I need help with Japanese?

Japanese language is heavily influenced by the culture. The Japanese society can be really structured, which breaks the world into your inner circle (family, friends) and outer circle (co-workers, the rest of the world). Because of this, verbs tend to have two forms: formal and informal. It's confusing at first but becomes pretty easy once you get the hang of it. The dictionary form, taberu, (sorry I don't have a Japanese language capability on my computer at work) means "to eat." The present affirmative, tabemasu, is actually the polite version of taberu. So if you wanted to say "I eat sushi" to your friend, it would be "Watashi wa sushi o taberu." And if you wanted to say the same thing to someone you don't know very well, you would say "Watashi wa sushi o tabemasu." The present negative version, tabemasen, means "don't eat." If you wanted to use the informal version of this, it would be tabenai. Finally, the stem tabe is actually not used in the language but it's the part of the verb that never changes. You'll see this when you look at taberu, tabemasu, tabenai, tabemasen. I know this probably sounds confusing but please don't become discouraged. I've studied Japanese for 7 years now and have lived there twice and it's a very interesting language and culture. Don't give up and gambare!