Making Longer Sentences
“Our opinions become fixed at the point where we stop thinking.” – Renan
You can also use te-form to combine multiple shorter sentences into longer sentences. It’s sort of like the word “and” in English, though it doesn’t translate very well. Looking at examples is much easier.
aレストラン に 行って、すし を たべました。
I went to a restaurant and ate sushi.
aこうえん に あるいて、フレディーさん に 出会った。
I walked in the park and ran into Freddy.
aえいが を 見て、いえ に かえりました。
I watched a movie and returned home.
There’s a couple of important things to notice about this. First, it’s the very last verb that decides what tense the whole sentence is in. Te-form by itself doesn’t have a tense. So, レストランに行って (go to the restaurant) only becomes “I went to the restaurant” because the second half (すしをたべました) is past tense.
Also, the last part dictates how formal (or informal) the sentence is. The first sentence ends with たべました, so you know it’s a neutral/formal level sentence. The second one ends with past tense dictionary form, so you know it’s casual.
With all of these, the te-form verb just stays the same – it doesn’t decide either of those things, it’s just along for the ride.
Anyways – so far you know that te-form can be used to tell people what to do and combine smaller sentences into bigger ones. Now we have to look at te-form in negative tense.