Kawa-japa kyuwa dori sensei! Hello, pretty peoples. Kawazapa no Kyuudori desu.
I am Kyuudori from Kawazapa. Today we are going to talk about Japanese conjugation. Which particular conjugation, you may ask?
Well, all of them, except for the ta-and te-form, which we will discuss in a different video. Why are we dealing with them all at once? Because we can.
Because Japanese conjugation all works the same way. It's very simple, very logical and very consistent and very, very easy to understand. However, when we look in a textbook, we get the impression of lots of different rules and forms that you have to learn for each particular conjugation.
Why is that? Why do the textbooks make it seem so complicated when it's actually so very simple? Two reasons.
The first is that they insist on this European concept of conjugation. Actually, what we're doing is not conjugation at all. What we're doing all the time is attaching a simple helper verb or helper adjective or helper noun to the stems of the verb, and once we see how that works, it becomes very, very simple and easy to understand.
The other problem is that They spent a lot of time explaining the changes that take place in terms of the Roman sound system, the alphabet. But in fact that causes a lot of confusion and difficulty. Once we see it in the terms it actually exists in, that is to say, the Japanese sound system, it all becomes very logical.
I would say it is a hundred percent consistent, logical and simple. Except that there is one exception in the whole system and there are two irregular verbs, so perhaps we'd better say 99.9% logical, consistent and easy to understand. All right, so let's give you the master chart which will show you how all of this works. Chado okudasai! So, here is the familiar Japanese kana chart with all the sounds of Japanese.
I've turned it on its side for reasons which will become apparent shortly. All Japanese verbs end with one of the kana in the middle row. It looks like a column because I've turned it on its side. That is the u-row u, ku, su, tsu, nu, etc. However, there is no verb ending in u, so we can get rid of these two columns and simplify the chart.
Actually, there is only one. verb that ends in nu, that's shinu, to die. So we could get rid of that too and make it look even simpler, but I'm keeping it in for completeness.
So, every verb ends with one of the kana in the red box. Let's have an example of each of the possible endings. Kau buy, kiku hear, hanasu speak, motsu hold, shinu die, tobu fly. Nomu drink, toru cake. Now, as you can see, there are four other possible endings that the verbs could have.
And in fact, each of those endings is used. And when we use one of the other endings, the verb stops being a verb and becomes what I call a sticky stem, that is, a stem to which we stick something else. Here is the i-stem.
With the i-sticky stem we change the u-row kana to the corresponding i-row kana. So kau becomes kai, kiku becomes kiki, hanasu becomes hanashi, and so forth. What do we do with the i-row sticky stem?
Well, the thing that you have all seen, I'm sure, is we can attach the helper verb masu to the i-stem. Masu is not a conjugation, it is a verb, it's a helper verb, and it attaches to the iro-sticky stem. It does not change the meaning of the verb, but it makes it formal.
So, kao is the regular informal version, meaning by, kaimasu is the formal version, kiku is the informal version, here kikimasu is the formal version. What else do we do with the ear of a sticky stem? Well, We can attach the helper adjective, tai. Tai is a helper adjective which means want.
So kai tai means want to buy, kiki tai, want to hear, hanashitai, want to speak, and so forth. We also use the ii-rosu-ki stem for attaching nouns in order to convert a verb into a new noun. So kai mono.
That is, buy thing means shopping. Nomi mono, drink thing, means a drink. Hanashi kata, kata means form or shape, hanashi kata means way of speaking, manner of speaking.
So now we know how to attach all these except for what are called the ru verbs, the ichidan verbs, and they are very very very simple because all you ever do with these ever is simply cut off the ru and you have All the possible sticky stems of the ichidan verb. So taberu simply becomes tabe. Tabemasu is the formal form of the verb. Tabetai want to eat.
Tabemono eat thing, food. So now we come to the aro sticky stem. And this has one exception, and you say, ah, language is full of exceptions. This is the only exception in the whole system. And it's a very natural one that you can well understand.
The u-ending verb does not become ka-a, it becomes kawa, which is a lot easier to say and understand in conversation, isn't it? So ka-u does not become ka-a-nai, it becomes kawa-nai. So what do we use the a-ending stem for?
I've already mentioned it. The last one. Common use is to attach the helper adjective nai to the sticky stem of a verb. It attaches to the a sticky stem. So karu, by, becomes kawa, nai, not by, kikku becomes kika, nai, not here, hanasu becomes hanasa, nai, not speak, and so forth.
It's very simple. We also use the a. sticky stem for the causative and the so-called passive forms of verbs.
And these conjugations often give beginners quite a lot of trouble, and I have made videos that show how simple they really are, how they work, what they mean, and how simple it really is if you understand them the way they actually are. Today we're just going to look at the structure. So the causative form of a verb, which means to allow someone to do something or make, Someone Do Something is formed by attaching the helper verb seru-saseru to the a-row sticky stem.
