Verbs conjugation - part 1

Verbs are one of the hardest part in every language, and Japanese is not exception. The conjunction rules can be tricky and the exceptions for these rules are hard to memorize and to apply. Luckily, the exceptions in Japanese are few and it will make the memorization way easier than in English.

Usually every Japanese study starts with the verbs in ~ます (masu) form. Which is affirmative polite present tense form. But I prefer to start the introduction with getting to know the "enemy". 

Firstly I have to say that learning Japanese verbs will be easier if you already know the kanji. Yes it's a paradox, but stay with me for a second. Japanese is a language full of homophones. And because hiragana is written exactly how it pronounced, many verbs are written the same in hiragana, but having different meanings. For example: おきます (okimasu). can be "to wake up" and "to put". More over, these two are belonging to different groups of verbs and conjugate differently. Confusing, right?

But here the spot were the kanji come into our rescue. All Japanese verbs have kanji in them and which is behaving like a root of the verb. It follows the verb through all the conjugation forms and helps identify it.

Here in our example: 起 きます- to wake up,  置 きます- to put.

So yes, kanji are hard and verbs conjugation is hard, but if we put them together, it can serve two purposes. You'll learn kanji faster and you'll know to tell apart the similar sounding verbs.

Also it might be helpful to study the verbs as a couple of dictionary form and the masu form. Why? You will ask me. Well, let's say you will thank me later if you will take my advice on this one.

Now lets look over the groups of verbs we have rules for. Japanese has three groups of verbs:

 

Ichidan verbs (one-level erbs)

These verbs are ending with る in the dictionary form but not all the verbs ending with る are ichidan verbs. Yes, a little logic here: every ihchidan verb ends with る, but not every verb which ends with る is ichidan.
Then how is it helps us? It will help us to identify the godan verbs. But in the meantime, the important part in these verbs that they are conjugate easily. Lets take for example the verb 食べる(たべる) - to eat.
In all the forms, the only part that changes is the る, meaning that the stem 食べ stays the same. That also the reason these verbs are called ichidan. They stay in the え column of the hiragana table, as the ending vowel in the stem indicate.

Godan verbs (five-level verbs)

These verbs are more complicated to conjugate. First of all we need to identify The godan verb. As you may expect from the information above, every verb in dict. form that doesn't end with る is a godan verb. For example: 聞く(きく) - to listen, 話す(はなす) - to speak, 読む (よむ) - to read, and so on.
But also the verbs which end with aru, oru or uru are also godan verbs. For example: 分かる(わかる) - to understated, 折る (おる) - to break, 作る (つくる) - to make.
Then what about the iro and eru endings, you will ask. Well, these you will have to memorize.
So why are they godan? Because in conjugation the last vowel changing, moving left and right on the hiragana chart:

a  聞かない - not to listen
i  聞きます - to listen (polite)
u  聞く- to listen (dict form)
e  聞ける- can listen
o  聞こう- let's listen

As you can see we have all the か, き, く, け, こ row while conjugating. 

Irregular verbs

In this group we have only two verbs:

来る(くる) - to come. In the masu form: 来ます
する- to do.  In the masu form: します

The last one is a very useful verb, because he turns nouns into verbs. For example:
せんたく-laundry, せんたくする - to do laundry.
テニス- tennis, テニスする - to play tennis.
べんきょう- study, べんきょうする - to study.
and so on.

It's it for now. In the next parts the types of conjugations and their practical usages will be discussed.

Adjectives made simple

The adjectives in Japanese are not so simple. They are divided to two categories and are conjugated between tenses. But they follow strict rules and there is only one irregular adjective, so when you will get a hang on this, it will be simple. Let's start.

Two types of adjectives are い- adjectives and な-adjectives and the irregular adjective is いい (good).
The interesting thing I noticed that the な-adjectives are behaving like nouns while conjugated (Yes, in Japanese the nouns also got infected with this).

Now to go over the rules, lets pick two adjectives. Let's take  きれい (な) (beautiful) for な adjective and ちいさい (small) for い adjective.

To modify a noun correctly with adjectives you need to put them before the noun:

きれいな ねこ です. A beautiful cat.
ちいさい ねこ です. A small cat.

 Or after the noun:

この ねこ は きれい です. This cat is beautiful. (see the な disappeared)
この ねこ は ちいさい です. This cat is small.

So far so good. But there is a reason the な is written in brackets. When conjugating, it tends to disappear a lot. 

な-adjectives

As previously said, the な adjectives behave like nouns:

present affirmative: きれいです. present negative:  きれいではありません.
past affirmative: きれいでした. past negative: きれいではありませんでした. 

Affirmative  ~です and ~でした can be replaced with less polite:
~だ and ~だった

Negative ~ではありません and ~ではありませんでした can be replaced with: 
~じゃありません and ~じゃありませんでした- less polite 
~じゃない and ~ではなかった- least polite

い- adjectives

They have a different but predictable pattern:

Present affirmative: ちいさいです. present negative: ちいさくありません.
Past affirmative: ちいさかったです. past negative: ちいさくありませんでした.

In less polite form:

Affirmative just removing the ~です.

