Most Japanese Language Center teaches their student on the “polite form” such as “masu”, “desu”, etc. But even though they can master the “polite form”, they may not be able to understand what the Japanese is communicating because they are using an “inpolite form” or “friends-talk”.

Japanese uses different way of conversation depending on who they are talking to. If they are talking to a person who they respect such as bosses, senior, new friends, etc, they would use the “polite form” like “wakarimasu“, “shimasu“, “kakimasu“. If they are talking with close friends, family members, subordinates or someone who should respect them, then the words they use will be totally different like “wakaru”, “suru” and “kaku”. See, the “masu” is gone now !!!

Example
English : Is this your pen?
Polite : Kore wa anata no enpitsu desu ka?
Normal : Kore, kimi no enpitsu?

English : Yes, this is mine
Polite : Hai, kore wa watashi no desu.
Normal : Un, boku no da yo

English : No, This isn’t mine
Polite : Iie, kore wa watashi no dewa arimasen.
Normal : Uun, boku no janai

The above examples shown almost each words are different between “polite form” and “normal form”. The meaning of them are :

Polite Form => Normal Form
Watashi => Boku (For Male only & Moderate Polite), Watashi (For Female) and Ore (For Male only & normal form)

Anata => Kimi (For Male only & Moderate Polite), Anata (For Female) Omai (For Male only & normal form)

Hai => Un
Iie => Uun
dewa arimasen => janai
desu => da
arimasen => nai
deshita => datta

Form others word such as verbs where we use convert from normal to “masu” such as tsutsumimasu, wakarimasu, kakimasu and so on that I have covered previously. For non-polite way, we don’t need to convert it to “masu form” and we use tsutsumu, wakaru, kaku and so on.

Remember, for female, dont ever use “boku” and “ore” as they are use by male only.

Conversation
Q : This belongs to who? – Kore wa dare no?
A : It’s not mine. Maybe it’s belongs to Tony – Boku no janai yo. Tabun, Toni no da yo.
Q : Oh, is it – Aa, sou.

Some sentences shown above have a “yo” at the end and this is only some sort of expression like what I have teached earlier for “ne”. “Boku no da” and “Boku no da yo” are the same meaning but most of the time the Japanese will add a “yo” behind to show deeper expression on the sentence.

Hope it is not too confuse. Go back to all previous lessons and try to convert them to “Inpolite” or “Normal Form” yourself. This way, you will be able to master this very quickly.