Dirty Guide to Japanese

8/10/2019 Dirty Guide to Japanese

1/32

pdfcrowd comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

The Dirty Guide to Japanese

Contents

1. Preface

2. Particles1. Word Order

2. Subjects and Deletions

3. Deleting Other Established Information

4. Particle

5. Particle

3. Verb Conjugations

1. Verbs

2. Verbs

3. Irregular Verbs

4. Adjectives

5. Conclusion

Preface

Most students of Japanese find learning the language frustrating because it takes them so long to develop enoughproficiency to communicate anything more than the simplest of concepts. Perhaps some of this is due to the vast

linguistic difference between English and Japanese, but it is probably mostly due to current educational theories of

teaching foreign languages that claim that languages should be learned through a process of gradual absorption,

mimicking the path that infants follow towards competency in their mother-tongue. This is certainly a great step

forward in the improvement of teaching foreign languages, a major improvement from the days of educators relying

solely on translation and memorization of literature. In many places languages are still taught in this manner,
http://pdfcrowd.com/http://pdfcrowd.com/redirect/?url=http%3a%2f%2fnihonbunka.uaa.alaska.edu%2flanguage%2fdirtyguide.html&id=ma-130704130228-49541c3ahttp://pdfcrowd.com/customize/http://pdfcrowd.com/html-to-pdf-api/?ref=pdf


2/32


particularly in Japan, where most Japanese people learn to read and write English by translation, producing people

who can muddle their way through a research paper but can't hold up their end of an ordinary conversation. But in my

opinion this process of learning by absorption is only useful to a point, after which it becomes more of a frustration

and a hindrance to further study. Human beings are thinking creatures who have great skill at analysis and problem

solving. Presenting language as something to be absorbed, like a form of aesthetics, is in my opinion only useful to

prevent the beginning student from being overwhelmed by enormous amounts of complex rules and information.

At some point the beginning student of Japanese becomes an intermediate student of Japanese. They can discuss

the weather, their hometown, and rattle off introductions without much problem. But when it comes to actually talking

aboutsomething, producing new sentences with complex meanings which transmit new concepts from one person

to another, there they begin to be frustrated by lack of knowledge or proficiency. Part of this is a problem of

vocabulary. The student just doesn't have the words at hand to say what they want. This is only solved by

memorization, adding new words to the mental dictionary. But the other part is the incapability of producing complex

sentences, statements with more structure than just "AisB" or "I doX". It is the realization that the student lacks such

a capability that marks them as having passed from the beginner to the intermediate.

The intermediate student has a hopeless task ahead of them if they expect to learn all the varied verb and adjective

conjugations, the particles, conjunctions, aspects, and moods of Japanese only through gradual immersion. Adults

and teenagers lack the intense absorptive capacity of language learning that is inherent in children, a fact which has

been proven a number of times by scientific research and analysis. Instead the intermediate student should apply

another innate facility that adults have in far more advanced a form than children, the capacity for logical thought and

problem solving.

This Dirty Guide to Japanese aims to provide the student with all the tools necessary to start solving problems in

Japanese. It gives the student the most important parts and pieces of the whole language, letting them take them into

the field to try them out, to attempt real and useful communication with Japanese speakers. The descriptions of

Japanese here attempt to be as comprehensive as possible in a limited space, presenting as many of the major

aspects of the language as can be compressed into a short document. But it does not aspire to completeness, since

a complete grammar of Japanese would require an enormous amount of effort and thousands of pages of detailed


3/32


analysis. Such things are better left to the professional linguist, and indeed there are a number of very good

reference grammars of Japanese out there that attempt to fulfill this lofty goal, some more successful than others.

This guide has very little to say about nouns. Nouns in Japanese are almost entirely uninflected. It's only a simple

matter of memorization to add new nouns to your mental dictionary. You can learn vocabulary from a dictionary or

simply ask a native speaker. Or just point and say "" or "" or something. But you can't do the same with

a verb conjugation because conjugations are not usually found laying around for you to point your finger at. Thereforethis guide will focus on verbs and adjectives and how to inflect them, and about particles which can be used to string

nouns, verbs, and adjectives into coherent sentences.

