Uki Uki Japanese Lesson 24 - Usagi Holmes 1: Verb Groups

Uki Uki Japanese Lesson 24 Usagi Holmes 1: A Study in Verbs

Welcome to Uki Uki NihonGO! + Culture.

Today, we are focusing on verb groups in Japanese.

Japanese present-tense affirmative, present negative, past affirmative, and past negative conjugate like this.
Polite Japanese: verb endings (ますmasu, ません masen, ました mashita, ませんでした masendeshita).
Casual Japanese: verb endings (Dictionary form, ない, た, なかった)

In this video, we’ll focus on the dictionary form of verbs because it’s the easiest to identify.

All Japanese verbs are categorized into three verb groups: Irregular verbs, るverbs, and うverbs.

1. Irregular verbs: There are only 2 irregular verbs in Japanese.
する: to do (very versatile when combined with an action noun)
くる: to come (a few variations)

2. るverbs can only have 2 patterns:
eる ending (e.g. たべる taberu、ねる neru、かける kakeru)
iる ending (e.g. みる miru、できる dekiru, おちる ochiru)

3. うverbs are the biggest verb group. This includes:
All non る-ending verbs (e.g. のむ nomu, かく kaku)
aる, uる, and oる ending verbs (e.g. ある aru, おくる okuru, つもる tsumoru)
*Some exceptions

*Those exceptions are tricky うverbs that “sound like” a るverb because of eる or iる endings.
Luckily, there aren’t too many of those exceptions, so just memorize them and remember that they are うverbs.
e.g. はしる hashiru, しる shiru, かえる kaeru, しゃべる shaberu, etc.

Knowing how to identify verb groups correctly will come in handy when you use any verb expressions.

Hope you enjoyed this video. :)
Please let us know what you think in the comments below.

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