How Japanese Verbs Work

Introduction

You’re in the end game now. We're so close that I can already smell the beginner island! Take a whiff of that! It smells like... sweet victory! Also cinnamon. Huh, who knew those two things smelled alike?

Anyway! Now that you know Japanese has two types of verbs, ichidan and godan, let's talk more about how they behave in Japanese compared to English.

Japanese (In)tenses

To start us off, let’s talk about something the English language has but the Japanese language doesn’t.

English has three basic verb tenses: past, present, and future. Meanwhile, Japanese only has past and present tenses! This is because the future tense and the present tense have the exact same grammatical form in Japanese. So on its own, a verb in the present tense can either be happening in the present or the future.

You might think that can get super confusing, but thankfully, there will almost always be other context clues in the sentence to let you know if something is happening in the present or future. For example, words like “tomorrow”, “next week”, “now”, etc.

Because of "right now" (今いま) it’s safe to say that the verb ‘going’ (いきます) is in its present tense in the example. Let's go over another example.

As you can see, the verb (いきます) stayed the same in both English and Japanese. We only know this sentence is in future tense because of ‘tomorrow’ (あした)! So even though the verb stayed the same, we can clearly tell which one is taking place in the present, and in the future.

Context, and context clues, are king when it comes to understanding what’s going on in a sentence. So keep an eye out for them! Until you get a hang of this, just remember for now that Japanese only has two tenses: past and present. 😊

Godan, ichidan, and conjugation

As you know from a past lesson, verbs in Japanese are grouped into two categories: godan and ichidan. Verbs are grouped into these two categories based on how they conjugate.

In Japanese, all verbs in their dictionary form (i.e. how you would find them in a dictionary) end with an "う sound" (like る, む, す, etc.). Verbs are conjugated into other forms by changing this "う sound" kana, like so:

• 

  食たべる (to eat, present tense)

• 

  食たべた (to have eaten, past tense)

Now, let's examine how godan and ichidan verbs conjugate!

五段ごだん, Godan

Godan verbs are so named because they conjugate through the five rows (a i u e o) of the hiragana chart. (五ご means "five", while 段だん is "rows/columns/steps" so altogether that's "five rows/columns/steps"!). I'll show you what I mean.

Let's take the godan verb 飲のむ, "to drink", and go through five different conjugations. Don't worry about understanding what they mean just yet, simply pay attention to the highlighted kana.

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  飲のむ (dictionary form)

• 

  飲のまない (negative form)

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  飲のみません (negative polite form)

• 

  飲のめる (potential form)

• 

  飲のもう (volitional form)

As you can see, changing conjugations cycles through the five kana of the む column. Here's the hiragana chart with that highlighted:

This means that when we get to learning conjugations, there may be some memorization involved. But you'll easily get the hang of it, I promise!

Here are some examples of godan verbs:
→ 売うる (to sell), 遊あそぶ (to play), 歌うたう (to sing)

一段いちだん, Ichidan

Ichidan verbs are comparatively simple. Ichidan literally means something like "one row" (yup, 一いち means "one"!), so their conjugation will only involve one row of the hiragana chart. Here's an example:

• 

  食たべる (dictionary form)

• 

  食たべない (negative form)

• 

  食たべません (negative polite form)

• 

  食たべられる (potential form)

• 

  食たべよう (volitional form)

See how 「べ」 stays the same? We stayed on the "え-sound" row of hiragana, and didn't move at all!

Easy right? Here are some examples of ichidan verbs:
→ 寝ねる (to sleep), 見みる (to see), 着きる (to wear)

Is it godan or ichidan? How do I tell???

Good question! The first step is identifying whether your verb ends in る, or any other う-sound (e.g. う, く, す, etc). This is because all ichidan verbs end in る. So if a verb ends in る, your first inclination should be that it's an ichidan verb, but if a verb ends in an う sound other than る, you can be sure it's a godan verb.

However, some godan verbs also end in る. So, for the second step: we'll need to turn our attention to the vowel sound that comes before the る:

If the vowel sound that comes before the る is /a/, /u/, or /o/, it's a godan verb.

If the vowel sound that comes before the る is /e/, or /i/, it's probably an ichidan verb, but there are exceptions.

Testing the system

Let's go through some verbs together using this system, and figure out which group they belong to.

Case study number one, 買かう (to buy)

With just one look at 買かう, we immediately see that it ends in an う sound other than る, and so we can confidently say this is a godan verb! Case closed.

Case study number two, 寝ねる (to sleep)

This time with 寝ねる, the verb ends in る, meaning this may be ichidan! Let's take a look at the vowel sound that comes before る... ah, it's /e/ from the ね kana! This means it's very likely to be an ichidan verb! A quick dictionary search and... yup, it's ichidan. Case closed.

Case study number three, 分わかる (to understand)

For our next verb 分わかる, it ends in る, meaning that this verb may be ichidan! As for the vowel sound before る, it's /a/ from the か kana! This means this is definitely a godan verb! Case closed.

Case study number four, 入はいる (to enter)

Examining the verb 入はいる, we see it ends in る, so this verb may be ichidan. What's the vowel sound before る? Ah, it's /i/ from the い kana! Then it's very likely to be an ichidan verb! A quick dictionary search and... oh no, this is actually a godan verb! Yup, 入はいる is a godan verb that looks like an ichidan verb. Case closed.

With enough time and practice, guessing whether a verb is an exceptional godan verb or not will become second nature to you. For now, a quick search in the MaruMori dictionary will tell you for sure!

And that's really all there is to it! Just like in any language, there are some exceptions of course. But we'll cover those in another lesson. For now, bask in your newfound godan/ichidan knowledge!

Subject-Verb Agreement in Japanese

Don’t worry, you already know what this is. You know how in English we say “I run”, but “he runs”? This is subject-verb agreement! By adding the “s” to “run”, we’re making the verb agree with the subject, “him”.

Now for the good news: Japanese does not do this. Praise be the language gods! Let me demonstrate with a quick side-by-side example:

As you can see, the English verb has changed from “eat” to “eats”, but our Japanese verb 食たべる (to eat), has stayed the same! Yay for simplicity.

Aaaaand that's a wrap! That's all you need to know for now about Japanese verbs. Look at you go, learning so much already! 🎉

Summary

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  In Japanese, verbs have a past and present tense, but not a future tense.

• 

  You can distinguish whether or not an action is happening in the present or future based on other context clues within a sentence or paragraph.

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  Verbs in Japanese are split into two categories: ichidan and godan.

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  Godan and ichidan verbs conjugate differently.

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  Identifying whether a verb is godan or ichidan is done by looking at the ending kana, and what vowel precedes it. Depending on the combination, you may need the help of a dictionary to be sure.

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  In English, we sometimes have to change our verbs to make them “agree” with their subjects. This doesn’t happen in Japanese! Yay!