Quote:
Originally Posted by LeoXiao
On the topic of the word "to say", how does the verb (言) work conjugation-wise? I've heard people say "imasu," "itta", "iwanai" and so on. It seems confusing, since I can't imagine where the "wa" would come from.
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Godan verbs that end in う go to わ instead of あ as you'd expect for the negative and such, and godan verbs ending in う、る、つ go to った in the past tense and って in the te-form. I think it's left over from classical Japanese or something (er, the わ thing, not the past tense thing). And if I'm not mistaken you'd be hearing いいます and not います, which is the formal of いる.