Thursday, November 13, 2008

Verbs

Japanese verbs end in u. -ru, -tsu, -ku, -su, and so on are the infinitive endings.
for example,
to speak is 話す(hanasu).

In 日本語, a grammatically complete sentence only needs a verb.
It is similar to Spanish in that the subject can be implied. However, in Japanese,
the object can be implied too!

For example,

Eat.
食べる。


There are two types of verbs: Ichidan (ru) and Godan (u).

with "ru" verbs, you drop the -ru to conjugate.
with "u" verbs, you change the -u to something else.

for negative, you add "nai".
RU/Ichidan: 食べる=食べない (tabe[ru/nai])
U/Godan: 話す=話さない (hana[su/sanai])

For past you add た. for different endings you do different things.

EndingNon-Pastchanges to...Past
す→したした


く→いた
ぐ→いだ
いた
いだ




む→んだ
ぶ→んだ
ぬ→んだ
んだ
んだ
んだ




る→った
う→った
つ→った
った
った
った
Credits for this chart go to Tae Kim at www.guidetojapanese.org

That's a lot to deal with, but it's not that bad once you get it down.
We'll continue this later :)

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