FOREIGN LANGUAGE 2 - JAPANESE

CHAPTER 5 – JAPANESE GRAMMAR VERB

OBJECTIVES:
At the end of the chapter, the learner should be able to:

 Identify the Japanese verbs

 Demonstrate how each can be used in a sentence or simple conversation.

INTRODUCTION

This lesson will teach you how to conjugate Japanese verbs in the present, past, present negative,
and past negative tenses. If you are unfamiliar with verbs, start with "Japanese Verb Groups."
Then, master "the ~te form," a very useful form of the Japanese verb.

The verb usually occurs at the conclusion of the phrase in Japanese, which is one of its distinctive
features. The verb is perhaps the most crucial element in interpreting a phrase because the subject
is frequently omitted in Japanese sentences. However, verb tenses are thought to be difficult to
learn.

VERB

The verb is very important in the Japanese language. Verbs not only express actions or states of
being, but they also convey social status, respect, and humility. The verb they use can often tell
you whether they are speaking to a distinguished guest, a colleague, a spouse, or even a dog. The
most common verbs, however, are in the plain/informal and polite/neutral categories.

Conjugation is the process by which Japanese verbs, like verbs in many other languages, can be
phonetically modified to change their purpose, nuance, or meaning. During conjugation in
Japanese, the beginning of a word (the stem) is preserved, whereas the ending of the word is
altered in some way to change the meaning (this is the inflectional suffix). The conjugated forms of
Japanese verbs can express meanings such as negation, present and past tense, volition, passive
voice, causation, imperative and conditional mood, and ability regardless of person, number, or
gender (they do not depend on whether the subject is I, you, he, she, or we). There are also
special forms for combining with other verbs and combining with particles to add meaning.

The "Dictionary" or Basic Form of Japanese Verbs

The basic form of all Japanese verbs ends with "u". This is the form listed in the dictionary, and is
the informal, present affirmative form of the verb. This form is used among close friends and family
in informal situations.

The ~ Masu Form (Formal Form)

The suffix "~ masu" is added to the dictionary form of the verbs to make sentence polite. Aside
from changing the tone, it has no meaning. This form is used in situations requiring politeness or a
degree of formality, and is more appropriate for general use.

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Check out this chart of different groups of verbs and the accompanying ~ masu forms of the basic
verbs.

Group 1 Take off the final ~u, and add ~ imasu

For example:

kaku --- kakimasu (to write)

nomu --- nomimasu (to drink)

Group 2 Take off the final ~ru, and add ~ masu
For example:

miru --- mimasu (to watch)

taberu --- tabemasu (to eat)

Group 3 For these verbs, the stem will change

For examples:

kuru --- kimasu (to come)

suru --- shimasu (to do)

Note that the ~ masu form minus "~ masu" is the stem of the verb. The verb stems are useful since
many verb suffixes are attached to them. 

~ Masu The stem of the verb

Form
kakimasu kaki
nomimasu nomi
mimasu mi
tabemasu tabe

Present Tense

Japanese verb forms have two main tenses, the present and the past. There is no future tense.
The present tense is used for future and habitual action as well. The informal form of the present
tense is the same as the dictionary form. The ~ masu form is used in formal situations.

Past Tense

The past tense is used to express actions completed in the past (I saw, I bought etc.) and present
perfect tense (I have read, I have done etc.). Forming the informal past tense is simpler for Group
2 verbs, but more complicated for Group 1 verbs.

The conjugation of Group 1 verbs varies depending on the consonant of the last syllable on the
dictionary form. All Group 2 verbs have the same conjugation pattern. 

Group 1
Formal Replace ~ u with ~ imashita kaku --- kakimashita

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nomu --- nomimashita

Informa (1) Verb ending with ~ ku: kaku --- kaita
l replace ~ ku with ~ ita kiku (to listen) --- kiita
(2) Verb ending with ~ gu: isogu (to hurry) --- isoida
replace ~ gu with ~ ida oyogu (to swim) --- oyoida
(3) Verb ending with ~ u, ~tsu and utau (to sing) --- utatta
~ ru: matsu (to wait) --- matta
replace them with ~ tta kaeru (to return) --- kaetta
(4) Verb ending with ~ nu, ~bu shinu (to die) --- shinda
and ~ mu: replace them with ~ nda asobu (to play) --- asonda
nomu --- nonda
(5) Verb ending with ~ su: hanasu (to speak) --- hanashita
replace ~ su with ~ shita dasu --- dashita
Group 2
Formal Take off ~ru, and add ~ mashita miru --- mimashita
taberu --- tabemashita
Informa Take off ~ru, and add ~ ta miru --- mita
l taberu ---
tabeta
Group 3
Formal kuru --- kimashita, suru --- shimashita
Informa kuru --- kita, suru ---shita
l

Present Negative

To make sentence negative, verb endings are changed into negative forms with the ~ nai form.

