Asking permission and understanding rules in Japanese

Level A2

Asking permission and understanding rules in Japanese

You walk into a library with a water bottle and a snack in your bag: what's allowed, and what isn't? In this lesson you ask, understand the answer and compare what's allowed with what's forbidden in the same place. Both patterns grow out of the て form, so you already have half of what you need.

Quick review: the て form

Everything here starts from the て form, the one in 飲んでください and 行って、それから…. Read these five verbs aloud before moving on (you’ll hear them in the next sections): 飲む becomes 飲んで with で, and 行く is the odd one out, 行って, where a verb like 働く gives 働いて. Two forms are new here: 来て, read きて, and 働いて.

Dictionaryます formて form
飲(の)む飲みます（のみます）飲んで（のんで）
食(た)べる食べます（たべます）食べて（たべて）
行(い)く行きます（いきます）行って（いって）
来(く)る来ます（きます）来て（きて）
働く（はたらく）働きます（はたらきます）働いて（はたらいて）

Model: at a library

Listen once without reading. The visitor asks about two actions and gets two different answers, and nobody says “I” or “you”: the situation makes it clear who is asking.

Asking and allowing: 〜てもいいです(か)

Add もいいです to the て form to say something is allowed, and か to ask for it: 飲んでもいいですか. English “can” does two jobs, ability and permission, but てもいい does only the second, so never use it for “I can swim”. It’s also closer to “Is it OK if…?” than to “Can you…?”: it asks about your own action, not a favor from someone else. The place of the action keeps で, as in 家で働きます. Swap the verb or the place, and the ending stays the same.

〜て／〜でもいいです（か）

Understanding a prohibition: 〜てはいけません

Same て form, different ending: はいけません, with は read “wa”. 食べてはいけません states what a rule doesn’t let you do. English “you can’t eat here” is casual enough for anyone to say; いけません sounds more like “you must not”, the voice of a teacher, a member of staff or a notice. So use it to state a place’s rule, as the staff member does in the model, not to scold a colleague.

〜て／〜ではいけません

Two endings, one place

Compare ここで飲んでもいいです。でも、食べてはいけません。: もいいです allows, はいけません forbids, and でも joins the two rules. In 水は and コーヒーは, the topic particle replaces を to set two items side by side, much as English stress does in “WATER’s fine, COFFEE isn’t”. Don’t mix this up with ここで食べません, which only reports that you don’t eat here: there’s no rule in it.

For recognition: だめです and softer answers

These are for recognizing, not for using yet. だめです is a short, blunt “not allowed”, heard in speech and seen on notices: ご飯はだめです, ここで食べてはだめです. When people want to refuse gently, they often just let the sentence trail off, as with a declined invitation: すみません、ちょっと….

Your turn, and a summary

Picture a station waiting room where drinks are fine but meals aren’t. Cover the lines below, ask whether you can have a coffee there, then answer as the staff would, and only then check. If your answer uses another verb or another place, even better. In short: て form + もいいですか asks, + もいいです allows and + はいけません forbids.

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