Isn’t the claim “Japanese has only 2 irregular verbs” kind of misleading?

6 comments

1. The て form depends on the ending of the verb :

   * いる、える　＝＞　て
   * う、つ、る　＝＞　って
   * く　＝＞　いて
   * ぐ　＝＞　いで
   * す　＝＞　して
   * む、ぬ、ぶ　＝＞　んで

   But any verb with a given ending will always have the corresponding て form.

2. 行く is only irregular when becomes 行って as well as ある when becomes ない

   The rest are てforms and follow their own rules of inflexion. (I suggest you to study those rules)

   泳ぐ-> 泳いで
   死ぬ-> 死んで
   読む-> 読んで
   愛す/愛する -> 愛して

   There aren’t verb whose endings is “du”, i think.

3. Shinu, yomu, and yobu are all regular, mu, bu, and nu ending words all go to de normally. Oyogu goes to oyoide which is regular as well.

   Aisuru is as you mentioned, counted as suru so it’s not considered irregular, since it conjugated just as suru normally conjugated.

   Iku is irregular since it would be iite regularly, but it’s itte in the te form.

   Overall, japanese has basically no irregular words though. Other cases exist, but compared to other languages it’s a ridiculously small amount of irregular verbs. Most cases of verbs that “seem” irregular are actually regular if you consider the makeup of the verb.
   For example, kakkoii to kakkoyokunai.

4. The first three you gave are the て-forms. They almost all follow the same pattern and are thus not irregular. And I am not sure they are taken much into consideration when considering regular vs irregular since they serve a bit of a different purpose.

   I think you meant oyoide though yes? And yodu/yodzu is not a verb.

   Finally, any する is technically considered irregular, but they all follow the same rules basically. So they are more “irregular”. I hope this help things make more sense, and I can give anymore help you might need.

5. I would agree with your overall arguments, but heavily disagree on the examples you chose.

   泳ぐ is completely regular as far as how other verbs ending in ぐ behave.

   Case in point, 急ぐ, 嗅ぐ, 漕ぐ, and 脱ぐ, 安らぐ all end in いで in their te-forms and いだ in their past tense forms.

   I can’t argue about 死ぬ because it is the one and only verb to end in ぬ, and so we have nothing else to compare it to.

   However, I’ll repeat what I said two paragraphs ago, except we’re talking about verbs that end with む now. Case in point, 編む, 絡む, and 沈む all end with んで in their te-forms and んだ in their past tense form. Same thing with 飛ぶ, 運ぶ, and 選ぶ.

   An actual verb that exhibits an irregularity or contradiction to expectations is 問う. You’d think it’s 問って and 問った because that’s how 会う, 買う, and 戦う work, right? Well, it isn’t. It’s actually 問うた and 問うて. There’s also 乞う doing the same thing.

6. [https://youtu.be/prHO8q2omXE?t=442](https://youtu.be/prHO8q2omXE?t=442)

   Helped me out immensely in regards to remembering て and た forms.