Now, I say seru-saseru. What does that mean? Well, it means that there are actually two forms of this helper verb.
Seru attaches to all those sticky stems that we're working with, all the ones that change, and saseru attaches to the a-row. Ichidan, the so-called ru-verb, sticky stem. Where there is a slight variation in the helper verb, we always find that the longer version goes on to the ichidan verb, because that verb is generally shorter.
The ichidan verb, we take off the whole last syllable. With the godan verbs, the changing sticky stems, we don't take off the last syllable, we change it to a different sound. Cha!
Seru-saseru makes the causative form of a verb. Kao becomes kawa. Seru allow to buy, make to buy.
Hanasu becomes hanasaseru allow to speak, make to speak. Nomu becomes noma. Seru allow to drink, make to drink.
And taberu becomes taber-saseru allow to eat. make to eat. The so-called passive, which is not really passive, and we have a video helping you with understanding what it really does and how simple that really is, the so-called passive, the receptive form, is formed with the helper verb, veru, vareru.
So, kaw becomes kawareru, which means get bored. Be bored, get bored. Get bored is better because that's closer to what the Japanese really means, and you'll understand that when you see the video. Kiku becomes kika, deru, get hurt.
Nomu becomes noma, deru, get drunk. I don't mean become intoxicated, I mean the way the cup of coffee got drunk. Taberu becomes taberareru, get eaten.
So as you see... there are really, apart from that one exception, there are not lots and lots of different ways of attaching these together. It's because it's presented as a conjugation and because it's explained as if it was written in Roman letters that the confusion arises. We can see that it's actually very, very regular. We just shift to the aro and add the helper adjective nai, the helper verb, re-ru, la-re-ru, the helper verb, seru, sa-seru.
And it's just as simple as that. Now we come to the ero sticky stem. Just like the others, it's perfectly consistent. You just change the u-ro kana into the corresponding e-ro kana. So, ka-u becomes ka-e, ki-ku becomes ki-ke, hanasu becomes hanase, and so forth.
We use the e-ro sticky stem. to create the potential form of verbs, which means you can do the verb. The helper verb, which is stuck onto the arrow sticky stem, is ru, dare-ru.
And yes, even though it's simply ru, just that one character, it is a helper verb. If you look it up in a Japanese dictionary, not a Japanese-English dictionary, but a real Japanese dictionary, you'll find ru there as Eto doushi, a helper verb, and it has these two forms, ru and rareru. Rareru is, you will have noticed, the same as the so-called passive, reru, rareru.
So the ichidan form of the passive and the potential are the same, but because they are used very, very differently, there are very, very few occasions on which you would confuse the two, so it's not really a problem. So we have kaeru, kanmai, kikeru, kanhiru, hanaseru, kanspeak and so forth, plus taberareru, kan-eat. So, now we come to the last sticky stem, the o sticky stem, and just as with the others it's perfectly consistent. Kaeru becomes kaeru, kiku becomes kiku. Hanasu becomes hanaso, and what we do with this sticky stem is attach u, and as you know, u, when attached to o, generally lengthens the o.
So kao doesn't become kau, it becomes kao. Kiku becomes kikou. Hanasu becomes hanaso.
And the volitional has a number of uses, and I'm only talking about structure here, so I'll just use one of the uses. Kau becomes kao, let's buy. Kiku becomes kiko, let's listen, let's hear. Hanasu becomes hanaso, let's talk. In the ichidan form, we add yo to the end of the ichidan sticky stem.
So, taberu becomes tabeyo, let's eat. One peculiarity of the volitional form is that you can Also make it by changing the form of masu to use the volitional in its formal mode. And when you do this, you say mashou instead of masu. And when you do this naturally enough, you use the i-row sticky stem just as you do with regular masu. So, ikimashou!
Let's go. So now you have the master keys to nearly the whole of the Japanese. so-called conjugation system.
And as you now know, it's not conjugation at all. The only thing we haven't covered is the ta and te forms of verbs, which perhaps are closer to being conjugations. And fortunately, ta and te work identically, so once you know one, you know the other, and we will cover that in a future video. You may not be able to swallow everything in this video in one gulp, but every time you become confused about the way any conjugation is working, please come back to this video and run it through, and I think it will all become perfectly clear. Some people will ask, well, what about irregular verbs?
Remember all those pages and pages of irregular verbs in the back of the French textbook or the German textbook or the Spanish textbook? Well, yes, Japanese has irregular verbs too. There are two of them. That's right, just two.
Tsuru and kuru. And they work a little bit differently from the others, and you'll very soon pick that up. Remember that there?
Textbook for this course of lessons. is Unlocking Japanese, and you can get it at Amazon in paperback or Kindle editions. Thank you for attending this class.
Kore kara mo yoroshiku onegai shimasu. Class dismissed.