Verbs as Nouns

7 comments

1. The い ending turns any verb into its true noun/connective form. I believe you can do it to any verb technically.

   Ichidan verbs can become nouns by just removing the る. That’s how you get compounds like 食べ物.

2. This is a great question you raise. The Japanese name for the specific conjugation you are referring to (i.e. take the verb + masu, then drop -masu) is **連用形** (ren’youkei), often called the “continuative” or “masu stem” form in English.

   Interestingly, I brought this topic up with a friend who is a native Japanese speaker, and he said that, in schools, when they would have to break up a sentence into its parts then specify verb/noun/adjective, etc., these words that look like 連用形 would be only correctly referred to as “nouns” (名詞, meishi). If a student marked the 踊り in the phrase お盆踊り (obon odori) as a verb, they would have been marked wrong.

   I’m not too sure why ren’youkei has this effect, but the effect can be described (very vulgarly) as like when we put -ing at the end of a verb to turn it into a noun (e.g. His *dancing* was elegant).

   One example of an ichidan verb you can do this with is 日の出 (hinode, sunrise). The antonym shows clearly that 出 is the ren’youkei form — cf. 日の入り (hinoiri, sunset). Another is the noun 答え (kotae, “an answer/response,” from the verb 答える). Another example I can think of is the noun 花見 (hana + mi, the ren’youkei of 見る).

   Other nouns I can think of that operate like this: 勝ち (kachi, “a win/victory,” from the verb 勝つ); 喋り (shaberi, “a talk/chat,” from the verb 喋る); お手洗い (洗い functions as a noun, “washing,” but comes from 洗う); and even the kanji learner’s favorites — 音読み (on’yomi) and 訓読み (kun’yomi).

   I hope this helps!

3. >Can I do this to all verbs to create a noun of them?

   Yes. [The noun may have various different meanings, too.](https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2022/03/noun-form.html) Like 踊り can be either the act of “dancing” or the “dance.”

4. Thanks for all the answers dudes :))))))

5. I believe the grammatical term you’re looking for in English is called a gerund.

6. My question is, does this happen in English?

7. >1. Can I do this to all verbs to create a noun of them? I’m sure I can’t but how do I know what words are eligible to be used as a noun?

   Yes, you can do this with any verb. It’s actually a conjugation called the [連用形](https://jisho.org/search/%E9%80%A3%E7%94%A8%E5%BD%A2) (continuative or conjunctive, depending on how you translate it), and it has many uses. 連用形 is absolutely essential grammar. To help you clear up why and how this can get used with any verb, I’ll give you an example. 連用形 functions as a formal, literary て-form. Specifically, the “and” usage of て-form.

   例えば：[弟は琢郎と**言い**、兄は太郎と言います。](https://jref.com/articles/renyoukei.107/) The “言い” here is doing exactly what 言って would do. However, this isn’t used much outside of written Japanese. Like I said though, **連用形 is still essential grammar, because it has way more uses.***

   >2. How are ichidan verbs (ru verbs) turned into nouns in this way? I’ve only been able to catch the godan verbs (u verbs) used in this form.

   Just chop off the る and you’re done. 信じる → 信じ . If you start paying attention to uses of 連用形 in the wild, you’ll definitely see it in use for ichidan verbs.

   >3. These 3 words are all in the dictionary as far as jisho is concerned. When I look up conjugation of these words I dont find anything that points to their existence. Best I can tell, you use the masu form of a word and then drop the masu part. How do I find a list of words like this one? I guess this is sort of a follow up to question one, if not the same just reworded.

   So here’s the thing. Almost every teaching resource tells you that there is a thing called a “ます-stem” and that the polite form of a verb, ～ます, is a conjugation. That’s not exactly true, and it rarely gets taught in a way that illuminates the grammar at work here.

   The polite form of a verb, like 読みます, is not a true conjugation. It’s two different words. The first word is your verb conjugated to its 連用形, in this case 読み. The second one is the [auxiliary verb ます](https://jisho.org/word/%E3%81%BE%E3%81%99). Conjugating a verb to its 連用形 is really just moving the last kana to the い column of the hiragana chart. After that, you attach what you need to. * **It can be ます, but there are way more things you can stick onto the 連用形**. Three examples:

   * **読み**方 – how to read, way of reading
   * **読み**ながら – while reading
   * **読み**過ぎる – to read too much

   These are the 連用形 of a verb with some kind of auxiliary stuck onto the end to form a new and more nuanced meaning related to reading. But you can also attach completely different verbs to create new meanings. Let’s take 乗る.

   * 乗る = to board a train or bus
   * 遅れる = to be late
   * 乗る conjugated to 連用形 = 乗り
   * 乗り + 遅れる = 乗り遅れる (to board a train or bus + to be late)
   * 乗り遅れる = to miss a train or bus

   See why it’s so essential? My recommendation is that you learn to conjugate verbs into their 連用形 quickly, *without* having to first use its ます form and then reverse engineer it. And that’s my issue with all this ～ます-stem nonsense; it conditions you to go through this process in your head:

   * I need to say “how to swim”
   * Ok what’s the ます form? 泳ぎます
   * All right now I have to take off the ます
   * 泳ぎ
   * Almost there, I just have to add 方
   * 泳ぎ方 !

   Instead, just train yourself to go right from 泳ぐ to 泳ぎ. Eventually, you won’t even have to think of 泳ぐ first. IMO, the real problem is that ～ます is taught as the default way to speak Japanese, which is wholly incorrect, but that’s another issue.

   Now, is there a list of words using this grammar? I don’t know. Probably? I wouldn’t worry about it though, because any resource, for example Genki, will introduce words like these gradually within their existing vocab lists.