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It's late, so I might do half of this lesson today and the other tommorow. Need.. sleep...





Japanese verbs are fairly simple compared to most languages, except for as far as I know Chinese or Indonesian, which don't really conjugate at all. Japanese verbs don't conjugate for the person or tense. There is a past tense however. There are only two kinds of verbs, and only two irregular verbs, do and come. But, they are so common you will get used to them fast, and they are not that irregular, just a wee bit. Besides that, all conjugations are regular. I'm not going to go ovar any conjugations today, tomorrow I will start that.

Verbs

All Japanese verbs end a う sound. Either with う, or る、ぐ、く、む、ぶ、and most of the consonant + u combinations. The two kinds of verbs we will call る verbs and う verbs. I'll start with る verbs being the easier of the two.

る Verbs

These verbs always end in える or いる. If it ends in ある、うる、おる、or any other, it is a う verb and follows different rules. For example:

たべる - taberu - eat. Eru, so る Verb
みる - miru - see,watch. Iru, so る Verb
はじめる - hajimeru - begin. Eru, so る Verb
すてる - suteru - throw away. Eru, so る Verb

こまる - komaru - get in trouble. Aru, so not るVerb


This form I am giving them all in is called the dictionary form. That is because it is the form you will find in the dictionary, it is in its plain present tense form, with no polite suffixes added on yet. It is the verb in its simplest form.

To use these verbs use the same subject + は as before.

わたしはたべる - watashi wa taberu - I eat.
あなたはみる - anata wa miru - You see.
かれははじめる - kare wa hajimeru - He starts.


~Side trip~

But I should mention that because verbs don't conjugate for person, just the verb alone can mean one of any of the possible conjucations fot the person.

たべる - I eat, you eat, he eats, she eats, they eat, we eat
みる - I see, you see, he sees, she sees, they see, we see

So, now you might ask ow you know which meaning to use? Well, It's up to you to figure out. In japanese, the subject of the sentence is never put, unless it has not been said yet. You will say the topic once, and never say it again untul the subject changes.
For exapmle, this little story:

わたしはねこです。おおきです。たべる。さむいです。これはいぬです。あついです。みる。おいしいです。

Watashi wa neko desu. Oukii desu. Taberu. Samui desu. Kore wa inu desu. Atsui desu. Miru. Oishii desu.

Literally: As for me, is cat . Is big. Eat. Is cold. As for this, is dog. Is hot. Sees. Is delicious. (Don't ever really translate like this, it will make you look like an idiot, and I'm just doing it for the sake of the explanation!)

Real translation: I am a cat. I am big. I eat. I am cold. This is a dog. It is hot. It sees. It is delicious.

(Yes, its silly, but I'm trying to use words you know already. Also, this passage is not really correct, but you don't know the grammar rules needed yet, so they are left out.)

Notice that in the Japanese, after "I" is said, no subject is put again, until the subject changes to "dog". Since you already said you were talking about yourself, you don't need to say it again. But, you do need to show when the subject changes. So then, when you start talking about the dog, you say so. But afterwards, you don't say it again, because we already know you are talking about a dog. Got it? Japanese likes to be as efficient as possible in this aspect. So, after introducing the subject, just drop it from the sentence and it will be understood by context.


Also, all of these verbs are in the present and future tense. How do you know which one you ask? By the context. If you are talking about tomorrow, you know you are talking about the future. Otherwhise, it is jus the plain present tense.

たべる - I see/ I will see, you see/ you will see, he sees/ he will see, she sees/ she will see, they see/ they will see, we see/ we will see

Got it? Good. As you might notice, a lot of the meaning in Japanese is just assumed by the context or situation. If it sounds hard, don't worry, its not. Its so easy that after a while it will creep into your english and make you sound a bit ... odd.



Back on track now...


う Verbs

As I said before, う verbs are all the other verbs that don't end in える or いる. By the way, you may wonder why I amcategorizing the verbs for. It's because of their different conjugation rules, which I'll explain tomorrow.

Notice:
およぐ - oyogu - swim. う Verb
あるく - aruku - walk. う Verb
うつ - utsu - hit. う Verb
つくる - tsukuru - make. う Verb
たべる - taberu - eat. Not う Verb

These verbs work exactly the same as the others, just put the subject, slap on a は, and add the verb.

ぼくはおよぐ - boku wa oyogu - I (male) swim.
かのじょはかう - kanojo wa kau - She buys.
とりはとぶ - tori wa tobu - The bird flies.

That's it. Pretty simple.