Please remember however that this is merely a guide, not a complete map to the langauge. There are many

exceptions to the rules presented herein, and there are many other subjects which aren't touched upon here. Keep

this in mind, but if you try hard to say what you want with the methods presented here you should be able to at least

make yourself understood, even if you aren't saying it correctly.

This guide appears to be pretty comprehensive. The astute reader may begin to wonder why their textbooks don't

provide a similar summary, or why things are not taught to them in such a complete manner, but instead over a long

process of gradual increase. Truth to tell, there are a number of reasons for this. Among them is the fact that a school

has to keep to the median level of understanding among its students, so that the people in the bottom half of the

class aren't left behind while the top few students race ahead. Also, a school has a financial stake in extending the

process of learning over a long enough period of time so that it can make a profit or at least break even in the end.

The same is not so for the individual learner. Indeed, most students of foreign languages have heard stories of or

even know people who have gone to foreign countries and learned in months what the average student takes years

to absorb. So the real answer to the question of why this guide can be so comprehensive is that it is aimed not at

classroom use, but at the individual looking to increase their own proficiency without worrying about keeping pace

with other students.

One last thing should be said. This guide originally stems from The Quick and Dirty Guide to Japanesewritten by

Tad Perry in 1992, [email protected]. The present author has put an extensive amount of effort into


4/32


reformatting, editing, and rewording the text. The original roomaji has been converted into UTF-8 encoded kanji and

kana. Examples have been corrected or reworded for clarity, and a large number of changes have been made,

extending the document's reach. So much work has been put into it that I have felt uncomfortable in keeping Tad

Perry's name as the author, since many of the statements and opinions are now mine, not his. Thus I've renamed it to

The Dirty Guide to Japanese. It's no longer quick because I linger much longer on certain aspects of grammar and

usage that the original skimmed over. It's still dirty because it's not a piece of professional work, just a sloppy

reference that can be read for its good parts and then used for more productive purposes like wrapping fish or liningthe bottom of bird cages.

Particles

Particles are perhaps the most frustrating part of Japanese grammar for most English speakers. Most English

speakers learning Japanese are aware of verb tenses and conjugations, so the variety of them in Japanese does

not seem to surprise the learner. But particles are quite foreign to most English speakers, confusing them to no end.

English uses prepositions to modify nouns and verbs. Prepositions such as "to", "at", "by", "around", and "without"

should be familiar to anyone forced to learn the rudiments of English grammar in their school days. Prepositions are

members of a class of linguistic objects called adpositions. The opposite of prepositions,postpositionsare usually

found in languages which lack prepositions. In some languages such as Finnish these postpositions have become

glued to the words they modify, over time resulting in a set of fixed declensions for nouns andconjugations for

verbs. Indeed, some linguists theorize that all nominal declensions (and verbal conjugations) derive ultimately from

postpositions being suffixed to the words they modify. Following this theory, a language which fossilizes itspostpositions into nominal declensions (a.k.a. cases) eventually ends up needing a replacement set of adpositions

and so, perversely, produces prepositions to fill the gap.

Japanese has not gone so far as to completely fix its postpositions into nominal declensions and verbal

conjugations. Instead its postpositions function asparticles, small word-like units which modify the meanings of the

phrases to which they are attached. Particles do not function as independent word units, they lack any meaning of

their own. Thus, a sentence like "" cannot possibly have any sort of meaning, either explicit or implied. It might be


5/32


used as a prompt, one speaker saying the particle to prompt another speaker to finish their statement. But no

meaning can be applied to the particle i tself in any context.

Particles used as prompts are actually fairly common. The particle is derived from the copula verband is used

to connect sentences together. It works somewhat like English's 'and' or 'so'. This particle is often heard alone when

a listener is prompting a speaker to finish a sentence which they have left incomplete.

...

"I went to school and..."

"And?"

"And I saw Suzuki."

Other than this sort of usage particles are typically not used alone.

