OT: Japanese +ACI-good+ACI-

Some people said:

> >> "Good" in Japanese is _ii_, pronounced as a doubly long "ee".
> >
> > Is there a difference between いい (ii) and 良い (yoi)?
>
>  From what I understand, いい is the standalone, ordinary form, reduced
>  from よい.  よ- is the standard stem formant in all other cases though (so
> the past tense is よかった, not いかった.)  I think よい may be used by
> itself as a more formal form than いい, but I'm not sure of that.
That's what we learned. The word was originally よい, but got shortened down
to いい for simplicity. However, when forming any other "tense", it turns to
よ-. In other words, as you said. However, I've heard things like いくない in
anime before, so I asked my sensei, and he noted that such combinations do
occur, but only among young children. I suspect it's similar to English
children saying "I goed to the store".

To correlate what you said, it was offhandedly mentioned that よい is the more
formal word, and, if I remember correctly, is used in writing more than
speaking (while you would never write いい, I think). But don't quote me
there. But Japanese does make a big difference between what's appropriate in
its written language and what's appropriate in its spoken language.

-Keith

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