Formal (All Replace ~ masu with ~ masen nomimasu --- nomimasen

Groups) tabemasu --- tabemasen
kimasu --- kimasen
shimasu --- shimasen
Informal Group 1 Replace the final ~ u with ~anai kiku --- kikanai
(If verb ending is a vowel + ~ u, nomu --- nomanai
replace with ~ wanai) au --- awanai
Informal Group 2 Replace ~ ru with ~ nai miru --- minai
taberu --- tabenai
Informal Group 3 kuru --- konai, suru ---shinai

Past Negative 

Formal Add ~ deshita to the formal present nomimasen --- nomimasen deshita
negative form tabemasen --- tabemasen deshita
kimasen --- kimasen deshita
shimasen --- shimasen deshita
Informal Replace ~ nai with ~ nakatta nomanai --- nomanakatta

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tabenai --- tabenakatta

konai --- konakatta
shinai ---
shinakatta

The Japanese Language Has Agglutinative Verbs

Agglutination in languages means that you can add something to the end of the word that changes
its meaning. Japanese is partially an agglutinative language, especially when it comes to its verbs.

Instead of expressing another idea by adding another word, in Japanese, you just need the
appropriate affix or postposition to change the meaning.

 eat – 食べる (taberu)

 ate – 食べた (tabeta)
 it has been eaten – 食べられた (taberareta)
 I want to eat – 食べられたい (taberaretai)
 I don’t want to eat – 食べたくない (tabetakunai)

“-ta” is a suffix that shows past tense, while “-areru” shows passive action. “-aretai” shows desire to
do something. As you can see, instead of auxiliary verbs, Japanese just adds the different suffixes
to the word directly to change the meaning. This is agglutination.

Japanese adds suffixes to stems to represent different verb forms.

There are six stems: imperfective, continuative, terminal, attributive, hypothetical and imperative.
Verbs have two marked tenses: past and nonpast with the difference between present and future
not being marked in conjugation. Voice and aspect are indicated by means of conjugation.

HOW TO WRITE IN JAPANESE

Japanese is traditionally written from top to bottom, right to left. But, today, Japanese is also written
from left to right vertically, just like in English.

The smallest unit of Japanese writing measurement is the character. These can be kanji, hiragana,
or katakana. Then, these characters form a unit called a mora. This isn’t officially a syllable, it’s
shorter than that.

Japanese Sentence Structure

In Japanese, the main components are the same, but the order is different — the object goes
before the verb.

The basic Japanese word order is SOV (subject-object-verb).

Example:

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 Himari ate sushi. (Himari wa sushi o tabemashita)

 I buy a book. (Watashi ha gohan o taberu)

Himari is the subject, ate is the verb, and sushi is the object. In Japanese, the SVO sentence
structure turned to SOV (complete with subject and object markers). In Japanese, if the context is
clear, you can drop various parts of the sentence. For example, if you’re clearly talking about
yourself, you don’t need to add a pronoun. Or if the object of the sentence has been mentioned
before, you can easily leave it out.

There are also equational sentences in Japanese, where you don’t even need a verb in the
sentence. But, the sentence does ultimately need a verbal form. These happen when there’s a
noun or adjective + copula in the sentence.

Example: Himari is a secretary. (Himari ga hisho desu)

Japanese Topic Markers and Subject Markers

In the previous example sentences, you can see that there are some extra words in there. “Wa”
and “ga” aren’t just some stray letters. They’re the topic and subject markers in the sentence.

You use は (wa) to signal the topic of the sentence. True, this is very often the subject at the same
time. But, if you only need to mark the subject as the topic if you haven’t talked about it before. So,
if it’s newly the subject, you need to put が (ga) after it. And if the subject is already established, は
(wa) marks the topic of the sentence. が (ga) can also be used to place emphasis in the subject.

Japanese Particles

While は (wa) and が (ga) are the most common, there are numerous other particles in Japanese.
These little syllables show the different functions and categories that exist in a sentence. This is a
unique feature of Japanese that doesn’t translate into English.

