Blog Entry #5
This week we learned a couple new grammars. We learned how to use ～んです。 which is used to give an explanation for something without saying "because." It is kind of tricky to use because it does not really translate to English. So an example conversation would be: Teacher:おそく来ました。You:バスが来なかったんです。Rather than say "I'm late because the bus didn't come" if you just say 「バスが来なかったんです。」it includes the meaning "that's why I was late." We also learned how to use the new grammar ほうがいいです。Which is pretty fun because you can use it to give suggestions. It means "it is better to do [something]. An example is if your friend says there's a test tomorrow, you could say 勉強したほうがいいです。Telling them they'd better study. The tricky part is you have to use short form past affirmative tense for affirmative and just present negative short form for negative. It feels a little weird. On Thursday tomita-sensei came in and evaluated the class.
We wrote sentences on the board and I'm glad my sentence turned out alright :). One of the things I'll have to work on this weekend to remember is the conjugation for  ほうがいいです。It is kind of confusing that it uses past tense to say it in the present.