Negative  ~ありません and ~ありませんでした replaced with: ~ない and ~なかった respectfully.

Irregular いい

Present affirmative: いいです. present negative:  よくありません.
Past affirmative: よかったです. past negative: よくありませんでした.

And less polite form present よくない and past よくなかった.

And now for additional usage of adjectives:

Joining sentences with て form 

For longer sentences you can use the て form (yes it's not exclusively for verbs):

この ねこ は きれい で, ちいさいです. - This cat is beautiful and small.
この ねこ は ちいさくて, きれいです. - This cat is small and beautiful.
この ねこ は よくて, きれいです. - This cat is good and beautiful.

Noun replacment

When using the same noun and different adjectives, you can replace it with の or (ひと for people).

くろい この が あります. しろい の も が あります

Nouns in Japanese

At first sight nouns in Japanese are looking fairly simple, but there are some catches you should know about:

Gender
In Japanese there is no grammatical gender like male and female or something in between (like "it" in English).

Plural
Japanese usually doesn't have plural clarifications. This can lead to unclear sentences like: かみ may refer to god, goddess or gods in equal manner.
To express plurality in Japanese, you need to add counter words or attach words like "many" "few" etc.

People are exception in this aspect. They have four plural suffixes.

• The most commonly used is 〜達 (たち):
  わたし - I ,  わたしたち - We
  しょうねん- a boy, しょうねんたち - boys
  and so on.
  You also can say かまむらたち, which will mean Kamamura and others.

• A more honorable suffix for plural is ~ 方 (がた). Used in formal cases of writing a letter or addressing a honorable person. For example:
  せんせいがた - Mr. teacher.
  かまむらさまがた - Mr. Kamamura. 

• A less honorable suffix is 〜等 (ら), and it usually paired with nouns like わし (me), てめえ (you) etc.
  It also used to pluralize これ, それ, あれ.

• The last one is 〜供 (ども) and it used for someone you disrespect or to show modesty when saying わたしども.

Conjugation
To go over it lets take our beloved ねこ(cat) as an example. We have four forms affirmative/negative, present/past. Sadly Japanese have no future tense. So it goes like this:

Present affirmative: ねこです. present negative:  ねこではありません.
Past affirmative: ねこでした. past negative: ねこではありませんでした 

Affirmative  ~です and ~でした can be replaced with less polite:
~だ and ~だった

Negative ~ではありません and ~ではありませんでした can be replaced with: 
~じゃありません and ~じゃありませんでした- less polite 
~じゃない and ~ではなかった- least polite

Joining sentences with て form 

 For longer sentences you can use the て form (yes it's not exclusively for verbs).  Only in nouns it turns to で and a lot easier:

わたしはにほんじんで, にじゅうにさいです. - I'm Japanese and twenty two years old.

Listing nouns
In Japanese there are two ways to do it. With と or with や.
ねこといぬです - a cat and a dog.
ねこやいぬです - animals such cats and dogs (Meaning there are more than just these two).

 

To be or not to be

To be or not to be, this is the question (Shakespeare). And in Japanese it's a good question. The reason for this is simple - Japanese have two verbs with meaning "to be", ある (aru ) and いる (iru). And in this post I'll try to inspect the difference between them. So let's start.

Usages of this verbs
If you look for a simple explanation, when to use ある and where いる, the answer will be:

いる - for living things. Ex. ねこが います (neko ga imasu) - there is a cat.
ある - for not-living things. Ex. くるまが あります (kuruma ga arimasu) - there is a car.

Simple, right? No so quickly.  If the cat is dead, it will be referred to あります (arimasu). And if the car is moving in the street, it will be referred to as います (imasu). And now you'll say WHAT? WHY?
The rule of います (imasu) and あります (arimasu) goes like this:

いる - for animated things.
ある - for not-animated things.

Examples of usage
And now for the examples. Here the situations we can use these two verbs. 

Statement of being: 
へやに ほんが あります (heya ni hon ga arimas) - there are books in the room.

つくえの うえに ほんが あります (stukue no ue ni hon ga arimasu) - there is a book on the desk.

Possession: 
わたしは ほんが あります (watashi wa hon ga arimas) - I have books.
Note: typically the わたしは (watashi wa) is omitted. 
Something happening:
あしたは おまつりが あります(ashita wa omatsuri ga arimasu) - tomorrow a festival will take place.

Questions and answers

Asking questions:

へやに だれが いますか (heya ni dare ga imaska) - who is in the room?

へやに なにが ありますか (heya ni nani ga arimaska) - what is in the room?

Answering:

へやには だれも いません (heya ni wa dare mo imasen) - There is no one in the room (a person)

へやには なにも いません (heya ni wa nani mo imasen) - There is no one in the room (an animal)

へやには なにも ありません (heya ni wa nani mo arimasen) - There is nothing in the room (a thing)

Yes/No questions:

やまださんが いますか (yamada san ga imaska) - Is Mr. Yamada present?

ほんが あります (honga arimaska) - Is there a book?

Answer:

はい,  やまださんが います (hai, yamada san ga imasu) - Yes, Mr. Yamada is present.