Particles always come after the word they’re connected to. Some signal a grammatical function (が
(ga), は (wa), を (o)), others are more like prepositions (から(kara – from), に (ni – to), の (no – of)).

EXAMPLES OF VERBS

1. (Taberu) – To eat.
Example sentence: (Watashi wa keeki o taberu) literally "I will eat cake!" Of course the
most important verb to know! To eat!! We hope you'll get some use out of this one.
2. (Miru) – To watch.

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Example sentence: (Watashi wa eiga o miru) "I will watch a movie." You can use this verb
to express watching or also having seen something.
3. (Neru) – To sleep.
Example sentence: (Fudan juuniji ni neru) "I usually got to sleep at 12 o'clock." Also a very
important verb! Apart from eating Japanese snacks our favourite past time here at
TokyoTreat is sleeping!
4. (Benkyou suru) – To study.
Example sentence: (Watashi wa nihongo o benkyou suru) "I will study Japanese." A useful
verb so that you can tell your friends and family all about your Japanese study adventure!
5. (Yomu) – To read.
Example sentence: (Watashi wa hon o yomu) "I will read a book." A very simple verb and
phrase, you can replace hon(book) with anything like Harry Potter or TokyoTreat's booklet!
6. (Nomu) – To drink.
Example sentence: (Kyou biiru o nomu) "Today I'll drink beer." Not to be confused with the
previous very similar sounding verb, though even we mix them up sometimes!
7. (Aruku) – To walk.
Example sentence: (Watashi wa soto ni aruku) "I will walk outside." A perfect verb to know
for those who enjoy a stroll outside!
8. (Suwaru) – To sit.
Example sentence: (Asoko ni suwaru) "I will sit over there." And here's a verb for those who
don't enjoy walking so much!
9. (Kiku) – To hear/listen.
Example sentence: (Kare no iukoto o kiku) "I'll listen to what he has to say." Another verb
for everyday use, kiku can actually also mean ask but then the kanji changes!
10. (Shinu) – To die.
Example sentence: (Shinu hodo suki) "I like it (it) so much I'll die!" We hope that you'll only
need this verb for describing your love of your TokyoTreat Japanese snack box and not for
any other morbid reasons!!!

JAPANESE GRAMMAR: STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE

There is a much to learn about Japanese grammar because it differs significantly from English
grammatical patterns. You must understand Japanese grammar rules that you might not even be
aware of in English. For instance, in English, we can use the phrase "I want to _." It is a simple
grammar pattern that is more about acquiring vocabulary than anything else. Different grammar
rules apply in Japan. Learning how to conjugate the verb is necessary to say something in
Japanese.

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 The Basic Japanese Sentence Structure — The Verb Always Goes At the End!
Japanese sentence order is different than in English and takes a little bit of practice to get used to.
In English, the basic sentence order is subject – verb – object. Example: I play sports. “I” is the
subject, “play” is the verb, and “sports” is the noun.

 Japanese Verb Tenses and Verb Classes

In English, there are three basic verb tenses: past, present, and future. But in Japanese, there’s
only present tense and past tense.
For instance, the sentence 大 学 に 行 き ま す (daigaku ni ikimasu) could be either “I go to
university/college” or “I will go to university/college.” But if you wanted to make it clear if this is
present or future tense, you would add something like 今大学に行きます (ima daigaku ni ikimasu,
“I go to college now”) or 明日大学に行きます (ashita daigaku ni ikimasu, “Tomorrow I will go to
college”).

 Understanding Japanese Formal and Informal Speech

Standard, polite Japanese, or formal Japanese, uses the -masu verb ending. 行きます, 食べます
(tabumasu, “to eat”), 飲みます (nomimasu, “to drink”), 読みます (yomimasu, “to read”). All these
verbs are in formal form, using the -masu ending.
Informal speech is simple and doesn’t conjugate in present tense. Informal speech uses the
dictionary or infinite form of the verb! So 行きます in informal speech is its dictionary form, 行く
(iku). The same is true for the others listed above: 食べる (taberu), 飲む (nomu), 読む (yomu).

 Japanese Gender and Counters

Here’s another easy part of Japanese: there are no genders for words! So you don’t have to worry
about learning which words are feminine or masculine like in Romance languages such as French
or Portuguese.
Some words or phrases are more often used by men or women, though. For instance, a woman
might use すごいね (sugoi ne, a popular, multiuse word meaning “cool” or “great”), but a man might
shorten it to sound more masculine and say すげー (suge-).

As for counters, there are many specific words or suffixes used to count objects in Japanese.

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