All the verbs listed so far have been in their non-polite neutral form. This form is not rude, but is not polite either, if you use it in a situation where you should be using polite speech, you might come off as a bit rude. At this point, you should get used to the polite forms first, because you will be using it a lot, and odds are that if any of you are using Japanese any time soon, it will be a time when you would need the poilte forms. Butm those require conjugations that would just cause some extra confusion in trying to introduce the verbs. Tomorrow, I'll explain all the basic conjugations for everything, and hopefully that shoud fill in some holes in your Japanese.





If you remember your Hiragana, you know this is the hiragana wo. Now I better explain right away, that its said as "o", not "wo". It used to be in old Japanese or something, but again, I'm no historian. You'll sometimes hear japanese people say "wo", but you should just say "o". It's more correct anyway, and shorter to say.

The reason that I am introducing this with verbs is because this is the little thing that shows what you are doing this verb to. It is called the direct object marker, and it is another "particle", a word used to show the relationship of another word in the sentence. Put this after the thing you are affencting with the verb you are doing. Put these sentences on the pattern "X　は　Y を　Verb", Meaning "X (something)s Y."For example:

わたしのねこはとりをたべる。 - Watashi no neko wa tori o (wo) taberu. - My cat eats a bird.

かれはテレビをみる。 - Kare wa terebi o (wo) miru. - He watches TV.

Get it? In the first sentence, the cat is what is doing the eating, and the bird is being eaten. So, を is placed after the bird, to show it is the one being eaten. And in the second one, the TV is the thing being watched, so the を is placed after it.


Thats all for を. Its really not very hard at all. And with that, this very long lesson is over. Questions?

Blah, besides that, I really did learn quite alot from that! :'D It made some things I studied before click together. 3nodding Now to try my poor, poor skills. sweatdrop

Neko wa komaru wa tori o taberu. (The cat gets in trouble for eating a bird)
I know I probably messed that up horribly. sweatdrop

Erm...
Kare wa taberu hajimeru. (He starts eating? o_o)
Ouki inu wa Oishii neko o taberu. (The big dog eats the delicious cat?)

@_@ I think i'll just stop murdering the language now...

Gah. I knew that, actually... I just can't remember stuff when I actually want to use it. >_<

Oh, yes, that's a typo. Should be present and future. But, you can probably tell by the examples despite that mistake. I'll fix it. And all your sentences are good. Hooray.

And guys, if you do see any typos or anything that dosen't make sense, tell me so I can fix it, okay?

Tenses

This lesson's going to be really long. Take your time figuring it all out, theres no deadlines or anything to hurry for.

~

I'm now going to explain all the basic tense conjugations. As I said before, the verbs, and everything else in Japanese are in the present or future tense, whichever the context calls for. So don't be confused when you don't see any future tense conjugations, its the same as the present.

And now, its time to explain how the various politeness levels work. In Japanese, depending on the words you use, you can sound like anything from a Yakuza, delinquent, little kid, girly girl, polite buisnessman, casual fellow and all the way up to a servant of the emperor. The most common types of language used are the normal polite form, which is used with elders, acquaintances or people you don't know well, work, and situations like that. The other is the plain non- polite form, which is fine for non formal casual situations. I will show how to make both of them in this lesson.

Also, I'm going to give you a bit of the challenge and not write out the proununciation. If it is too hard or annoying to figure out, I can stick them in. If you can do it, I gauruntee you will be better at hiragana than before.

Verbs

Now you will see the reason for the different categories of verbs, so that you know how to conjugate them.

る Verbs

・To make the plain form present/furure tense of a る verb, just use in its generic form.

たべる - (will) eat
みる - (will) see

・To make the plain past, take off the る and add た.

たべる - たべ__ - たべた - Ate.
みる - み__ - みた - Saw.

・To make the present negative, replace る with ない.

たべる - たべ__ - たべない - won't/don't/dosen't eat
みる - み__ - みない - won't/don't/dosen't see

・To make the past negative, replace る with なかった.

たべる - たべ__ - たべなかった - didn't eat
みる - み__ - みなかった - didn't see

Polite

・For the polite present/future, replace る with ます. ((Because its a "su" at the end of a word, the u is silent. So say it like "mas", not "masU"))

たべる - たべ__ - たべます - (will) eat, polite
みる - み__ - みます - (will) see, polite

・For polite negative, replace る with ません.

