Welcome to Lesson 6!
Get ready to unlock a fundamental key to Japanese conversation: the verb te-form (〜て形)! Mastering the te-form will dramatically expand what you can express, allowing you to make requests, ask for permission, describe ongoing situations, and much more.
In Lesson 6 at gokigen japanese blog, the main goal is to enable you to understand and effectively use expressions for requests, permission, prohibition, ongoing actions/states, and connecting multiple actions using the verb te-form.
Key grammar patterns and uses of the te-form covered in this lesson include:
- Requests: Learn how to ask someone to do something politely using V-て + ください (kudasai), meaning “Please do ~”.
- Connecting Actions: Discover how to link multiple verbs together using V1-て, V2 to describe a sequence of actions (“Do V1 and then V2”) or list activities (“Doing V1 and V2”).
- Permission: Learn how to say that it’s okay to do something or give permission using V-て + もいいです (mo ii desu).
- Prohibition: Understand how to state that something is not allowed or that you “must not do ~” using V-て + はいけません (wa ikemasen).
- Ongoing Actions & States: Master one of the most versatile uses: V-て + います (imasu). This form is used to describe actions happening right now (ongoing action, like “eating”) or states resulting from a past action (ongoing result, like “married” or “have a dictionary”).
By the end of Lesson 6, you’ll be able to make practical requests (“Please wait”), describe sequences of events (“I went to the store and bought a book”), ask for permission (“Can I sit here?”), state rules (“You must not smoke”), and talk about what people are doing or their current state. The te-form is incredibly powerful!
Click on the articles linked below to master the verb te-form and transform your Japanese communication skills!
