Japanese Language Help

Japanese Lesson: Verbs (Part 3) ~ Plain form conjugations

Present

Present tense is as easy as pie; you just use the plain form of the verb.

watashi ga iku = I will go.

Past

This is where knowing the “Te-form” comes in handy, all you have to do is change the “te” to “ta” and that’s it.

Taberu -> tebete -> tabeta.

Ikku -> itte -> itta

Easy ^_^ 

Negative

This is a little more difficult as it depends on which verb class you’re working with; for class 2 verbs you drop the “ru” at the end and change it to “nai.”

taberu -> tabenai (to not eat)

miru -> minai (to not see)

Class 1 verbs are a little more tricky; for every “u” sound you change the “u” sound at the end to “a” and add “nai.”

kaeru becomes kaeranai (to not return) 

matsu becomes matanai (to not wait)

shinu becomes shinanai (to not die)

nomu becomes nomanai (to not drink)

au becomes awanai (to not meet)

For class 3 it’s impossible to tell because they don’t follow any rules; so here’s a list of them:

suru -> shinai

kuru -> Konai

Negative Past

This is pretty easy once you have the negative forms down; all you do is change the verb to it’s negative form but instead of using “nai” you use “nakatta.”

Examples

iku -> ikanai -> ikanakatta

Nihon ni ikanakatta = I did not go to Japan.

Asagohan wo tabenakatta.

That is it, easy enough once it’s remembered. Remember; these are notoriously tricky so just stick at it and you’ll be fine ^_^

Japanese Lesson: Verbs (Part 2) ~The “Te-form”

The te-form is used for making commands (for example “kore wo tabete” = Eat this) and as a connector, it’s like saying “and” or “and then” (asagohan wo tabete, gakkou ni ikimashita = I ate breakfast and then I went to school.)

They are easily spotted as most of them end in “Te.”

They are notoriously hard to remember how to conjugate the verbs (based on verb class) but as soon as you see and use these verbs enough times it will become second nature.

Class 1

Drop  the “ru” at the end and change it to “te.”

For example; taberu becomes tabete.

Class 2 & 3

Classes 2 & 3 are much more complicated and will need a lot of hard studying and grinding to remember them (but it’s all worth it.)

If the verb ends in “u” “tsu” or “ru” the verb changes to “tte” 

Examples

Au = atte (to meet)

Matsu = matte (to wait) 

Kaeru = kaette (to return) 

If the verb ends in “mu” “bu” or “nu” the verb changes to “nde.”

Examples

Nomu = nonde (to drink)

asobu = asonde (to play)

shinu = shinde (to die) 

If the verb ends in “tsu” it changes to “shite” so hanasu (to talk) becomes hanashite.

If the verb ends in “ku” it changes to “ite” so kaku (to write) becomes kaite.

If the verb ends in “gu” it changes to “ide” so oyogu (to swim) becomes oyoide.

“suru” would change to “shite” and “kuru” would change to “kite”.

Like I said, after a while you’ll get used to doing this in a split second in your head but before that it’s best to just grind away and study these as much as possible because the “te-form” is kind of like a stepping stone to conjugate the verbs to other forms so it’s very good to know this off by heart.

As usual, all questions and comments are welcome and thanks to all my loyal followers for being so supportive ^_^

Japanese Lesson: Verbs (Part 1) ~Masu conjugations

The masu form is basically used to make the verb more polite. You take the stem of the verb and add “masu” to the end.

Present Tense

You take the stem of the verb and add “masu” to the end and that’s basically it. (Present tense is very simple)

For example: Taberu=to eat becomes tabemasu. “Tabe” is the stem of Taberu.

Negative Tense

For the negative tense you simply have to switch the “masu” to “masen.”

For example: Niku wo tabemasu = I eat meat; niku wo tabemasen = I don’t eat meat. 

Negative Past Tense

To make the negative past tense you first change the verb to negative (so change masu to masen) and then add “deshita” (deshita is the past tense of the verb desu which means “to be”) 

For example: Nihon ni ikimasen deshita = I did not go to Japan; asagohan wo tabemasen deshita = I did not eat breakfast. 

That’s it, easy enough once you get used to it ^_^

Any comments or questions are welcome; I’d be happy to help.

Writing up notes for the next lesson on verbs ^_^