たべる - たべ__ - たべません - won't, dosen't, don't eat, polite
みる - み__ - みません - won't, dosen't, don't see, polite

・For the polite past, replace る with ました. (( Here is another case of a silent vowel. The 'i' in 'mashita' is made silent, so it sounds more like "mashta".))

たべる - たべ__ - たべました - ate, polite
みる - み__ - みました - saw, polite

・For past negative, replace　る with　ませんでした. ((Again, the silent "i" in "masendeshita" makes it sound more like "masendeshta".))

たべる - たべ__ - たべませんでした - didn't eat, polite
みる - み__ - みませんでした - didn't see, polite


Notice that for all of these, you just replace the る with the right suffix. Its really very simple for the る verbs.



う Verbs

These are simple too, but unfortunatley in the plain form, things get a little messy. There are a couple of rules to memorize, but not many. There are lots of types of this verb, so I'll put quite a few examples, one for each type.

And notice that there are some う verbs that look like る verbs, but are not. For example, しる, know and かえる, return. Be sure to remember those exceptions.

・Plain present/future - just the verb

かう - (will) buy
まつ - (will) wait
かえる - (will) return
かく - (will) write
およぐ - (will) swim
はなす -(will) speak
しぬ - (will) die
よむ - (will) read
あそぶ - (will) play

Plain present negative - This is one of the tough ones, sorry. They don't get harder than this though. The conjugation is different for every type. Notice the change to あ of the final sound before the suffix is added.

・Ending in う - replace う with わ, add ない.
Ex:かう - か__ - かわ - かわない - Won't, don't, dosen't buy.

・Ending in つ - replace つ with た, add ない.
Ex:まつ - ま__ - また - またない - Won't, don't, dosen't wait.

・Ending in る - replace る with ら, add ない.
Ex:かえる - かえ__ - かえら - かえらない - Won't, don't, dosen't return.

・Ending in く - replace く with か, add ない.
Ex:かく - か__ - かか - かかない - Won't, don't, dosen't write.

・Ending in ぐ - replace ぐ with が, add ない.
Ex:およぐ - およ__ - およが - およがない - Won't, don't, dosen't swim.

・Ending in す - replace す with さ, add ない.
Ex:はなす - はな__ - はなさ - はなさない - Won't, don't, dosen't speak.

・Ending in ぬ - replace ぬ with な, add ない.
Ex:しぬ - し__ - しな - しなない - Won't, don't, dosen't die.

・Ending in む - replace む with ま, add ない.
Ex:よむ - よ__ - よま - よまない - Won't, don't, dosen't read.

・Ending in ぶ - replace ぶ with ば, add ない.
Ex:あそぶ - あそ__ - あそば - あそばない - Won't, don't, dosen't play.


Plain past

Sorry, more obnoxious conjugations.

・Ending in う - replace う with った.
Ex:かう - か__ - かった - bought.

・Ending in つ - replace つ with った.
Ex:まつ - ま__ - まった - waited.

・Ending in る - replace る with った.
Ex:かえる - かえ__ - かえった - returned

・Ending in く - replace く with いた.
Ex:かく - か__ - かいた - wrote

・Ending in ぐ - replace ぐ with いだ.
Ex:およぐ - およ__ - およいだ - swam

・Ending in す - replace す with した.(pronounced more like "shta", not "shita")
Ex:はなす - はな__ - はなした - spoke

・Ending in ぬ - replace ぬ with んだ.
Ex:しぬ - し__ - しんだ - died

・Ending in む - replace む with んだ.
Ex:よむ - よ__ - よんだ - read

・Ending in ぶ - replace ぶ with んだ.
Ex:あそぶ - あそ__ - あそんだ - read


Plain past negative - take the present negative, and replace the final い with かった.

かわない - かわなかった - didn't buy

またない - またなかった - didn't wait

かえらない - かえらなかった - didn't return

かかない - かかなかった - didn't write

およがない - およがなかった - didn't swim

はなさない - はなさなかった - didn't speak

しなない - しななかった - didn't die

よまない - よまなかった - didn't read

あそばない - あそばなかった - didn't play


Polite

For the polite conjugations of any う verb, change the final う to い and add the proper suffix. It dosen't matter what the sound before the final う is, just follow that rule. This is much easier that the plain form conjugations. Notice that the ones ending in and don't quite follow this rule, the sound change is a bit different.

