Making Sense of Japanese Verbs

Japanese language, like any language, uses verbs a lot. But verbs in Japanese differ considerably from Indo-European languages in how verbs are constructed, conjugated and so on. This makes them pretty tricky to learn at first glance, but the good news is that the internal structure and logic is actually fairly straightforward. You just need to unlearn your native language to avoid casual mistakes.

Warning: This post assumes you can read hiragana script. Hiragana takes a bit of work upfront, but you can master it quickly, and be reading Japanese fairly well after that (kanji notwithstanding). You can see my articles here, here and here about it.

The first thing to understand is that Japanese, especially in conversation, has a lot of implicit and contextual meaning. So, you can leave out many parts of speech because it’s already implied, or you just know from the context. But usually a sentence needs at least a verb.

A: [did you eat?]

B: ん、たべた
(yeah, I ate)

This is a perfectly normal sentence in conversation. No subject, object or anything, just the verb (to eat, past-tense).

Also, as I alluded to earlier, the conjugations and usages differ from European languages. Let’s look at some examples. This chart doesn’t cover everything but covers some of the most essential forms.

Conjugation	Usage	Example “Godan” Verb : 読む・よむ	Example “Ichidan” Verb : 食べる・たべる
Dictionary form	Dictionary listing of verb, also used for subordinate clauses, recurring actions (e.g. I eat X daily), and also future tense!	読む・よむ	食べる・たべる
Polite form	Used in polite, formal speech, especially at work, talking to teachers, or one’s elders. Also used for future tense!	読みます・よみます	食べます・たべます
“Te” form	Extremely useful. Links verbs together in sequence, or allows for other grammatical forms.	読んで・よんで	食べて・たべて
Simple Past	Casual, past tense form. Similar to dictionary form, but expresses past tense.	読んだ・よんだ	食べた・たべた
Passive form	When something is being done to you. (e.g. I am being eaten)	読まれる・よまれる	食べられる・たべられる

Note that I divided verbs by Go-dan (五段), and Ichi-dan (一段) verbs. This is important as each one has a slightly different conjugation process. Ichi-dan verbs, sometimes called “ru-verbs” because the dictionary form always ends in る “ru”, however not all verbs that end in る are ichi-dan verbs. Everything else are go-dan verbs because the dictionary form has five (“go”) possible endings: う “u”, つ “tsu”, る “ru”, ぬ “nu”, and む “mu”.

Speaking from personal experience, people who are first learning Japanese often learn the textbook polite form since they’re talking with other adults, and don’t want to be rude.

However, it’s far more useful to learn the dictionary form and the “te”-form. The dictionary form is useful form many grammatical forms, and for more complex sentence. Note to mention it also expresses future tense in the right context. Similarly, the “te” form is the base of many other grammatical forms.

To conjugate the “te”-form from the dictionary form, change the verb endings like so:

Dictionary Verb ending	Becomes…	Example before	Example after
う (u)	って (tte)	言う・いう (iu)	言って・いって (itte)
つ (tsu)	って (tte)	持つ・もつ (motsu)	持って・もって (motte)
る (ru)	って (tte)	切る・きる (kiru)	切って・きって (kitte)
る (ru), ichidan	て (te)	食べる・たべる (taberu)	食べて・たべて (tabete)
く (ku)	いて (ite)	書く・かく (kaku)	書いて・かいて (kaite)
ぐ (gu)	いで (ide)	急ぐ・いそぐ (isogu)	急いで・いそいで (isoide)
む (mu)	んで (nde)	読む・よむ (yomu)	読んで・よんで (yonde)

Similarly for the simple past tense, just change the “te” to “ta” like so:

Dictionary Verb ending	Becomes…	Example before	Example after
う (u)	った (tta)	言う・いう (iu)	言って・いった (itta)
つ (tsu)	った (tta)	持つ・もつ (motsu)	持って・もった (motta)
る (ru)	った (tta)	切る・きる (kiru)	切って・きった (kitta)
る (ru), ichidan	た (ta)	食べる・たべる (taberu)	食べて・たべた (tabete)
く (ku)	いた (ita)	書く・かく (kaku)	書いて・かいた (kaita)
ぐ (gu)	いだ (ida)	急ぐ・いそぐ (isogu)	急いで・いそいだ (isoida)
む (mu)	んだ (nda)	読む・よむ (yomu)	読んで・よんだ (yonda)

Using these simple tricks, you can do more complex forms, like converting a passive form verb to past-tense (i.e. the sushi is being eaten -> the sushi was eaten), and so on.

In fact, I believe when learning Japanese verbs, it’s best to record and list them like so:

dictionary-form, te-form

examples:
読む、読んで
食べる、食べて
切る、切って
着る、着て

This not only helps you memorize the basic grammatical forms, but helps you remember if it is an ichidan verb vs. godan verb. “By their te-form, ye shall know them…“¹

Anyhow, that’s a brief look at Japanese verbs. It’s not necessary to learn all the forms and applications at first, but a good way to build solid fundamentals and branch into more advanced lessons more seamlessly.

Good luck and happy studying!

¹ This was a trick, not to mention a joke, I learned recently while studying classic, Koine Greek. Nouns are recorded as a combination of nominative + genitive forms, while Greek verbs are listed by principal parts. There’s no reason why Japanese language tools can do the same, but I don’t see books really doing this. That’s a shame. Greek and Latin have been scrutinized and studied for centuries in the West, so the teaching tools and methods are very mature. Japanese language studies in the West are much newer, and lacking many of these handy mnemonics, tools, etc.