いいえ, やまださんは いません (iie, yamada san wa imasen) - No, Mr. Yamada is not present.

Note: pay attention that in negative answer, が is switched to は.

Note: If the form of the example appears only for あります, it will be the same for います and vice versa.

I hope this post was helpful and clear all the misunderstandings. If you still have questions, you are more the welcome to ask them.

Particals

The particles in Japanese are very important. They connect the words to each other, labeling the words and dictate the tone of  the sentence. I think the particles are the key to understanding Japanese. You can't know all the words, but you can learn the particles and understand the main idea of the sentence.
In this post I'll write about the main particles (appearing frequently), but if you want the full list of them, you can find it here.

General rule
Typically, in Japanese writing there are no spaces between the words. But when they write with spaces (books for children) , the particles always stick to the end of the word.

Wa(は)
When apearing after a word, indicates that this word is the main topic of the sentence.
Note: the syleble  は typicly pronounced as ha, and only while used as a topic maker, pronounced, like wa.
example:
Watashi wa neko desu. (わたしはねこです) I'm a cat.

Ga (が)
When appearing in the end of the sentence, indicats an open ended sentence (not finished sentence).
example:
Kono nekoga (このねこが...) This cat...

Ka (か)
When appearing in the end of the sentence, turning it to a question.
Note that the structure of the rest of the sentence not changing.
example:
Neko desu. (ねこです) It's a cat.
Neko desuka (ねこですか) Is it a cat?

No (の)
This particle is used to expresses possession or a relation between two nouns.
example:
Watashi no neko desu. (わたしのねこです) It's my cat.

Ni (に)
This particle indicates derection.
example:
Watashi wa tomodachi ni ikimasu (わたしはともだちにいきます) I'm going to freand's house.

Ne (ね)
When appearing in the end of the sentence, turning it into an agreement seeking sentence.
example:
Neko desu. (ねこです) It's a cat.
Neko desune. (ねこですね) It's a cat, isn't it?

Yo(よ)
When appearing in the end of the sentence, working not exactly like exclamation mark, but indicates a strong conviction.
example:
Neko desu. (ねこです) It's a cat.
Neko desuyo. (ねこですよ) It's a cat!

Starting with ABC

Like in every language, the first thing you should do, is to learn the alphabet. I was surprised to find out that the Japanese have two alphabets. One is Hiragana ( ひらがな) and the other is Katakana (カタカナ). I won't start to talk about Kanji in this post because it's a subject by itself.
Hiragana is the alphabet for the Japanese words and Katakana is for the foreign words they adopted from other languages. Why they needed different alphabet for the foreign words? I have no idea.
Anyway, the two alphabets are containing 46 syllables:

Hiragana:

Katakana:

Also there are extended syllables chart containing 25 syllables:

And if it wasn't enough, there is a third chart with 34 syllables. this chart is of modified syllables containing small ya (ゃ), yu (ゅ), yo (ょ):

Well, no wonder people are giving up even before they have started. But the secret is, that the alphabet (including Kanji) is the hardest part. Japanese grammar is relatively easy (or so they say).


Tip
It is important to become used to write the Kana in the right order. when you'll get to Kanji, you'll understand.
Tip
The syllable ヲ (wo) is not used.


More about Kana
To know how to read every word written in Kana you need to be familiar with some rules.
Hiragana:

• Long Vowels: accomplished easily by dabbling the vowel: ああ, いい, うう, ええ, おお
• Long Vowels in syllables: the same except the お column (お こ そ と の ほ も よ ろ ご ぞ ど ぼ ぽ). In that column the long sound of "o" is written with う So all the row of "K" will be: かあ (kaa), きい (kii), くう (kuu), けえ (kee), こう (koo). The exception to that rule are the verbs. In verbs the ending read as it written: おう (to chase) is read "ou".
• Double Consonants: to dabble the consonant, you should add little tsu (っ) before it.
• Special partials: when は (ha) marks the topic of a sentence, it pronounced as "wa". When へ (he) marks the direction of movement, it pronounced as "e". Then を (wo) marks the object of a verb, it pronounced as "o".

Katakana:

• Long Vowels: accomplished easily by adding ー after the vowel: アー, イー, ウー, エー, オー
• Double Consonants: to dabble the consonant, you should add little tsu (ッ) before it.
• To fit other languages: there are some combinations with little ァ, ィ, ゥ, ェ, ォ to match the other languages:
• ティ "ti", トゥ "tu"
• ディ "di", ドゥ "du"
• ファ "fa", フィ "fi", フェ "fe", フォ "fo" 
• ウィ "wi", ウェ "we", ウォ "wo"
• ヴァ "va", ヴィ "vi", ヴ "vu", ヴェ "ve", ヴォ "vo"
• ジェ "je", シェ "she", チェ "che"

Aside from Hiragana and Katakana you'll get by a term Romaji. It is the writing of Japanese phonetic characters as Roman letters. But don't jump from joy, they are almost never used, and I'll recommend you not to loose your time with it.

Some History
The Japanese alphabet came from the Chinese Kanji. Take a look at the morphing symbols: