Guides N4
L1 : No Need to Be So Formal
No Need to Be So Formal
In this Topic, we are going to learn about two structures we have seen before but in a new way, だが and ですが. Both of these can be translated as ‘but’ or ‘however’, in a similar way to けど or が, except this time we will be using them to start sentences, not end them.
After looking at the grammar points individually, we will examine a few other patterns of the Japanese language in relation to formality.
Grammaire dans ce Guide
だが・ですが
Mais, Pourtant, Cependant, Néanmoins
Bien que だが (ou sa version polie ですが) soient classés comme des mots à part entière, ils sont en réalité des combinaisons de だ (ou です) et が. だが est généralement utilisé comme une manière formelle de dire « mais » ou « cependant ». Ainsi, on peut voir que だ est utilisé pour « déterminer » qu'une affirmation est vraie, tandis que が indique simplement qu'il y a d'autres informations importantes à suivre. Cette construction peut être utilisée au début de n'importe quelle phrase, ou entre des phrases.
Attention
Utiliser ですが signifie automatiquement que le reste de la phrase doit également utiliser un langage poli.
Pour rendre だが un peu plus doux, on ajoute parfois ね. Cependant, cela n'est pas très courant dans le japonais moderne et est plus limité aux personnes plus âgées.
Le saviez-vous ?
En raison de l'utilisation de が dans だが et ですが (l'équivalent formel de けど), cette expression peut sembler assez rigide. Par conséquent, il est beaucoup plus courant d'utiliser でも au début d'une phrase informelle.
Détails
Just like けど, だが and ですが can either be used within a sentence to separate clauses, or at the beginning of a new sentence to indicate a contrastive statement. There are many such grammar patterns in Japanese, but how do we recognize formality and politeness?
In N5 Topics, we discussed how we can separate formality and politeness within Japanese. Often they overlap, but sometimes they don’t. For example, です and ます indicate politness, but vocabulary can indicate a familiar tone even when using polite language. Formality often comes down to word choice, with が ‘but’ being one example of a word that is very often used in formal speech. With this in mind, let’s consider how we can tell how polite and/or formal a sentence is.
Primarily, Japanese exhibits politeness or formality in these parts of a sentence:
The beginning of a sentence - This is usually done via conjunctions.
Between clauses - Again, this is frequently achieved with conjunctions.
Verb conjugations - Like ます, there are many other ways that verbs can be conjugated in order to show politeness.
Particles - Many particles are far more likely to appear in polite sentences than in casual ones.
Let’s look at a few examples of the ones we have seen so far.
As we go along and continue to learn more and more, you will notice that all grammar points are described as formal, standard, polite, and casual. Let’s keep these in mind, as it will help us recognize what type of sentence we are reading, and who is talking to who!