27 However, generally speaking, polite style is not used in written language such as thesis, reports, and newspaper articles. Such style is called "plain style" instead of casual style. The antonym for polite style is plain style in written language or when talking of both written and spoken language. When talking about individual forms instead of style, they are called "plain form" and "polite form". For example, "iku (go)" is the plain form, "ikimasu (go)" is the polite form for the present tense affirmative. To make it past tense affirmative, the plain form is "itta (went)", and the polite form is "ikimashita (went)". As I have already explained, the verb is followed by various elements such as negative, potential, causative etc., and they all have plain forms and polite forms. "That is a lot to learn! But it seems that it is safe to use the polite form all of the time. Then I will only learn polite form and skip plain form." Is this what you thought? Unfortunately, you need to learn plain form also. Although plain and polite is a matter of the style at the end of a sentence, in certain positions in a sentence plain form must be used because of grammatical / contextual requirements, no matter how politely one is talking. For example in the sentence "Ashita iku resutoran (the restaurant where I go tomorrow)", the plain form must be used in modifying the clause. (Please learn more about this in class). As you can see, you need to learn both plain form and polite form. It may sound tough, but you can learn them step by step as part of the verb inflections I mentioned in the last text. Plain form is shorter than polite form, so in some textbooks they are called short form and long form. Some people ask "Is plain form impolite?" because it is used as an antonym of polite form, but I think you already know the answer from reading this text that it is not so. Plain form used in modifying a clause is not impolite. Even if it is used at the end of a sentence, plain style in the written language such as for thesis, reports and articles is also not impolite. Moreover, even in spoken language, it is not impolite to use plain (casual) style in informal conversation with your intimate friends. Plain style is not impolite, it is impolite only when you use plain (casual) style at the end of sentences to someone with whom you should be speaking in polite style.
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