Hello and welcome back to our Japanese verb conjugation series were we conjugate Japanese verbs, who would have thought it! So to recap in the last online Japanese lesson we looked at conjugating Japanese masu form verbs into different tenses.
Well my friends im sorry to tell you, that was a walk in the park compared to what’s to come. However do not despair, we are here to help you get through it!
Today we are going to look at conjugating Japanese plain form verbs. These are the verbs that end in U sounds and are a little more informal compared to “Masu” form verbs. Now we already covered the different verb groups in Japanese but let’s re-cap as you are going to need this vital information.
Contents
Plain form : Japanese Verb Groups
Group 1:
IRU/ERU Verbs – Verbs that end in IRU いるand ERUえる- such as: みる Miru たべる Taberu
Group 2:
Verbs in group 2 end with syllables ku (く), gu (ぐ), su (す), mu (む), nu (ぬ), bu (ぶ), u (う), tsu (つ), or ru (る).
Group 3:
Is made up of only two verbs, Suruする and Kuru くる.
Check Japanese Basic Verb Video too.
Depending on what group the verb is in the verb conjugation will be different. Some groups are easier than others as I’m sure you will soon find out. In today’s Japanese lesson we are going to be looking at how to conjugate plain form verbs into the past.
It is a big task, and possibly the hardest when it comes to Japanese verb conjugation, however once you master this the world is your oyster.
Conjugating Japanese group 1 plain form verbs into the past
So firstly we will start with the easiest group, group 1 – Iru + Eru verbs. To conjugate this group to past tense all you do is take off the “ru” る and add “ta” た. This is one of the simplest groups to work with for verb conjugation.
| to leave; to exit | Deru | でる | Left | Deta | でた |
| To Open | Akeru | あける | opened | Aketa | あけた |
So as you can see this is actually a fairly easy verb group to conjugate.
Conjugating Japanese group 2 plain form verbs into the past
Now group 2 includes all verbs ending in: Verbs in group 2 end with syllables ku (く), gu (ぐ), su (す), mu (む), nu (ぬ), bu (ぶ), u (う), tsu (つ), or ru (る).
Now, each verb ending conjugates differently so unfortunately you just have to remember them. Once you get used to conjugating these verbs it does get easier.
Lets have a look at the conjugation table:
| To walk | Aruku | あるく | く becomesいた | walked | あるいた |
| To swim | Oyogu | およぐ | ぐ becomesいだ | swam | およいだ |
| To kill | Korosu | ころす | す becomesした | killed | ころした |
| To drink | Nomu | のむ | む becomesんだ | drank | のんだ |
| To die | Shinu | しぬ | ぬ becomesんだ | died | しんだ |
| To fly | Tobu | とぶ | ぶ becomesんだ | flew | とんだ |
| To say | Iu | いう | う becomesった | said | いった |
| To wait | Matsu | まつ | つ becomesった | waited | まった |
| To hunt | Karu | かる | る becomesった | hunted | かった |
We would definitely recommend writing out these Japanese verb conjugations for group 2 as much as possible in order to get used to it.
Conjugating Japanese group 3 plain form verbs into the past
Hurray, the hard part is certainly over, group 3 consists of only 2 verbs so it’s just a case of remembering them, let’s take a look at the final Japanese verb conjugation of group 3 into the plain past form.
| To Do | Suru | する | Did | Shita | した |
| To Come | Kuru | くる | Came | Kita | きた |
Since there is only two verbs in group 3 all you have to do really is to remember these 2 cases.
Summary
So now you know how to conjugate plain form Japanese verbs into their plain form past tense. When it comes to verb conjugation once you have learnt this its all down hill from here so keep your head up.
In the last part of our Japanese verb conjugation series we are going to look at changing plain form verbs into both negative and past negative forms.
See you in the next post gang!