いだと思います」is wrong,　whereas, 「怖いと思います」 is ok.
if it's ungrammatical w/out the 「と思います」」then it's ungrammatical with.

a japanese friend of mine called the unnecessary use of だ 「だ病」(だびょう) =)