Desu vs. Iru

[HeyItsBryan]

Hi all,

I'm kind of confused. To say "I'm tired," you say "sukarete iimasu." To be more casual, could you just say "sukarete iru"? Different question: why can't you say "sukarete desu"? And on a similar topic, why couldn't you say something like "samui iimasu" instead of "samui desu"?

Arigatou!

[Shaydwyrm]

First of all, it's つかれています(tsukarete imasu), with no long "i" sound. And yes, the casual form is つかれている(tsukarete iru), which is often contracted in spoken language to just つかれてる（tsukareteru).

As for your other question, the simple answer is that that's just the way it is. つかれてです　"tsukarete desu" is simply not grammatically correct, just like "I tired" or "I is tired" is not grammatically correct. つかれる　"tsukareru" is a verb, so it functions in a fundamentally different way than an adjective like さむい　"samui" or a noun.

You may be confusing the animate existence verb いる　"iru" with the auxiliary verb いる　"iru", which sound the same but are used in different places. つかれている　"tsukarete iru" is not saying "tiredness exists", but rather something along the lines of "the state of becoming tired continues". I'm bad at glossing things into English, but maybe you get the idea?

[markystar]

you could say 疲れたです (tsukareta desu) and it means i'm tired
hope this doesn't confuse the issue!

[Shaydwyrm]

Really? I was under the impression that if there is no の in between the two that it is grammatically incorrect to follow a verb directly with です.

[markystar]

lol

i was 超疲れた when i wrote that... not sure what was going thru my mind at the time, probably "must sleep before the sun comes up, must sleep before the sun comes up..."

you're absolutely right. it's absolutely ungrammatical to put です after a conjugated verb.

i love how i wrote "hope this doesn't confuse the issue" as a sort of disclaimer...

[Shaydwyrm]

That's a relief Actually I make that mistake all the time when speaking: I'll be talking to a coworker and realize - too late - that I should be using ます　form, so I just tack a です　on the end and hope that it's the thought that counts

[jemstone]

and usually that's the case isn't it? it's really the thought that counts.