JAPANESE VERBS 1

Formal and informal speech

As we have seen with greetings, use of language depends on
who you are and who you are speaking to; e.g. a student would say
to a teacher but only or
to a friend. The first thank you is formal speech whereas the second is
informal or plain speech.
It is important to understand from the outset that you will
always speak and write as well as read and listen to formal Japanese
in the LC.
Formal verbs
Up to now we have learned verbs in the following manner: e.g.

These are what are known as the MASU forms of the verb. This
means we are speaking formally, a level of language appropriate for
the workplace or when speaking to people outside our circle of
family and friends.
However, these are not the true or real form of the verb. Simply
put if you looked up the word to eat in a Japanese dictionary you
would not find the word tabemasu. Instead you would discover the
word is taberu. This is known as the dictionary form of the verb.
Dictionary form
The dictionary form of the verb is also known as the plain form of
the verb. That is, whereas the MASU form is speaking formally, the
dictionary form is when we are speaking plainly or informally.
Types of dictionary form verbs
There are 4 basic verb types in Japanese.
RU verbs verbs that end in RU

U verbs verbs that do not end in RU

Noun + suru nouns followed by verb to do

Irregular verbs there are 3 irregular verbs in Japanese.

RU verbs
These are verbs that end in RU; or more specifically IRU or ERU.
Even if a verb ends in RU but has either ARU, URU or ORU it is not a
RU verb. It belongs instead to the second verb type of U verbs.
U verbs
These are verbs that do not end in ERU or IRU. All verbs in the
Japanese language end in the U line of the hiragana chart:

That is, a dictionary form of a verb in Japanese cannot end in any

other hiragana whether its a RU, U, Type III or Irregular verb.
In summary, there are only 9 possible endings for dictionary
form verbs in Japanese:

Here are some examples of the 4 different types of verbs. Notice that
they all end with one of the above 9 endings:

Type I

Type II

Type III
Irregular

There are sometimes when the distinction of verb types is not clear.
These occur when deciding if a verb is RU or U. These I call NINJA
verbs. These are U verbs disguised as RU verbs.

The reason we need to understand which category a verb belongs to

is because every other verb form is constructed from its plain /
dictionary form. Changing a verb form is called verb conjugation.

Verb conjugation
Conjugation means to change. In the first instance this means
we need to be able to change plain Japanese into formal Japanese;
that is change a verb from its dictionary form to its MASU form.
RU Verb conjugation
Conjugation of RU verbs is simplicity itself. First, remove the
RU ending of the dictionary verb. What is left is known as the MASU
stem. From here we add anyone of the 4 MASU endings of either
MASU, MASEN, MASHITA or MASEN DESHITA.

(MASU stem)

U Verb conjugation
Conjugation of U verbs is similar to RU verbs but involves one extra
step to make the MASU stem. First, remove the U ending of the
dictionary verb. What is left is not yet the MASU stem. We must
replace the u hiragana we have just taken away with the i hiragana
above it on the hiragana chart. Now we have the MASU stem and
from here we add anyone of the 4 MASU endings of MASU, MASEN,
MASHITA or MASEN DESHITA.

Irregular Verb conjugation

There are 3 verbs which have no logical conjugation process. Here we
must simply learn them off.

* We will learn more about and later.

Conjugate the following verbs

to eat
to play / socialise
to study
to phone
to stand
to walk
to work
to enter / join / contain
to get up
to meet
to buy
to sell
to go home