How to Conjugate Japanese Verbs Part 1
– Standard form and negatives
There are three main types of verbs in Japanese:
1. 一段 (ichidan verb conjugation)
2. 五段 (godan verb conjugations)
3. 不規則 (fukisoku – irregular verb conjugations)
1. 一段 (ichidan verb conjugation)
These verbs will always end with “ru,” but not all verbs that end with “ru” are considered Ichidan verbs. Remove the “ru” at the end of the verb and you will be left with the verb stem. Attach the appropriate ending for whichever tense you would like to use. For example, “taberu” is the standard form of the verb “to eat.” To make this negative, remove the final “ru” and add “nai.”
Examples:
taberu → tabenai
I will eat → I won’t eat.
miru → minai
I will watch → I won’t watch
deru → denai
It will appear → It won’t appear
2. 五段 (godan verb conjugations)
There are nine types of these verbs. To conjugate these verbs remove the last syllable of the verb and attach whichever tense you would like to use. Please look at the verb conjugation chart attached to this post for examples.
3. 不規則 (fukisoku – irregular verb conjugations)
There are three verbs which are classified as irregular. These verbs are する、有る and 来る (suru, aru and kuru). Please refer to the verb conjugation chart attached to this post to learn how to conjugate these three verbs.
First practice mastering the Standard and its negative form before learning the past tense.
You can make questions be simply adding a question mark to the end of the verb.
Taberu? Tabenai?
Are you gonna eat? You’re not gonna eat?
sushi wo taberu?
Are you gonna eat sushi?
ongaku wo kiku?
Are you gonna listen to music?
In Japanese, there are many situations when you don’t need to explicitly state the subject in the sentence. The sentence pattern used above is (Subject)-Direct Object-Verb. The subject is not written because the speaker is asking a question directly to the listener. Use “wo” after the direct object to combine a noun and verb together.