かう - かい - かいます - buy, poite
まつ - まち - まちます - wait, polite
かえる - かえり - かえります - return, polite
かく - かき - かきます - write, polite
およぐ - およぎ - おうおぎます - swim, polite
はなす - はなし - はなします - speak, polite
しぬ - しに - しにます - die, polite
よむ - よみ - よみます - read, polite
あそぶ - あそび - あそびます - play, polite

・For the past, negative, and past negative, just replace ます with ました, ません, or ませんでした. Its the same for any kind of う verb, so I won't bother with all the examples.

かいます - かいません - won't/don't/dosent buy, polite
かいます - かいました - bought, polite
かいます - かいませんでした - didn't buy, polite



Thats it for verbs. Im sure thats alot to take in, so take your time and ask any questions you have.

continued...

Thats the problem, I'm not so great with computers, so I can't make/show any pictures or anything like that to help. I suppose I can just show them, and people can try and learn them if they want to. The problem with that is that there are some little differences when the kanji are handwritten that don't show up in the computer font. But I think that if anyone seriously tries to study kanji after this, they will proably be able to figure it out anyway. Meh, well see how it goes.

In the same way as verbs, there are different conjugations for the various politeness levels. But luckily, these conjugations are not nearly as hard as the ones for the verbs.


い　Adｊectives

First, the plain non-polite forms.

・Present/future - just the adjective on its own.
おいしい - delicious

・Past - replace the final いwith かった .
おいしい - おいしかった - was delicious

・Negative present - replace final い with くない.
おいしい - おいしくない - isn't delicious

・Negative past - replace final い with くなかった.
おいしい - おいしくなかった - wasn't delicious


Polite forms - There are two ways to make this form. The first and easiest one is just to add です to the end of the plain forms given above. My impression is that this is the one used more often, but there is another one that is also used that is just a bit different. Just to pound it as far into your brain as possible, I'm going to give examples of both.

・Polite present/future - add です to the end of the adjective in its plain　form.
おいしい - おいしいです - is delicious,polite

・Polite past - add です to the plain negative form.
おいしかった - おいしかったです - was delicious, polite


These next two are the ones with an alternate conjugation

・Polite present/future negative - add です to the plain non- polite form, or replace the final い with くありません.
おいしかった - おいしかったです
or
おいしい - おいしくありません - isn't delicious, polite

・Polite past negative - add です to the non-polite negative past form, or replace the final い with くありませんでした.
おいしくなかった - おいしくなかったです
or
おいしい - おいしくありませんでした - wasn't delicious, polite

All of the い adjectives are regular, and follow these rules.


な Adjectives and Nouns

The reason I'm putting these in the same category is because the conjugate exactly the same. な adjectives act just like nouns, the word itself does not change, but です is added to the end and conjugated for the appropriate tense.

です - This word approximatley means "is". It goes in the place of is, am, are, and any other conjugations of the english verb "to be". But です is not a verb, it is a word in its own category called the "copula". It has its own irregular conjugation rules, but they are not hard to remember, and you will be using them constantly in Japanese, so you'll get them quickly.

The conjugations of です are:

・Non-polite forms

だ - is, am, are
だった - was
じゃない or ではない - isn't
じゃなかった or ではなかった - wasn't

・Polite forms

です - is, am, are...
でした - was
じゃありません or ではありません - isn't
じゃありませんでした or ではありませんでした - wasn't

*In all of the forms above that begin with では..., the は is pronounced like わ, like the topic marker は is.

Now, to put them together with some words. I'll use ねこ - cat, and きれい(な) - clean, for the examples.

ねこだ - is a cat
ねこだった - was a cat
ねこじゃない or ねこではない - isn't a cat
ねこじゃなかった or ねこではなかった - wasn't a cat

ねこです - is a cat, polite
ねこでしたwas a cat, polite
ねこじゃありません or ねこではありません - isn't a cat, polite
ねこじゃありませんでした or ねこではありませんでした - wasn't a cat, polite


きれいだ - is clean
きれいだった - was clean
きれいじゃない or きれいではない - isn't clean
きれいじゃなかった or きれいではなかった - wasn't clean

きれいです - is clean, polite
きれいでした - was clean , polite
きれいじゃありません or きれいではありません - isn't clean, polite
きれいじゃありませんでした or きれいではありませんでした - wasn't clean, polite



Thats it! It's finally over. Those are all the basic conjugations of verbs, nouns, and adjectives. I'm sure that you noticed that there are sometimes more than one ways to do it. I will use both ways randomly, and mix polite and non-polite language so you ca get used to both.

There are more conjugations, but most of them are just variations of these basic ones, so if you know these well, the others will be easy.

Since Halloween is this month there should be Halloween vocab too.