“Imperial Palace: The Imperial Palace, home to Emperor Akihito and family, is known for its grand gardens and tours of the grounds happen twice daily.”
Lesson Twenty One: Informal Verbs
Welcome back! Now we’re going to learn more things to do with verbs! Namely tenses and verb informal forms, which we use to talk to our friends and family younger than we are.
Informal verbs can be used the same way that the –masu forms are used. But remember that you should use the informal forms with your friends.
Informal future tense ends with a –u sound and informal past tense ends with a –ta. The work iku is conjugated below.
will go | ikumasu | いくます |
will see | mimasu | みます |
Remember the general politeness rule of Japanese: the longer and more vague it is, the more polite it is.
Informal negative ends with –nai, and informal past negative with –nakatta. The verb below is taberu.
Terakami ate sushi. | terakamisan wa sushi wo tabemashita. | てらかみさんはすしをたべました。 |
Ueno didn’t read. | uenosan wa yomimasen deshita. | うえのさんはよみませんでした。 |
Don’t forget to make your own sentences in order to remember how it all works! Also, be sure to check the V button next to the verb in the dictionary to see how it conjugates. These are some rules, but it’s best to memorize the correct forms as you practice them for now.
Don’t worry, I’ll talk about conjugation in more detail later. For now, try using these words in sentences!
walk | aruku | あるく |
learn | manabu | まなぶ |
understand | wakaru | わかる |
drink | nomu | のむ |
hang in there | ganbaru | がんばる |
Here are some nouns that are very useful to know.
food | tabemono | たべもの |
water | mizu | みず |
river | kawa | かわ |
mountain | yama | やま |
sushi | sushi | すし |
Let’s make sure that you know these words before we continue on.
GAME: Word search
Let me review the conjugations available to you now.
For formal verbs we have:
Future/present: V-masu
Negative: V-masen
Past: V-mashita
Past negative: V-masen deshita
For informal verbs we have:
Future/present: V-u
Negative: -nai
Past: -ta
Past negative: -nakatta
Let me explain a little about the Japanese verbs. When you know how verbs work you can conjugate them on your own!
All the verbs ending with –u or –ru are in the informal future/present form. This form is called a dictionary form because the dictionary uses this form for its verb entry.
The negative forms end either with –enai, -inai or –anai. Tab-enai, m-inai, ik-anai, hanas-sanai, sh-inai.
The negative forms end either with –enai, -inai or –anai. Tab-enai, m-inai, ik-anai, hanas-sanai, sh-inai.
Those verbs that end with –enai and –inai are called “ichican verbs,” and those wish –anai are called “godan verbs.”
Ichidan verbs do not change their stems to add suffixes such as –masu and –nai. Tabe-masu, de-masu, mi-masu. Tabe-nai, de-nai, mi-nai.
Godan verbs conjugate with different forms with those suffixes are attached. I’ve shown you three forms so far. Ik-anai, ik-imasu, ik-u, hanas-anai, hanash-imasu, hanas-u.
Can you see the pattern in godan verbs? The stem plus “a,” “i,” and “u.”
Goden verbs also have “e” and “o” forms. We’re not using them now so just remember the three forms we’ve covered. I hope this all makes sense!
If you know how to manipulate verbs then there are lot more things that you can talk about! So be sure to practice making sentences!
I might sound like a broken record by now, but that’s only because practicing is important!
GAME: Bridge builder
Next time we’ll finish up the kana. You’re doing great!
