Rocket Japanese - Lesson 3.9

I'm hopelessly confused by Lesson 3.9. To my reading is starts by referring to the verb "shiru - to know" but then seems to give examples of the verb "suru - to do". Am I loosing it or missing something obvious?

Yes, it starts off with shiru and continues with suru and other verbs. But nothing's wrong there as the lesson isn't for teaching you about shiru, but about the ~te and ~masu forms of verbs. I think that the heading there is set just ipotetically :).

Thanks for the response. I suppose it's the close Romaji of "Shite and Shitte" with the examples of Suru and Shiru that gave me confusion. I feel I'm beginning to get some comprehension in reading the language but also feel it's necessary to really focus on the verbs to begin to comprehend. The more I dig into the verbs the more fascinating the language becomes. It's very difficult but becoming fun. Can't find a definition for "ipotetically"

Sorry, I wrote it as it is in my language by mistake. I meant to write: hypothetically :). And yes, understanding the verbs (meaning, forms, usage, location in sentence) is a very important step in learning a language. これからもがんばってください！

Thanks again. I don't have a Hiragana typeface but - Hai. Muzukashii desu yo ne.

一度分かったら難しくないんす！（いちどわかったらむずかしくないんす）

The conjugations beat me but I think that you are advising that "a particular form of writing is not difficult". I should be able to communicate fluently in approximately 20 years!

Not quite. Once you get to the platinum lessons, there will be a lot of lessons dedicated to language and grammar. Those are the most important lessons from the platinum course from my point of view. What I said there is: Once you understand them it won't be difficult :D. 一度　－　いちど = one time 分かったら　－　わかったら = this is made of the past tense of wakaru (=to understand) and the suffix ~tara which means when/at the time. => 一度分かったら = once you understand. Here, the topic is understandable from the context, so it's omitted. (Topic = the verbs) 難しくない　－　むずかしくない = the negative form of muzukashii (=difficult) => not difficult ん - sentence softener. It's the short form of the particle の (no) す - abreviation from the copula です (desu). It's used more when trying to explain something and acts just like です does. Note that it's very informal ! To be a little less informal, you cand always replace んす with its longer and politer form のです.