ていねい↔カジュアル
Switch between polite and casual — same meaning, different audience.
ねえ、あした ひま？
“Hey, are you free tomorrow?”
いつ どっち？
Same idea, two registers. Pick the right one for who you're talking to. Most of this course is in polite — safe in almost every situation. Casual is for people you're close to.
- • せんせい (teachers)
- • しごと (work)
- • しらない ひと (strangers)
- • 年上 (older people)
- • ともだち (friends)
- • かぞく (family)
- • 年下 (younger people)
- • ペット (pets! 🐱)
When in doubt → polite. It's never rude. Casual sounds friendly to friends but presumptuous to strangers.
へんかんの コツ
You already know most of the moves from Units 26–28. There's just one new rule for casual questions.
Use the plain forms you learned in Units 26–28. です・ます become だ・る etc.
The polite「…か」 just disappears — say the plain form with a rising tone (or「？」 in writing).
For な-adjective / noun questions in casual: drop the か AND drop the だ. 「ひまだ？」 is unnatural — use 「ひま？」.
へんかんクイズ
Read the sentence (the polite original is shown in the English line as a hint) and pick the matching casual form. Watch out for the last two — those are questions.
Question 1 / 8 · 0 correct