I’ve noticed when a kanji can be used in two different verbs, transitive verbs (done directly to an object) tend to have an “e” sound in them, and the intransitive verbs (not done directly to an object) tend to have an “a” sound in them.
For example:
transitive: to separate *something* (wak**E**ru) 分ける . to take *something* out (d**E**ru) 出る
intransitive: to understand (wak**A**ru) 分かる . to leave (d**A**su) 出す
Is this a rule that verbs generally follow? Is there a name for this?
4 comments
There’s a [great video ](https://youtu.be/ELk1dqaEmyk) about this.
The narrators voice is a bit..off putting but it’s absolutely worth sticking though for the info she shares.
[There’s this](http://nihongo.monash.edu/ti_list.html) which explains there are 3-4 patterns, but transitivity may switch.
You can look up “transitivity pairs”. Sadly it’s not a 100% rule but it is common enough that it can help out learning a lot of verbs as duos.
Good spot, but not quite.
For one, you’ve mixed up 出す and 出る. 出す, with the ‘a’ vowel, is transitive. 出る, with ‘e’, is intransitive.
But you are correct, a lot of verbs that can either be transitive or intransitive show up with transitivity pairs. There’s a few patterns to this; in some, one takes the normal form, and the other takes the potential form (i.e. the e-vowel stem) e.g. 取る vs. [取れる](https://jisho.org/search/%E5%8F%96%E3%82%8C%E3%82%8B).
In others, there’s actually a change beforehand to mark the pair, seen in pairs like 逃げる (to run away) vs. 逃がす (to let escape). That’s what you’re seeing with 出る and 出す.
There’s a bit more to it (my knowledge on this topic is not exhaustive), but you are correct, transitivity pairs are a thing.