Lesson 68
Te Form + shimau
Shimau alone means "to finish" or "put away (something)," and it retains the same general meaning when combined with a verb in the Te Form, pointing towards the completion of a task. Since shimau is a standard verb, you can also conjugate it in a dozen different ways. A few examples are:
- Shukudai o shite shimaimashou. (Let's finish up our homework.)
- Choushoku o tabete shimaimashita. (I've finished eating breakfast.)
- Heya o souji shite shimau hou ga ii yo. (You should finish cleaning up your room.)
One other role that this Te Form + shimau plays is to express the doing of something which was hard to decide to do, doing something unexpected, or the happening of something unexpected:
- Kuruma o katte shimaimashita. (I bought a car.)
- Bob wa ude no hone o orete shimaimashita. (Bob broke his arm.) 1
- Kanojo wa Osaka ni itte shimaimashita. (She [up and] went to Osaka.)
And that's not all. Shimau is also used for expressing concern about the possibility of something negative happening and/or the dismay at finding out that something negative happened:
- Watashi no fuku ga yogorete shimau! (My clothes'll get dirty!)
- Ah! Fuku ga yogorete shimaimashita. (Oh, no! My clothes got dirty.)
- Densha ni noriokurete shimau yo! (We'll miss the train!)
- Ah! Kippu o nakushite shimaimashita! (Oh, no! I lost my ticket!)
Finally, I guess I'll mention that in everyday, familiar settings a "slang" form of shimau is often used. At first I decided to leave this point out because I felt that it would just complicate things, but then one of my readers mentioned it, which made me think it over again. And, since it is used a lot, I've decided to go ahead with it. It's "chau," and, borrowing two examples from above, it sounds like this:
- Densha ni noriokurechau yo! (We'll miss the train!)
- Ah! Kippu o nakuschaimashita! (Oh, no! I lost my ticket!)
Yes, this slang form takes the hite out of shite and really compresses things: shite + chau = schau. The others are: -te + chau = -tchau and -nde + chau = -njau. Again, I realize that this complicates things, which is why I advise not even thinking about it until you've been learning Japanese for a while and feel comfortable with the old standard shimau and its uses. You will hear these contracted forms quite often in daily conversation, however, so having this basic knowledge of them may be useful.
Also, I should mention that the last example above is a bit unnatural — grammatically fine (in a slangy kind of way), just unnatural — because you've got the slang with a polite masu ending. The way to make this natural would be to put it in the plain past Ta Form: nakuschatta! We'll be getting into the Ta Form soon.
Word Check
shimau: to put away; to finish
choushoku: breakfast
heya: a room
souji suru: to clean
kuruma: car
ude: arm
hone: bone 1
oreru: to break 1
fuku: clothes
yogoreru: to get dirty
densha: train
noriokureru: to miss (a mode of scheduled transportation. This is a compound from the verbs noru [to ride] and okureru [to be late].)
kippu: ticket (usually a small ticket for a train, bus, or ferry)
nakusu: to lose (something)
(Verbs are shown in their plain form.)
Notes
1. Here we must give English the nod for being smart. If you break a bone in Japanese, you have to include the word hone (bone) in the expression. You can't just say "I broke my arm"; you have to say "I broke my arm's bone."
|
