～まま・～っぱなし: Things left "as is"

Introduction

Welcome to the grammar lesson where we finally come to our senses and leave well enough alone. Welcome to the ～まま・～っぱなし extravaganza!

～まま: ... Just killed a man

構成こうせい

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  Noun(の)まま(に)

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  な-adjective(な)まま(に)

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  い-adjectiveまま(に)

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  た form verb/casual negative verbまま(に)

  Example:
  → テレビは点つけたままだった。
  ”The TV had been left on.”

First up, we have ～まま, which is a quick and easy way to say that an action continues through time. Usually, ～まま also indicates that the action is "unresolved" in some way. You'll see what I mean when we get to examples.

まま's favorite patterns

まま attaches to nouns and な-adjectives (as you might expect) with の・な, and directly to い-adjectives. For verbs though, we'll need to make sure we're using either their た-form