Thread: "Arigato"?
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Old 04-25-2005, 09:36 AM   #11
Ian Upstone
Location: Sussex
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 80
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Re: "Arigato"?

There's about a billion people out there who know Japanese and English well enough to explain far better than I ever could, but AFAIK, 'mashita (pronounced without the i) is on the end of many 'formal' verbs etc, and indicates past tense, while 'masu (pronounced with almost a silent 'u') indicates present or future tense - so your description sounds pretty accurate to me!

e.g. torimasu - take, torimashita - took/taken.

Last edited by Ian Upstone : 04-25-2005 at 09:37 AM. Reason: spelling...
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