Japanese Verb Conjugation

Here we are going to study the topic of conjugation of a Japanese verb using
the teaching method commonly used in post-soviet area. For those who would
like to cover this topic deeper we also prepared some additional explanation,
which you can find marked with a (*) sign.

In Japanese, the verb is an especially important part of speech, as it can be

characterized by the most numerous grammatical categories, such as tense,
transitivity or intransitivity, mood, voice, and also a category characteristic to the
Japanese language politeness (addressive form of a verb). All these categories are
performed with the use of special suffixes, which are attached to the special
conjugative suffixes of the verb itself.

Generally, verbs in Japanese are divided into three groups according to the
type of their stems: group I verbs, group II verbs and group III verbs.

1) As for the group I verbs, they can end with う、く、ぐ、す、つ、ぶ

、む、る、ぬ signs of the hiragana srcipt.

For example:
買(か)う -- to buy;
浮(う)く -- to float;
泳(およ)ぐ -- to swim;
話(はな)す -- to talk;
立(た)つ -- to stand;
遊(あそ)ぶ -- to play;
飲(の)む -- to drink;
取(と)る -- to take;
死(し)ぬ -- to die.

These verbs have 5 fully expressed functional stems (we call them
‘functional’ as every stem attaches only a limited number of suffixes with only
one meaning). You can see the table of the stems for the group I verbs:
Final hiragana a-stem i-stem u-stem e-stem o-stem
sign of the verb (Stem III, (Stem IV, (Stem V,
(Stem I, (Stem or
or or
or dictionary imperative
negative
II, or stem) stem) volitional
stem) ます- stem)
stem)

く か き く け こ

ぐ が ぎ ぐ げ ご

す さ し す せ そ

つ た ち つ て と

ぬ な に ぬ ぬ の

ぶ ば び ぶ べ ぼ

む ま み む め も

る ら り る れ ろ

う わ い う え お

You just change the final hiragana sign of the verb according to the type of
suffix you want to attach. In our course we mainly use only Stem II and Stem III.
Also, you can guess the meaning of the suffix you attach to a particular stem out
of its name.

2) When it comes to the group II verbs, they end with either -(i)る or -(e)る
combination of the hiragana letters (including the verbs 居(い)る ‘to exist’ (for
animate objects) and 得(え)る ‘to get’) we have even less stems to remember, as
they have only Stems II and III (Stems I, IV and V are the same as Stem II). Stem
II for these verbs is formed as Stem III minus る.
 Stem I Stem II Stem III Stem IV Stem V
(i)-る (i)- (i)- (i)-る (i)- (i)-
(e)-る (e)- (e)- (e)-る (e)- (e)-

However, not all the verbs which end with (i)-る and (e)-る are the group
II verbs. Also, there are homonymous verbs as well (they differ in meanings and
belong to different groups, but written the same way). First, we would like you
to pay attention to the comparative table of homonymous verbs:

Group I Transtation Group II Translation

着(き) to put on clothes,

切(き)る to cut
る to wear
寝(ね)
練(ね)る to exercise to sleep
る
変(か) to change
to come
帰(かえ)る (someting to
back える
tomething)

to exist (for
要(い)る to be needed 居(い)る
animate objects)

Here you can have a look on the verbs of group I ending with (i)-る and
(e)-る (most frequently used ones are marked yellow):

Group I Verb Translation

嘲(あざ)ける (also 嘲(あざけ)る) to laugh at, to make fun of
焦(あせ)る to hurry, to be impatient
弄(いじ)る to touch, to tamper with
入(い)る to enter (used only in fixed expressions
such as 気(き)に入(い)る ‘to be liked,
to be one’s favorite’)
要(い)る to to be needed
限(かぎ)る to limit OR to be limited
齧(かじ)る to chew, to bite
帰(かえ)る to come back
切(き)る to cut
軋(きし)る to squeak
蹴(け)る to kick
遮(さえぎ)る to interrupt
混(ま)じる to be mixed
参(まい)る to go/come (humble about yourself), to
be defeated
毟(むし)る to tear
詰(なじ)る to scold
握(にぎ)る to clutch
罵(ののし)る to abuse
練(ね)る to exercise
茂(しげ)る to grow thickly
湿(しめ)る to be wet
知(し)る to know
誹(そし)る to criticize
滑(すべ)る to slide
喋(しゃべ)る to chat
散(ち)る to fall (about leaves)
照(て)る to shine
入(はい)る to enter
走(はし)る to run
捻(ねじ)る (also 捻(ね)じる) to screw, to twist
減(へ)る to decrease
耽(ふけ)る (also 耽(ふ)ける) to be obsessed by, to be lost in
せびる to demand money

Also, some new slang verbs are Group I verbs, despite the fact that they
might end with (i)-る or (e)-る. The newest example is タピる -- to drink
tapioca tea (very popular in Asia).

3) Group III includes only two verbs -- 来(く)る ‘to come’ and する ‘to
do’. You can see the table with their functional stems below:
 Stem I Stem II Stem III Stem IV Stem V
来くる こ- き- く(る) く-/こ- こ-
する さ-/し- し- す(る) す-/し- し-
/せ-

Anyway, we are now interested only in forming mas-form of the verbs,

so have a look on the table below to see how the conjugation works:

Present-future Past Tense

Tense
Affirmative おきるー〉おきま おきるー〉おきました
す
form はなすー〉はな
はなすー〉はな
しましたまうー
しますまうー〉
〉まいました
まいます
Negative おきるー〉おきま おきるー〉おきませんでした
せん
form
はなすー〉はなし はなすー〉はなしませんでした
ませ
ん
まうー〉まいませんでした
まうー〉まいませ
ん

プラスα* (Additional information)

(*) We have already skimmed one way of studying conjugation of a

Japanese verb. However, the way we studied it is not linguistically precise,
though quite convenient to easily master this topic. Now we are moving forward
to a proper overview of this topic.

As it was already said, all the grammatical categories are expressed with
the suffixes attached to the designated conjugative suffix. Depending on the type
of the verb, the number of these conjugative suffixes is different.
 The full paradigm of conjugative suffixes is present in so-called ‘Godan
verbs’ (jp. 五段動詞, godan doushi), and it literally means ‘5 step verbs’. The
stems of these verbs end with a consonant (as you can see, Japanese verbs have
only one stem). The conjugative suffixes attached to the stems of this verb type
change in accordance with the Gojuuon (Japanese alphabet) order of vowels. In
other words, we have sounds [a], [i], [u], [e] and [o] after the stem (however, as
Japanese is a syllabic language with a syllabic script, we cannot write letters
expressing consonants and vowels separately, and have to use different hiragana
letters depending on the final consonant of the stem of a particular verb).

The next type of the verbs is ‘Ichidan verbs’ (jp. 一段動詞, ichidan
doushi), and it literally means ‘one step verbs’, as their stems end with either [i]
(jp. 上一段動詞, kami-ichidan doushi, ‘upper one-step verbs) or [e] (jp.
下一段動詞, shimo-ichidan doushi, ‘lower one-step verbs). This type of verbs
attaches the conjugative suffixes directly to the stem, and we need to only get rid
of る suffix.
The last two types of verbs are usually called ‘exceptions’ because of their
irregular stems: these are する (jp. サ行変格活用動詞, sa-gyou henkaku
katsuyou doushi, ‘a verb of irregular conjugation from sa-line' (‘line’ here is a
さ-column of hiragana)) ‘to do’ andくる（jp. カ行変格活用動詞, ka-gyou
henkaku katsuyou doushi, ‘a verb of irregular conjugation from ka-line)) ‘to
come’.