In this skill
There’s nothing new here — that’s the point. Every sentence below is built from pieces you already own: the four verb shapes (-masu, -masen, -mashita, -masen deshita), the -tai and -mashou endings, and the adjectives and nouns from the lessons.
What the lessons couldn’t give you — because a travel scene calls for -masu far more than -masen deshita, and because “the bus is slow” rarely fits a restaurant — is even exposure to all of it. Some shapes and words end up drilled a hundred times; others, once. This skill is the mixer: it recombines your owned pieces into fresh, useful sentences and drills them by ear, so the rare shapes (didn’t, want to, let’s) and the quieter words land as fast as the everyday ones.
Every card is a real sentence you might say or hear — nothing invented, no new grammar. And each one is spoken by a different voice — thirty in all — because in the field the words arrive in every timbre, and your ear shouldn’t depend on recognizing a narrator.
As always: tap, listen first, work out the meaning, then check yourself. Tap again as often as you like.
The drill: what didn’t happen (-masen deshita)
The negative past — the rarest shape, and the one the lessons could barely fit in. The no-form plus deshita: didn’t.
Kippu wa arimasen deshita.
Sumimasen. Wakarimasen deshita.
Sakana o tabemasen deshita.
Ocha o nomimasen deshita.
Takai desu. Dakara, kaimasen deshita.
Yoyaku ga dekimasen deshita.
The drill: what I want (-tai)
I want to ___ — first person, on more verbs than the lessons had room to show.
Ocha ga nomitai desu.
Kippu ga kaitai desu.
Hoteru ni kaeritai desu.
Kudamono ga tabetai desu.
Densha ni noritai desu.
The drill: let’s (-mashou)
The acceptance / proposal shape, spread past ikimashou.
Ocha o nomimashou.
Kudamono o kaimashou.
Menyuu o mimashou.
Basu wa osoi desu. Dakara, takushii de ikimashou.
Chikatetsu de kaerimashou.
The drill: sizing things up (the quiet adjectives)
The antonym pairs the lessons taught once and moved on from — fast, slow, long, short, near, small, few, and the rest — back on their feet.
Kono densha wa hayai desu.
Yoru wa nagai desu ne.
Konbini wa chikai desu.
Kono kaban wa chiisai desu. Are wa ookii desu.
Kyou wa hito ga sukunai desu.
Kyou wa hito ga ooi desu ne.
Mizu ga tsumetai desu. Oishii desu.
Koko wa abunai desu.
Nihongo wa muzukashii desu ne.
Kore wa totemo kantan desu.
Ano mise wa atarashii desu.
Yasumi wa mijikai desu.
The drill: every verb, in the past
The quieter verbs — pay, look-for, stay, call, use, show, wait, ride — most of which the lessons only ever showed in -masu. Here they take the past.
Konbini de haraimashita.
Kagi o sagashimashita. Demo, arimasen deshita.
Kono hoteru ni tomarimashita.
Takushii o yobimashita.
Kaado o tsukaimashita.
Densha ni norimashita.
Pasupooto o misemashita.
Basu o machimashita.
The point isn’t these exact sentences — it’s the shapes. Once didn’t, want to, and let’s land as fast as -masu, you can build any of them on any verb you own, the instant you need it.