Giving Suggestions and Advice with ～た方がいい・～ない方がいい

Introduction

This time around, we'll be learning how to give suggestions and advice! In order to start telling people (politely) what they should do, we'll need the grammar structure 方ほうがいい, which is similar to "it's better to" or "you should" in English.

Alright, you’d better pay attention!

You Should Read This Lesson

Structure:

• 

  Past Casual Verb方ほうがいい
  Example:
  → 寝ねたほうがいいよ。
  ”You should sleep.”

• 

  Negative Casual Verb方ほうがいい
  Example:
  → 寝ねないほうがいいよ。
  ”You shouldn’t sleep.”

～方ほうがいい is a combination of 方ほう ("manner; method; way"), the が particle, and いい ("good"). In this way, we can think of 「X方ほうがいい」 as literally saying something like "the way of doing X is good".