Among friends, family, and anyone you're close to, Japanese speakers rarely tack ください onto a request. They just say the te-form and stop: 待って！ ("wait!"), 見て ("look!"), 手伝って ("give me a hand"). The bare te-form is the everyday casual "please." This page covers that bare request and its warmer cousin 〜てちょうだい, and — crucially — shows that they aren't a rude break from politeness but the casual end of one continuous scale.
The bare te-form as a request
Drop ください from 〜てください and you're left with a bare te-form doing the asking on its own. Why does that work? The te-form is an open connector — grammatically it leaves the sentence hanging, as if more were coming ("do X and…"). That unfinished, trailing quality is exactly what makes it feel like a soft nudge rather than a blunt command. The "…please give me the favor" is simply understood and left unsaid.
ちょっと待って、今行くから。
chotto matte, ima iku kara
Hang on a sec — I'm coming.
ねえ、これ見て！すごくない？
nē, kore mite! sugoku nai?
Hey, look at this! Isn't it amazing?
悪いけど、ちょっと手伝って。
warui kedo, chotto tetsudatte
Sorry, but give me a hand for a sec.
Adding ね at the end warms it further, turning a request into a shared, gentle note — the casual equivalent of the softening ね you'd add to ください.
また連絡してね。
mata renraku shite ne
Get in touch again, okay?
〜てちょうだい — soft, homey, coaxing
〜てちょうだい sits just a notch above the bare te-form. ちょうだい (頂戴) originally means "to receive humbly," and as a request it's a casual, domestic counterpart of ください — think of the coaxing tone a parent uses with a child, or the homey way you'd ask someone in the family to pass something. It is softer and more affectionate than a bald command, but distinctly informal and warm, never formal.
ほら、早く食べてちょうだい。冷めちゃうよ。
hora, hayaku tabete chōdai. samechau yo
Come on, hurry up and eat. It's going to get cold.
ねえ、その塩を取ってちょうだい。
nē, sono shio o totte chōdai
Hey, pass me that salt, would you?
ちょっとこれ持ってちょうだい。
chotto kore motte chōdai
Hold this for me a moment, would you?
Two register facts to carry with you. First, ちょうだい leans feminine and/or child-directed — it's strongly associated with mothers, grandmothers, and how adults speak to small children; an adult man asking another adult man 取ってちょうだい would sound noticeably soft or old-fashioned (informal; feminine / child-directed lean). Second, ちょうだい also works straight after a noun to mean "gimme," which is worth recognizing:
ママ、お水ちょうだい。
mama, o-mizu chōdai
Mommy, can I have some water?
The one continuous ladder
The key insight is that casual requests are not a separate "rude" category off to the side. Bare 〜て, 〜てちょうだい, 〜てください, and 〜ていただけますか are four rungs of a single politeness ladder, from intimate to formal. You pick your rung by your relationship to the listener, not by whether you're "being polite" at all — the bare te-form is fully polite among intimates.
| Form | Rung | Who you'd use it with |
|---|---|---|
| 待って | intimate / casual | close friends, family, kids |
| 待ってちょうだい | casual, soft/homey | family, children (feminine lean) |
| 待ってください | neutral-polite, directive | strangers, colleagues, students |
| 待っていただけますか | formal, deferential | superiors, clients, customers |
静かにして。赤ちゃんが寝てるから。
shizuka ni shite. akachan ga neteru kara
Keep it down — the baby's sleeping. (to family)
ちょっと来て、これ見せたいの。
chotto kite, kore misetai no
Come here a sec, I want to show you this.
The English-speaker error is to grab a bare 待って for a stranger because it feels shorter and easier. Aimed at someone you don't know or should defer to, it lands as too blunt and too familiar — like clapping a stranger on the shoulder. The words aren't rude; the rung is wrong for the relationship.
The casual negative: 〜ないで
The negative of a casual request drops ください the same way 〜ないでください does, leaving a bare 〜ないで — "don't." It sits at the same intimate rung as the bare positive te-form.
まだ食べないで。写真撮るから！
mada tabenaide. shashin toru kara!
Don't eat yet — I'm taking a photo!
Common mistakes
❌ （初対面の人に）すみません、写真撮って。
(shotaimen no hito ni) sumimasen, shashin totte
Too casual — a bare て to a stranger is blunt and overfamiliar.
✅ すみません、写真を撮ってください。
sumimasen, shashin o totte kudasai
Excuse me, could you take a photo, please?
❌ （上司に）ちょっと待ってちょうだい。
(jōshi ni) chotto matte chōdai
Wrong register — ちょうだい's homey, coaxing tone doesn't fit a superior.
✅ 少々お待ちください。
shōshō o-machi kudasai
One moment, please. (appropriately formal)
❌ その本を取ってをちょうだい。
sono hon o totte o chōdai
Incorrect — no particle comes between the te-form and ちょうだい.
✅ その本を取ってちょうだい。
sono hon o totte chōdai
Pass me that book, would you?
❌ 見せるちょうだい。
miseru chōdai
Incorrect — ちょうだい takes the te-form (見せて), not the dictionary form.
✅ 見せてちょうだい。
misete chōdai
Let me see, would you?
Key takeaways
- The bare te-form (待って, 見て, 手伝って) is the everyday casual "please" among intimates — its politeness is carried by the open connector and by intonation.
- 〜てちょうだい is a soft, homey request, one notch up from bare て; it leans feminine and child-directed (informal) and also follows nouns (お水ちょうだい).
- These are the casual end of a single ladder — 〜て ＜ てちょうだい ＜ てください ＜ ていただけますか — not a separate "rude" category.
- Choose your rung by your relationship to the listener; a bare て to a stranger is too blunt.
- The casual negative is bare 〜ないで ("don't"), matching the same intimate rung.
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Start learning Japanese→Related Topics
- 〜てください: Polite Requests & InstructionsN4 — How to ask someone to do something with te-form + ください — the standard polite request and instruction — plus why it directs rather than defers, and the keigo forms that outrank it.
- 〜ないでください: Negative RequestsN4 — The negative counterpart of てください — built on the ないで negative te-form — for asking someone please not to do something, plus its casual drop 〜ないで and the firmer 〜てはいけない.
- Casual Plain Speech: Features & FeelN4 — Casual Japanese (タメ口) is not polite Japanese with the ます chopped off — it is its own system of omission, contraction, and particle color, and speaking it well is an active skill that signals closeness.
- The て-form: Japanese's Universal ConnectorN4 — Why the tenseless, politeness-free て-form is the single most productive conjugation in Japanese — the hinge that feeds requests, progressives, sequence, permission, and dozens more constructions.