Verbs: plain, polite, negative and past

This is the first lesson you will need to practise, not just read. Conjugation (changing the shape of a verb) is the one part of Japanese worth drilling until it's automatic, because you meet it in every sentence. Everything else in the language is looser.

The good news: Japanese verbs are far more regular than English ones. There are only two regular patterns and two irregular verbs, and the verb never changes for who is doing it.

Every verb ends in a u-sound when it appears in the dictionary: う, く, ぐ, す, つ, ぬ, ぶ, む, る. This is the plain, non-past form. It is used in casual speech, in narration, and inside longer sentences.

It covers the present and the future, and often "is going to" or "does habitually":

Japanese does not have a separate future tense. The same form handles both. Time words or context settle which one is meant.

ru-verbs (also called ichidan or vowel verbs) end in る preceded by an い or え sound: 食べる, 見る, 起きる, 寝る.

To conjugate: drop the る and add the ending.

u-verbs (also called godan or consonant verbs) are everything else: 書く, 飲む, 話す, 待つ, 買う, 遊ぶ, 泳ぐ, 死ぬ, and some that end in る (like 帰る).

To conjugate: change the final u-sound to another vowel row and add the ending.

Each regular verb has these four, in both plain and polite versions.

Drop る:

The last kana changes. Here is the table, which you can use for every u-verb:

Three things to read off this table:

1. Negative uses the あ-row (買わ, 書か, 泳が, 話さ, 待た, 死な, 遊ば, 飲ま, 帰ら). The う-verbs use わ instead of あ.
2. Polite uses the い-row (買い, 書き, 泳ぎ, 話し, 待ち, 死に, 遊び, 飲み, 帰り).
3. Past is the odd one: it changes the ending by sound. う, つ, る all become った; む, ぶ, ぬ become んだ; く becomes いた; ぐ becomes いだ; す becomes した.

The past forms look like a lot to memorise, but they follow the sound pattern you can feel: だ goes with the voiced endings (ぬ, ぶ, む, ぐ), た with the others. You will say them aloud and they'll become automatic.

There are only two, and you already know them.

Many nouns turn into verbs by adding する: 勉強する (study), 料理する (cook), 結婚する (marry). All of them conjugate exactly like する.

The negative of ある (exist) is ない, not あらない.

Polite forms are used with people you do not know well. The polite stem is the verb with ます removed (食べ, 書き). Then:

Polite forms are for speaking. In books, plain form is the norm for narration; polite appears mostly in dialogue and in books written to sound formal.

English has present, past and future. Japanese basically has two forms, and they are best understood as:

• Dictionary form (る): the action is not finished or not yet started. This covers general truths, habits, "now" for states and the future.
• Past form (た): the action is complete, realised or in the past.

That second example shows something important. 食べた is not only "ate" but "have eaten": completed. And a verb marked with た describes something done by the time we are talking about, even in the future ("when I've finished eating..."). Use "completed" as your first guess for た, and "not completed" for る.

A daily routine uses plain and polite forms in every tense. Read it twice: once for the verbs, once for the whole.

Narration in plain form, a typical novel opening:

• There are ru-verbs, u-verbs, and two irregulars (する, 来る).
• Four basic forms: does / doesn't / did / didn't, each in plain and polite.
• For u-verbs, the negative uses the あ-row, the polite uses the い-row, and the past follows sound patterns (った, んだ, いた, いだ, した).
• 行く → 行った is the lone exception.
• る-form covers present and future; た-form means completed.