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Honorific conjugations

Albatrosspro

後輩
29 Jan 2015
20
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I'm trying to understand the following:

"Making requests for honorific actions
  • Conjugate the honorific verb to the special masu-conjugation and replace the last 「す」 with 「せ」
    Examples
    1. 下さ → 下さいま → 下さいませ
    2. いらっしゃ → いらっしゃいま → いらっしゃいませ
  • An abbreviated and less formal version of this is to simply remove the 「ます」 after conjugating to the special masu-form
    Examples
    1. 下さ → 下さいます → 下さい
    2. いらっしゃ → いらっしゃいます → いらっしゃい
Now you finally know where grammar such as 「しなさい」 and 「してください」 actually came from. Let's look at a few quick examples."

I understand してください, but I'm lost with しなさい. Can someone please walk me through where しなさい comes from?

For reference, the full page is Honorific and Humble Forms | Learn Japanese Near the bottom.
 
くれる → くださる (honorific) → ください
する → なさる (honorific) → なさい

That's where the "なさい" bit of しなさい、食べなさい etc. comes from, I guess is what he's trying to say (I presume the actual construction/use of the form is covered elsewhere).
 
Oh ok. I saw that なさい comes from なさる, I just wasn't sure what the grammatical link to する was to give you しなさい. I guess he is just giving the origin for なさい itself since we already know the stem + なさい conjugation.
 
し or ~し is often used to represent "the -masu stem of a verb" in Japanese grammar, as same as して/~して for "the -te form of a verb", as in the next example してください.
 
くれる → くださる (honorific) → ください
する → なさる (honorific) → なさい

That's where the "なさい" bit of しなさい、食べなさい etc. comes from, I guess is what he's trying to say (I presume the actual construction/use of the form is covered elsewhere).

Part of why I call the TKG an eduturd.
 
Is there a better free, online comprehensive guide? I found this one recommended and I saw that it had Anki decks for it (flash card system). For the amount of time I've been putting in, I think I'm making a lot of progress, but I'm open to suggestions.
 
Is there a better free, online comprehensive guide? I found this one recommended and I saw that it had Anki decks for it (flash card system). For the amount of time I've been putting in, I think I'm making a lot of progress, but I'm open to suggestions.

Crack your wallet open and buy a proper textbook would be my suggestion.
 
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