There is a very fine line between particles and verb (or adjective) conjugations in Japanese. Oftentimes a

conjugation will seem to be just that until suddenly you notice that it is also attached to a noun in some random

exceptional situation. Or that a particle for some strange reason seems to be only attachable to verbs and won't

mate with anything else. This is probably because modern Japanese is in the midst of a change of emphasis from

particles to conjugations, or vice versa. Linguistic speculation has not provided any conclusive answer yet. Butsuffice to say that you should expect particles and verb conjugations to regularly blur the boundaries between parts of

speech.

Word Order

Before discussing particular particles (pardon the pun) we should first consider the topic of word order. Japanese


6/32


word order is fairly free, but there are some restrictions. The language uses SOV word order, i.e. Subject first,

Object second, and Verb at the end. This contrasts with English's SVO word order.

"Man bites dog"

In the above example the subject is "man" in English, "" in Japanese. The object is "dog" in English, "" in

Japanese. The verb is "bite", "".

Japanese sentences can be roughly divided into three major categories, 'action', 'existence', and 'motion', based on

the meanings of their component verbs. In general, word order in Japanese sentences using an action verb is:

[SUBJECT] + TIME + PLACE/IMPLEMENT + INDIRECT OBJECT + OBJECT + ACTION VERB

For example,

"[I'm] going to give a present to [my] teacher at school tomorrow."

For an existence verb it is:

[SUBJECT] + TIME + LOCATION + EXISTENCE VERBE.g.,

"Takahashi is in the main office right now."

And for a motion verb it is:


7/32


[SUBJECT] + TIME + ORIGIN + ROUTE + DESTINATION + MOTION VERB

Thus,

"I'm going to a party tomorrow."

SUBJECTs are put in brackets to stress that they are very often deleted. In general, if a new subject is introduced

where another had been previously understood, signal the change by placing after the subject. If a subject is

understood but for some reason not deleted (which is rare) use or nothing.

Often you can move the subject to the end of the sentence, following the verb, when other parts seem to be piling up

excessively. So:

"I'm singing at the park tomorrow."

often becomes

"At the park tomorrow I'm singing."

Although a 'truer' translation would be something more Yoda-esque like "Singing at the park tomorrow, I am."

For more on SUBJECTs, see the longer description in the next section, Subjects and Deletions. Knowing how and

when to delete subjects is a key to speaking naturally.

TIME is usually followed by . In general, use for specific points in time or specific spans of time. So ""


8/32


(, "October") and "" (, "March 3rd") both take . A word like (,

"tomorrow") that can only be understood by context (because it changes depending on when you say it) is called

'deictic'. Deictic time words don't take . Thus "" (, "I'm going tomorrow."), but ""

(, "I'm going at 3.") Even if you have trouble making the distinction between these two types of time

words, don't worry: Japanese people can understand what you mean even if you get it backwards.

PLACE/IMPLEMENT is followed by . A PLACE is the location that a volitional actionoccurred. If you're eating at

home, that's "" (). If you're eating with chopsticks, that's "" (

). The place you do something or the thing you use to do something takes . If you're going

somewhere by car, you say "" (). It's not that hard to understand really. (See INDIRECT

OBJECT for why DESTINATIONs are different.) Verbs of motion that tell DESTINATION, or ones of existence that tell

the LOCATION of something take . DESTINATIONs can also take . Try to distinguish PLACE from LOCATION

by thinking of it this way: PLACE is where something is done, LOCATION is where something or someone is. Use

("from") after an ORIGIN andafter a ROUTE.

"I'm going home from school through the park."

There's usually an intermediate verb in this type of usage; in this case it's (from, "to take").

The particle can also be used with DESTINATION, particularly when comparing or contrasting it to ORIGIN.

Both andtogether form a pair much like "from/to" in English.

OBJECT is followed by or nothing. "" (, "I'm reading a book.") This is a really

simple one in most cases. Few Japanese learners seem to have a problem understanding this. The only difficulty

you might encounter is differentiating between this OBJECT and the INDIRECT OBJECT.

