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Watashi wa suki desu - Means
Edit: Due to what BlackxWhite said:
Means I Like or I Like it.. Cuz your not pointing to something else so it doesnt mean i like myself
- As in thats the meaning.. no problem at all.

Watashi ga suki desu - Means "I Like"
Edit: You Must Put Jibun to make it "I Like Myself"
- Same meaning but Ga is used in expressing something thats in ur opinion.

Example:
Kore wa Ichigo ga oishii desu - Means "This Strawberry is Delicious For Me"
- In that Sentence,Ga Indicates that The Strawberry is Delicous FOR ME (In Opinion)

So Lets go back..

Jibun Means Myself.. Maybe lets add Jibun to make it more clearly.
Watashi wa jibun ga suki desu - I Like MySelf
Let see if it Fits

Watashi wa-jibun ga-suki desu
I-Myself-Like

Japanese have Word Order Form
So it would be like this

Common:
Subject-Object-Verb
or
Object-Subject-Verb (as long as the verb stays at the end)

Since there is no Verb in this Case..
Desu is always on the Last And Like is would be before Desu


Watashi wa Jibun ga Suki Desu - I Like Myself

Try to look at my basic japanese guide.. You will see about the Particles

I Didn't Think of that ^^ I Like it would be more Clearly to Watashi wa suki desu.. I Like or I Like it..

And you Must Put Desu on Person B ^^ Cause Desu Means It or Is

I believe it can be excluded in an informal setting whether a na-adjective is there or not, just like it can be anywhere else =/ And suki isn't being used as a verb, it's still being used as an adjective.

It can be it or is

I think you're confusing "verb" with "predicate."

There are three possible types of predicates in Japanese: verbal, nominal and adjectival.

Suki would fall under nominal, meaning it can be found in one of these forms (I don't think this is exhaustive, but these are definitely the major ones):

Suki de gozaimasu (keigo form)
Suki desu (formal)
Suki de aru (I suppose this is technically informal, but it's more of a written form)
Suki da (blunt/masculine informal)
Suki (gentle/feminine informal)

It should be noted that the copula technically does not mean "is" (or "it" for that matter, as you said yourself. I'm not sure where that is even coming from), if I recall correctly, "copula" is a logic term that pretty much means it marks that something equals something else.

What constitutes grammatical correctness is very debatable, but dropping "da" in informal speech is a very common practice (we're not just talking anime and manga), and certainly is common enough to be talked about in textbooks, whether or not a Japanese child might get corrected for doing this in an essay (really, you don't even use "desu" in formal writing either).

That suki can be said without a da doesn't mean it's exactly the same as adjectivals, which don't take on "da" in informal speech, whether it's masculine/blunt or feminine/gentle. For example, you can't say "suki wa yo" like you can say "ookii wa yo" in feminine speech. It would just be "suki yo."

Well, from my own experience, I can say that dropping "da" is a very common practice. In fact, when it's a question, "da" is generally (if not always) dropped in informal speech. You don't say "suki da?" you just say "suki?"

Here are some excerpts from my textbook (Japanese: The Spoken Language Part 1 by Eleanor Harz Jorden and Mari Noda, which, say what one will about the romaji, is one of the best Japanese grammar resources available due to its thoroughness) that goes into it a bit:

(Pg 226)

(Pg 22 cool

As far as it being conjugated as a verb, I guess that depends on one's own analysis. My book has a different explanation for what's happening, which does seem to be pretty linguistically sound, but it's really not that important. smile

By the way, I do want to have the disclaimer that I'm not trying to be argumentative or anything. smile