In Japanese, both です (desu) and ます (masu) are commonly used to indicate politeness and formality in speech. However, their usage and functions are different.

  • ます is a (polite) verb ending. The verb to eat (食べる) for example can be conjugated to 食べます, which can be used in polite speech.

🟣 For example:

食べる (taberu) - to eat

食べます (tabemasu) - (polite) to eat

In this example, 食べます (tabemasu) is the polite form of the verb 食べる (taberu). It is used to show politeness or respect to the listener or the person being spoken about.

  • です is a state of being, also to be used in polite conversations, and can be roughly translated as a conjugated "to be". 

Example:

私は学生です。(Watashi wa gakusei desu) - I am a student.

In this sentence, です (desu) is used to connect the subject (私 - watashi) and the predicate (学生 - gakusei) to indicate that the subject is in the state of being a student.

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