INDIRECT OBJECT is followed by . An INDIRECT OBJECT is a sort of secondary object that some verbs take.

"" (, "I'm going to give this book to you"). You have "this book"


9/32

df d mi b PRO i Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

and you have "to you". The phrase "this book" is the OBJECT. The phrase "to you" is the INDIRECT OBJECT.

Particles andare used to distinguish the two.

VERB doesn't take any particles but it does need to be conjugated. There's a separate section on verb conjugations

below, which see.

In summary:

SUBJECT + //nothing delete subject if possible, show changes with

TIME + /nothing use nothing if i t's a deictic time word

PLACE/IMPLEMENT + is the place where you door where youare?

LOCATION + is the place where you areor where youdo?

ORIGIN +

ROUTE + is this a place on the way to where you're going?DESTINATION + / use overbut be aware that both are okay

(DIRECT) OBJECT+

INDIRECT OBJECT + use this if you're out of choices :-)

After understanding the descriptions given earlier, these nine lines are the key to knowing what particle to use 90%

of the time. Even if these rules cause you to make a mistake you'll still be understood.

Subjects and Deletions

Usually, you don't have to worry about whether to use orbecause most subjects can be deleted. "You can't get

something wrong if you left it out in the first place." So we'll look at the parts of sentences that you can delete, starting

with subjects.


10/32

df di b PRO i Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

If you turn to a Japanese person and suddenly make a statement:

"[I'm] going to the party tomorrow."

then the listener will assume that the subject is you. So don't bother supplying a subject. To do so is in fact unnatural;

Japanese people don't supply subjects in conversation if they're obvious.

If you turn to a Japanese person and ask them a question:

"[Are you] going to the party tomorrow?"

The listener will assume the subject is himself or herself. Easy! Most one-on-one conversations where either you or

the listener is the subject don't need an explicit subject. So there's no chance of screwing up and.

If you want to make a statement or ask a question about some other person, use after that person's name or title

the first time you mention them:

"Is the president going to the party tomorrow?"Here the introduces achangeof subject. In this example it signals a change from the default 'you the listener' to

the . After you establish that you're talking about the president you can go back to dropping subjects again:

"Is he going home after that, I wonder?"


11/32

df di b PRO i A d l ? T t th HTML t PDF API

Don't be too forward making assumptions about other people. This prevents the listener from thinking the question is

back to being about themself. There's a strong tendency for questions to erase understood info and you have to

signal that things are unchanged. Usually you play with the verb a little bit to get this across. Notice that the change in

time being talked about was also signalled with a .

This tendency to delete subjects in Japanese parallels the behavior of an English native using simple pronouns such

as, 'I', 'you', 'he', 'she', and 'they'. When you comment about yourself you use 'I' (in Japanese, delete). When you ask

about the listener you use 'you' (in Japanese, delete). When you've first established someone and then continue

discussing that person, you use 'he' or 'she' (in Japanese, delete). See? It's simple. In linguistics these are called

anaphors, verbal markers which refer to previously established topics. In English (and in most other Indo-European

languages) we use simple pronouns as anaphors. In Japanese explicit anaphors are not used, instead the anaphoric

position in a sentence is simply left empty.

Deleting other Established Information

As with subjects any data which have been established can be deleted, and any changes in already established

data can be signalled using :


"Yeah, how about you?"

The information about "" and "" are unchanged, therefore they are deleted. The subject changed to

the original questioner, so the change is signaled with .

"No, I'm not going."


12/32df di b PRO i A d l ? T t th HTML t PDF API

The information about "" is still deleted, but "" comes back as "" because it has changed

form.

"How about the movie afterwards?"

The established information "" changed to "" so we use to establish the change in understood

information. Understood info that hasn'tchanged is still left out, like the subject "" and the action "".

This is pretty much how all anaphoric deletions work in Japanese whether it be subjects, objects, or something else.

In general, always attempt to delete if possible. This section should also give you a feel for the use of in normal

speech.

Particle

In general, you don't need it. In the instances where you do, you can slowly build a feel for it. Basically, you need it in

situations where you're not expressing a change in subject, but where you want to state the subject even though it

has already been established. Usually, this is to add emphasis or to avoid ambiguity.

