Te-Form And Verbs
“Be harsh with yourself at times.” – Seneca
Te-form can be used with nouns, adjectives, and verbs, but arguably the most useful of the three is the verbs portion. We’re going to learn about all three, but let’s start with verbs first.
I want you to think back to the last season, when you learned dictionary form. More specifically, I want you to think about た form. Do you remember how that worked (I hope so, you’re here, after all!). Let’s look at some examples really quickly.
行く → 行った
見る → 見た
入る → 入った
Really, if you can do た-form (past tense dictionary) you can do te-form as well. It’s nice and simple (as long as you have this prior knowledge, which you should).
行く → 行った → 行って
見る → 見た → 見て
入る → 入った → 入って
Essentially, you’re just changing the た to a て, and that’s all there is to it. You now know te-form (and it was super easy because you knew た form already). Why don’t you give it a try. Can you change these words to て form?
あそぶ
aあそんで
たべる
aたべて
ならう
aならって
出る
a出て
おきる
aおきて
When you’ve gone through those and understand how they all get converted to te-form, move on. If you had trouble, I’d recommend reviewing the ta-form section first, and then trying the conversions once more.