Copula - です - to be (copula)
です is the Japanese version of 'to be' or 'is'. With this you can say something is something.
For example: 車は黄色です (the car is yellow).
です (pronounced as "des") is the most well-known of the Japanese copula. It may be used after nouns, i-adjectives and verbs in their plain form. In many cases, です serves no grammatical purpose, but is used only to make the statement more polite.
です is a contracted form of the polite Japanese copula でございます, and has its own peculiar forms of inflection, noted below.
Formation
| Form | Polite | Informal |
|---|---|---|
| Present | です | だ |
| Present negative | ではありません or じゃありません | じゃない |
| Past | でした | だった |
| Past negative | ではありませんでした or じゃありませんでした | じゃなかった |
| Probable | でしょう | だろう (rude) |
| Probable negative | ではないでしょう | じゃないだろう (rude) |
* The は in the negative forms are pronounced as "wa" and can be left out.
Additional notes
In spoken Japanese, です is the moderately polite form of the copula. In written Japanese, です is rather informal, owing to the fact that statements using です appear similar to spoken Japanese.
Sample sentences
-
猫です
It is a cat -
速い猫は好きです
I like the fast cat -
私は猫が好きです
I like cats -
彼は何才ですか。
How old is he? -
彼は天才だ
He is a genius. -
駅はどこですか
Where is the train station? -
車と猫は黒です
The car and the cat are black -
それは二百円です
That is two hundred yen -
往復旅行？片道だけです。
Round trip? Only one-way. -
これはいくらですか
How much is this?
