Japanese

Conjugate Verbs

Facts

  • Language: Japanese
  • Alternate names: Nihongo, Nipongo, 日本語, にほんご
  • Language code: jpn
  • Language family: Japonic, Japanesic, Japan-Taiwan Japanese
  • Earlier forms: Middle Japanese.
  • Number of speakers: 122433899
  • Script: Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana

More information:

    Introduction

    Japanese is a language spoken in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is an agglutinative language and is distinguished by a complex system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and a person mentioned in conversation.

    Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loanwords from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Indo-European languages, primarily English. Because of the special trade relationship between Japan and first Portugal in the 16th century, and then mainly the Netherlands in the 17th century, Portuguese and Dutch have also been influential.

    The Alphabet

    The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of scripts: modified Chinese characters called kanji (漢字), and two syllabic scripts made up of modified Chinese characters, hiragana (平仮名) and katakana (片仮名). The Latin alphabet, rōmaji (ローマ字), is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when entering Japanese text into a computer. Western style Indian numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are also commonplace.

    The verb

    Japanese verb conjugation is the same for all subjects, first person ("I", "we"), second person ("thou", "you") and third person ("he/she/it" and "they"), singular and plural. The plain form of all verbs ends in u. There are very few irregular verbs.

    Japanese Verb Conjugation

    歩く - aruku

    AFFIRMATIVE NEGATIVE
    Indicative INFORMAL 歩く aruku 歩かない arukanai
    FORMAL 歩きます arukimasu 歩きません arukimasen
    Imperative INFORMAL I 歩け aruke 歩く な aruku na
    INFORMAL II 歩きなさい arukinasai 歩きなさる な arukinasaru na
    INFORMAL III 歩いて ください aruite kudasai 歩かない で ください arukanai de kudasai
    FORMAL お歩き なさいませ oaruki nasaimase お歩き なさいます な oaruki nasaimasu na
    Presumptive
    Volitional     		INFORMAL I 歩こう arukō 歩くまい arukumai
    INFORMAL II 歩く だろう aruku darō 歩かない だろう arukanai darō
    FORMAL I 歩きましょう arukimasyō 歩きますまい arukimasumai
    FORMAL II 歩く でしょう aruku desyō 歩かない でしょう arukanai desyō
    Provisional INFORMAL 歩けば arukeba 歩かなければ arukanakereba
    FORMAL 歩きませば
    歩きますれば     		arukimaseba
    arukimasureba     		歩きません なら arukimasen nara
    Tense Inflected form
    Informal Past (~ ta Form) 歩いた
    Formal Past 歩きました
    Informal Past Negative 歩かなかった
    Formal Past Negative 歩きませんでした
    ~ te Form 歩いて
    Conditional 歩けば
    Passive 歩かれる
    Causative 歩かせる
    Potential 歩ける

    Grouping of Japanese Verbs

    Group 1: ~ U ending verbs

    The basic form of Group 1 verbs end with "~u". This group is also called Consonant-stem verbs or Godan-doushi (Godan verbs).

    Group 2: ~ Iru and ~ Eru ending verbs

    The basic form of Group 2 verbs end with either "~iru" or "~eru". This group is also called Vowel-stem-verbs or Ichidan-doushi (Ichidan verbs).

    Iru ending verbs
    Eru ending verbs

    Group 3: Irregular verbs

    There are only two irregular verbs, kuru (来る) 'to come' and suru (する) 'to do'.

    Verblists

    Paralleltexts

    External Links

    Notes

    References