Beginning Japanese for Professionals: Book 2

65 文法 Grammar Notes 8-1-1 Verb Plain Form, Non-Past, Affirmative Verbs have many forms. We have so far covered the formal form (~ masu forms), ~te form, ~tai form and the honorific form. In this lesson, we introduce the plain (informal) form. The plain forms are typically used in the three ways below. Due to these uses the plain form is sometimes called by different names as shown in the parenthesis. 1. Dictionaries list verbs in this form (thus called Dictionary forms) 2. Other elements can be attached to this form to create more complex grammatical patterns (thus called Basic Forms) 3. It is used in the informal style conversations (thus called Informal Forms) As explained in Lesson 7, in the informal style conversations you can simply drop desu from adjective and noun sentences. However, for verb sentences, you need to know the plain form of each verb. Japanese verbs are divided into the following four major groups on the basis of their conjugation patterns. Group 1: U-verbs (~ u ending verbs) This is the largest verb group. If you drop ~masu from the ~masu form, you get the verb stem. The stem of all the verbs in this group ends in ~i. To make the plain form, replace the final ~i of the stem with ~u. Stem Plain Form wakar-i  wakar-u ‘understand’ ka-i  ka-u ‘buy’ kak-i  kak-u ‘write’ nom-i  nom-u ‘drink’ isog-i  isog-u ‘hurry’ hanash-i  hanas-u ‘talk’ Group 2: RU-verbs ( ~iru, ~eru ending verbs) To make the plain form of the verbs in this group, simply drop ~masu and add ~ ru . In other words, you add ~ ru to the stem. The stem of the verbs in this group ends in ~ e or ~ i . Stem Plain From tabe  tabe-ru ‘eat’ de  de-ru ‘leave, go out’ okure  okure-ru ‘get late’ i  i-ru ‘be’ mi  mi-ru ‘look’ deki  deki-ru ‘can do’ Warnings! Consider the following two questions.