I absolutely love japanese, but I cannot read or speak it. Anyways, I hear it a lot and I was wondering why so many sentences end with the sound ‘mass’ at the end (‘a’ as in car). I hope this subreddit is the right place to ask.
Thank you!
**edit:** Thanks for all the clarifications, really kind. I do however not understand why my post is getting downvoted, as the comments and explanations are getting upvoted – this means that some users may also have learned something and find the questions and answers interesting.
3 comments
It’s actually spelt -masu (pronounced as mass) and is a type of verb ending.
ます at the end of a verb is the polite form of it, so when you politely conjugate a verb like 食べる (taberu, to eat) to say I/You/He/she/etc. eats, you make it 食べます (tabemasu, pronounced ta-bey-mass).
Like in this sentence: りんごを食べます (Ringo wo tabemasu, I eat apples).
/u/SanbonJime is right on.
More common things to listen out for, -desu and -ka. Desu can mean “I am” or “it is.” Not as formal as -masu. Ka at the end makes it into a question. So to use the previous example:
> りんごを食べます (Ringo wo tabemasu, I eat apples)
Can be changed to
> りんごを食べますか (Ringo wo tabemasuka, Do you eat apples?)
The answer might be a simple yes, but they might just reply with the same sentence removing -ka at the end.
You could use an explanation mark instead and say “りんごを食べます? Ringo wo tabemasu?”, but it’s not as proper.
Lastly, you can combine -desu/-masu with -ka, to form -desuka/-masuka, to mean “is that so” or “do you/would you like to,” respectively. You’ll hear these quite a bit.
japanese christians are a small but vocal minority in japan