"Is the president going to the party tomorrow?"

"No, it doesn't look like it."

(Throw in a "" because you don't wan't to seem too certain of the actions of others in Japanese. We're not

really covering that though, it's just a side note.)


13/32df di b PRO i

Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

"Why not?"

"I really don't know why."

There's no real ambiguity in this case, and "" alone would have worked, but it is a case where you're not

changing an understood subject to another, you're restating the understood subject as such for some emphasis. If

you're stating an established subject, for whatever reason, use . But you could have deleted, and if you were

following the earlier explanation you should have. (This one sentence also helps to dispell the myth that is for

negative sentences.)

Particle

Use when you're adding more information to already established information. It may be used alone when marking

subjects and objects, and can follow other particles (like , , and ). Put it this way: if clears the existing data

and replaces it, adds additional data on top of what's already been said without clearing out anything.


"Yeah, I'm going, how about you?"

Note what was deleted and why.

"I'm going too."

Here you add yourself to the understood subject.

h i l i h i i h i


14/32df di b PRO iAre you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

The particle is easy enough, so we won't waste any more time with it.

Verb Conjugations

Another thing that many Japanese learners need is an easy method of arriving at all the verb conjugations and a

highly reduced set of rules for how to get them right on the different types of verbs. That's easy enough really

because there are only three major verb types: verbs, verbs, and irregulars. People really hate Eleanor

Jorden for this fashion of naming verb paradigms, but in language learning you take what's easy and go with it;

there's no need to worry too much about linguistics here.

Ending Kana Row Type

() I

() II

The verbs are those that end in likeand. The verbs end in, , , , , , , , or

{,,,}+.

There is a rare verb form+but these are almost always verbs like. I only know of three like that:

'kick','decrease' and'elapse'. There are probably more, but I have a feeling they would also only be

two syllables like these. So the only real overlap worth worrying about is +. If you memorize two forms for each of

these (like: /and/) you can keep them straight.

Verbs

Everything with verbs is done by dropping or replacing with something else. Just remember the different

uses of each conjugation.

Drop therootform of the veb. This can take things like , "hard to", and "easy to":


15/32df di b PRO iAre you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

"easy to eat"

This is also called the stemof the verb. When is added to the stem of the verb thepoliteform of the verb is

produced. The polite forms of verbs are actuallyverbs, for which see.

Replace with for thegerund:

The gerund, also known as the conjunctive is for 'and'ing verbs, e.g. "eat and go", and for simple

orders, e.g. "eat that". It is often also used to form the 'continuative', e.g."eating", which

works like English's "-ing" form. The gerund form is also used to conjoin multiple sentences into a single larger

sentence.

Replace with for thenegative:

"don't eat"

This form is no longer a verb, but an adjective and is inflected accordingly.

Replace with for thepast tense:

"ate"

Replace with for thealternative, "do things like":

An example is "" "I did things like eating". This is frequently called the alternative in grammar books

and textbooks, but that term is misleading. This conjugation doesn't necessarily denote an alternative. It just

indicates that other unspecified things besides the verb may or may not have been done. Any verb ending in

usually requires a at the end of the sentence.


16/32

Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

Replace with for the 'temporal'conditional, "if", "once":

"ifpersoneats"

Japanese has two forms of conditional conjugations for verbs; this is one of them. This form connotes a sense of

time, as in English's "once ... then" or "when ... then" constructions. The other conditional form is the form

below.

Replace with for the 'atemporal'conditional, "if":

"ifpersoneats"

This is somewhat different from but the two are usually interchangeable. The form does not give a

sense of time, only of possible cause and effect.

Replace with for thevolitional, "let's":

"let's eat"

Replace with for theimperative, "do!":

"eat dammit"

This conjugation is fairly rare in ordinary conversation. It's considered rude. But it is heard often in things like

gangster films, (, "samurai period") films, in the military, and in () and .

