Talk:Japanese/Grammar/Verbs

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There are several errors on this page, and I also don't quite like the approach to that is taken here. I think we should use the real names of the types of Japanese verbs, namely Itidan and Godan. Also, I am a big fan of Kana. Romanisatons are only crutches. This is also why I use the official Japanese romanisation, and not the Hepburn one if I have no access to a Kana-enabled PC. It's a bit slower in the beginning, but there's nothing better than Kana to learn Japanese.

Basically, apart from the irregular verbs, japanese verbs can be conjugated in all possible forms, based upon five basic stems, namely the dictionary form, and four forms derived from it. -masu is in fact an auxilliary verb wtih a (slighlty) irregular verb.

To explain it with an example:

hanasa: Informal negative stem. Used to form negative and passive forms. hanasi: Informal positive stem. Used to form more complex forms of the verb such as the polite forms, the informal past and the -te form. hanasu: Informal positive present form, also called dictionary form. hanase: Imperative stem. Used to form provisional and imperative forms. hanaso: Volitional stem. Used only to form the volitional.

Other example for godan (sinu=to die) sina (-nai, -nareru, -nasu, -naseru) sin (-de, -da, -dai, sinu sine (-ba) sino (-o)

And, for ichidan: tabe tabe taberu tabe tabe

Now, it should be clear why verbs are called "one-rank" (itidan) or "five-rank" (godan) in Japanese ^_^. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 157.193.202.83 (talk • contribs) 02:31, 2 September 2003.


 * Suggestion implemented. If anyone else notices something out of place, feel free to comment.  覚えてください私は外人です.  :P  -- Emperorbma 04:28, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)

There are several verbs with slight irregularities that aren't covered here. aru -> nai instead of *aranai, kureru -> kure instead of *kurero in the imperative, iku -> itte instead of *iite in the conjunctive, the one-kanji + suru verbs than sometimes conjugate like X-su instead of X-suru-- aisuru -> aiseru instead of *ai-dekiru (and can sometimes be X-zuru instead of X-ziru), and the five polite verbs irassyaru, ossyaru, kudasaru, gozaru, and nasaru whose stem is irregular and involves dropping the -ru instead of just the -u and adding "i"-- i.e. irassyaimasu instead of *irassyarimasu. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.253.136.126 (talk • contribs) 16:52, 23 November 2004 (UTC)

I would like to point out that it would be helpful to others if the tenses were to be outlined in the context of proper usage and English equivalents (if any). Many may not feel they know enough to distinguish between the use of the "non-past" and the "volitative". Of course, those studying should know that the indicative can be formed by just using the infinitive (in some cases). Tenses are used in polite speech for the most part (?). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.162.163.19 (talk • contribs) 07:40, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

Comments on the various moods like potential, passive, causative, etc. would also be nice. Also the other type of conditional -tara form and the representative listing -tari form. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.253.136.126 (talk • contribs) 16:52, 23 November 2004 (UTC)

As an intermediate-level student of Japanese (I've taken five semesters, one of them in Tokyo), I must say this page confuses me, and I can't imagine a beginner, using this wikibook to teach themselves, learning anything from this. It reads more like a linguistic analysis than a step-by-step teaching process. Personally, I've never been a big fan of complex linguistics terms like "perfective," "conjunctive," and "euphony"; they don't serve to add to understanding, and probably confuse and scare away readers/students. Other terms like "conditional," "volitional," and "non-past" are, I think, a little better, as their meanings are more well-known and transparent. Still, even though the basic 'non-past' form (e.g. 食べる or 食べます) is used for both present and future, and as the infinitive, I've always seen it described as the 'present' tense, because this is simpler, and easier for a beginning student to wrap their mind around.

As for godan and ichidan, I've never heard that before, and so it's confusing to me. I learned them as う-verbs and る-verbs ... but either way is better than one book I saw that called them Type I and Type II verbs, and didn't even call the irregulars 'irregular', just called them Type III.


 * I've seen that. The source I saw also had an ある-class, including ござる and 下さる, which acted like る verbs (even though they end in ある rather than える or いる) but with the addition of an い to the conjunctive form, e.g. くださいます. I kind of prefer that arrangement, as the other systems gloss them over or consider them another sort of irregular separate from the irregulars (despite the fact that they're regular when considered as a group). 69.109.176.230 07:07, 27 May 2005 (UTC) (gwalla)

I apologize to complain and criticize without going ahead and changing things, making you do the work or whatever, but, I think it'd be ruder to go and change things now that you've obviously sorted the whole thing out and put a lot of work into it yourself. If you'd like me to write (or help) on part of it, just drop me a message. Thanks.

LordAmeth 15:31, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Oh, and if I could add one more thing. Spelling. し should be written 'shi', not 'si'. しゃ should be 'sha' not 'shya', and certainly not 'sya'. じょ should be 'jo' not 'jyo'. These sorts of incorrect romanizations, in my opinion, make the language look more strange and esoteric, and confuse beginners who might mistake 'sya', 'sha' and 'shya' for different characters, and worse, who might actually get the wrong idea about pronunciation.

