So. I have been slowly but surely learning Japanese for the past month to month and a half, and I have gotten to the point where I can kind of grasp the concept of verbs and their suffixes ( 一段 and 五段verbs, how changing the ending of a verb can make it negative or past tense for example); however, I feel like I am missing something.
I watched [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhyrskGBKHE) (a little unsettling, but the info was great) last night after browsing this sub to get a better grasp of how verbs and verb “conjugations” work, and it makes sense on paper, but applying it has proven to be a little bit of a challenge. I just find myself struggling to find what verb ending to use when, as there seem to be quite a few variations of each. I have found [this chart](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/68/AMB_Japanese_Verbs.pdf/page1-1200px-AMB_Japanese_Verbs.pdf.jpg) that honest to goodness seems like quite a powerful resource, but I’m finding it difficult to really put it to use with my studying and understand the entirety of what’s going on.
I have been working through Genki I mainly and supplementing other resources when I need to grasp a concept a little better. I feel like I’m right on the edge of that “aha!” moment where this concept makes sense, and it just starts coming to me quite easily, but I feel like it needs just a little bit more reinforcing. I’m hoping I could possibly get a little assistance from you all with that.
I know that this post is quite open-ended and not a super specific question, but I hope that I was able to get my point across. Any advice or assistance would be great. Thank you!
3 comments
Ah, you said you are using Genki?
It will drip-feed you each conjugation type slowly enough so you can get a good grasp on each of them.
I think your only issue is that you tried to get ahead of yourself. You should be ok if you just keep using Genki.
Basically conjugation isn’t that hard.
The biggest “gotcha” with it is it sometimes changes how (a lot of the) particles work. Like for instance, the に particle works differently with passive and causative-passive, but not differently with causative. Confusing? A bit, but it’s just a thing you will have to memorize somehow.
**Whirlwind tour of some basics**
So basically it all starts out with the dictionary form and that’s easy enough. That’s a pretty neutral form of the word.
From there you probably learn ます which is like, for talking with someone you don’t know that well. It’s handy.
If you need past tense it’s ました, well that wasn’t hard.
Now you have volitional. It just mean’s you add “let’s” to it. 行く “I will go” いきましょう “let’s go”. Pretty easy. 食べましょう “Let’s eat”, ok, pretty easy….
Then you have got potential well, that just mean you “can” do something. 泳ぐ I will swim->泳げる I can swim (i.e. I am capable of swimming)
Then you have passive which basically means something happened to you. Usually something…bad. That’s why we can call it **suffering passive** 叩く to hit 叩かれる passive form. Throw a little past-tense action onto that and it becomes 叩かれた you were hit (by someone…what a jerk!!!)
Causative is another one. It just means you “Let” something happen. Something like, “my parents **let** me own a pet” would be the kinda thing you see it with.
And finally Causative-Passive. This is when you were forced to do something. This seems the rarest.
But don’t worry about doing this all at once, just take it slow get a firm grasp on each one and that’s all there is.
Stick with one system. Either how Japanese kids learn in Japanese school, the 一段 五段 designation, or how textbooks for foreigner generally classify them, one example maybe “-ru verbs”.
The conjugation can seem overwhelming, but is surprisingly regular once you get a hang of it. But it definitely takes time.
I thought I was done with learning conjugation, but it turns out there was quite a lot I didn’t know. Thanks for sharing!