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What's the difference in saying:

> 魚を食べ  
>  魚を食べる

Both mean I will eat the fish but I really have never heard the first manner
of speaking being verbalized. Only ever seen them in social media posts, etc.
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2020-06-22T20:37:49.070
78171
2020-06-23T17:04:17.887
2020-06-23T02:58:02.693
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question
word-choice
Stem form of a verb against normal form
魚を食べ = Eating fish

魚を食べる = Am/Is eating fish

猫は<゜)))彡を食べ、寝る = The cat is eating a kaomoji fish then sleeping.

Just like English you can skip certain clauses and it's implied by the rest of
the paragraph or "[yo]u can [use] abbrev[iations] and still get [the] point
across" thanks to the 160-char Character Standard.
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2020-06-22T23:45:24.580
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2020-06-23T16:11:49.930
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answer
Please review your textbook. 食べ is the [連用形 (" _continuative_ form", aka masu-
stem)](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/65953/5010) of 食べる. As the name
suggests, it's one of the forms of a verb that appear before other words. It
cannot end a sentence on its own like the imperative form or the dictionary
form can. If you said 魚を食べ, it would sound like you suddenly stopped speaking
in the middle of a sentence.
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2020-06-23T02:50:19.143
78189
2020-06-23T02:50:19.143
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answer
I'm just adding on a bit to what naruto said;

魚を食べ is the same as 魚を食べて. Which means you need something else to end the
sentence, i.e. 魚を食べ、水を飲みました <-> 魚を食べて、水を飲みました The difference is slight, but
the stem form (食べ) is used in writing for a more narrative tone, like in books
or news reports (outside of dialog), while the te-form is more conversational.
But both the stem form and the te-form are often used in the same text. From
what I've seen the te-form is still more common, even in narration.

One thing that the te-form can do, but the stem form can't, is to describe in
what manner a verb is done.

歩いて帰った walkingly, I went home = I walked home

歩き帰った I walked and went home; which doesn't really make sense here.

That is at least how I have understood it.
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2020-06-23T17:04:17.887
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answer