LordAmeth 15:35, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Some comments
I do realise that it has been months since the last comments were made here. However there are some things I'd like to say about what is said above:


 * Verbs, adjectives and adjectival nouns traditionally have six stems; however, for verbs, the language has evolved such that in modern usage, two of the forms almost always coincide, so it looks like there are only five for verbs.


 * It is quite standard to call the verbs godan, ichidan and "irregular" in English, together with the other standard of calling the first two types u and ru verbs. Japanese-author textbooks use the type I-II-III style more.  However, the "official" types are:


 * 1) 五段 godan
 * 2) 上一段 kamiichidan = the single-row conjugation verbs ending in iru
 * 3) 下一段 shimoichidan = the single-row conjugation verbs ending in eru
 * 4) カ行変格 kagyou henkaku = kuru
 * 5) サ行変格 sagyou henkaku = suru

The verbs usually called "irregular" in English are thus not really called "irregular" in Japanese, just "different from normal". This is because while a foreign learner typically does not learn further than the Japanese as used in modern times, when verbs from much older texts are considered, there are quite a few more types of verbs:


 * 1) 四段 yodan - which naturally became 五段 verbs as a consequence of the writing reform in 1946
 * 2) 上一段 kamiichidan - the dozen or so of them have stayed as 上一段 verbs
 * 3) 上二段 kaminidan - they have become 上一段 verbs
 * 4) 下一段 shimoichidan - the only 下一段 verb in the old times, 蹴る, became 五段
 * 5) 下二段 shimonidan - they have become 下一段 verbs (but uru/eru has kept a slightly modified shimonidan conjugation even in modern Japanese)
 * 6) カ行変格 kagyou henkaku - 来 ku (= modern くる kuru)
 * 7) サ行変格 sagyou henkaku - out of these, only す su (= modern する suru) survived into modern times.  One of these old verbs was おはす owasu, the "ancestor" of ござる gozaru
 * 8) ナ行変格 nagyou henkaku - 1) 死ぬ shinu (became 五段 in modern times; however many dialects have kept the henkaku type conjugations); 2) 往ぬ inu (fell into disuse only last century)
 * 9) ラ行変格 ragyou henkaku - verbs that ended in り ri: あり (= modern ある), をり (= modern おる) etc.

and the true "irregular verbs" are called 特別活用 tokubetsu katsuyou verbs, such as the endless variations on ござる (there are easily twenty of them, as it evolved from the original おはす owasu all the way to Edo period's gozaru), or a verb like さしも sashimo (which doesn't even end in a u or i sound), which conjugates like sashima, sashimou, sashimo, sashimo, sashimae, sashimae/sashime.

Irregularities in conjugations, such as in the verb くださる kudasaru, are noted, but otherwise they are classified as godan or ichidan verbs officially. ない nai, the word used when one wants to express the negative of ある aru, is actually an adjective. Hence ない has such forms as なき naki and なし nashi, while none of the other verbs ending in -ない have such forms. In addition, the negative stem for ある aru, i.e. あら ara, exists, and is used in other situations. As a historical side note, there was indeed a period when the あらない form was used, when the auxiliary verb ない nai itself was pretty new. (In the old days it was ず zu.)

As for romanisation, it is actually the standard in Japan to write し as si, write しゃ as sya, write ち as ti, etc. But as has been pointed out already, this is misleading in terms of pronunciation, so the rest of the world has happily ignored it. However, because of its official status, one can't really say it's wrong either...

-- KittySaturn 04:16, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Also, an extra note about the terminology being too technical: the style of terminology such as u and ru verbs is indeed easy for beginners to understand; however this kind of terminology simply does not work at more advanced levels of Japanese learning, because soon there will be so many "exceptions" that nothing makes sense any more - su beki would be an "exception", osokare hayakare is another "exception", the grammar pattern -zaru wo enai is an "exception", and the n in iwan bakari, being not of a negative meaning, becomes totally inexplicable... when they in fact fit into the "complicated terminology" grammar structure well, and it is just that the basic terminology is incapable of describing. -- KittySaturn 04:29, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Verb suffixes
To what point should verb suffixes be mentioned? Should a section be made to discuss them and list common ones? -- Retropunk (talk) 09:38, 28 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I think it would be fine to make this page as exhaustive as possible. The reader can choose what to pick from it while the actual lesson pages should (in my view) take smaller steps and lead the reader along topics of increasing difficaulty. --Swift (talk) 10:38, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The problem with an exhaustive list is that it will become a conglomerate mess as items get added. Perhaps it'll suffice to make pages on the conjugations and then make a list of suffixes there, which could lead to other pages.  --Retropunk (talk) 00:20, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry, where are you thinking of putting the list of suffixes? Discussing them in detail on sperate pages sounds fair enough, though. --Swift (talk) 06:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

VLC icon
Why is the VLC icon there? It has nothing to do with multimedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.92.11.121 (talk • contribs) 01:16, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The icon is used for the tag. The licensing does not restrict its use to the VLC media player. --Swift (talk) 21:45, 2 April 2009 (UTC)