Replace with for thepotential, "can":

"can eat"

This is now a verb which can conjugate on its own. Thus, "" "I can't eat this!" (a very

useful phrase to know)


17/32

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

useful phrase to know).

Replace with for thecausative, "makepersondo":

"makepersondo"

This also becomes a verb of its own. So, "" "Don't make me eat this!".

Replace with for thepassive, "wasX-ed":

"was eaten"

This becomes a verb as well. Thus, "" "I was eaten by a lion." The marks the agent,

similar to the English "by" preposition. Note that this conjugation looks the same as the one for "can". Don't confuse

the two because they are different. The difference between them is apparent with verbs which will be described

in the next section.

Replace with for thepassive causative, "be made to" or "be forced to":

"made to eat"

This construction follows simply from combining the two previous conjugations together. So, "

" "My mom made me eat chicken". Putting this into the passive conjugation makes it sound as if

you didn't want to do something and feel sorry for yourself for having had to have done it. Thus this form is used

frequently when complaining.

Verbs

The verbs are by far the easiest to conjugate: you drop and add something else. Simple. verbs aren't

that easy but almost. Typically you drop and add something else. The problem is that there might be a phonetic

change (such as when becomes , or becomes ) for some of the types. See the other chart for simple-

English meanings of the conjunctions this one just tries to keep the conjunction rules clear


18/32


English meanings of the conjunctions, this one just tries to keep the conjunction rules clear.

But first, there are some verbs that end in . We have to get them out of the way right now. Real verbs

(where gets dropped) always end in or . If you see one that ends:

"exist"

"sell"

"break"

then it's guaranteed notto be a verb. It's probably a verb. The exceptions areirregularslike/

, but effectively you can forget about those and assume anything ending with , , or is an verb.

Verbs like ("exist" or "need") can be of either or type. In fact,is actually two different verbs.

("need") is an verb, its gerund is . The other one, ("exist") is a verb, its gerund is. If you

hear one of these kinds of verbs, eg (, "to enter"), be sure to ask what the gerund () or past

tense () is so you can remember its type.

So far I've only met three verbs ending in which were verbs rather than verbs. These are:/

("kick"), /("decrease"), and/("elapse"). Except for these/verbs, every other type of

verb is obvious by hearing only one form.

Including verbs which might happen to end in , these are all the types of verbs there are:

,

, ,

, , {,,,,}+

This should clarify what we mean by verbs, ie those verbs which end with some sort of C/V +combination in

their unconjugated form


19/32


their unconjugated form.

The verbs are the only ones which are well behaved, so will simply change to , , , and in all

cases with no odd behavior to remember. This isn't true for the rest of the verbs, which makes them harder to

remember.

For the rootorstem, replace with . This works straight across with no consonant changes in any of the

conjgations.

() () "talk"

() () "listen"

() () "swim"

() () "call"

() () "drink"() () "die"

() () "make"

() () "wait"

() () "pay", "sweep"

Once is attached this form becomes a new verb. All verbs conjugate like ordinary verbs ending in except that the negative is rather than the expected and the past tense negative is

(ie, and the past tense of, ).

The construction mentioned above is a general way to attach adjectives to verbs, akin to the English

construction "adjective to verb", as in "easy to understand", "hard to do", "quick to say", etc. Perhaps most

commonly used in this manner are and its opposite, but there are others.

Replace with or for thegerund "do X and" and for simple commands


20/32


Replace with , , or for thegerund, doXand and for simple commands.

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

The way the gerundive form works as a polite command or request is that it is typically paired with a request verb

such as or(). In fact, the request verb is often simply left unsaid, the listener being expected

to know that the speaker is requesting or commanding something to be done. An example is "", a somewhat

informal version of "".

Replace with for thepast tense.

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()


21/32


( ) ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

Okay, so it's not as simple as the description implies, but notice that this is almost exactly the same as the gerundive

conjugation except that /is now /.

Replace with for "do things likeX". Or just add to the past tense.

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

Replace with for theconditional, "if". Or more simply, just suffix to the past tense form.

() ()

() ()

() ()


22/32


( ) ( )

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()() ()

Once again, this is the 'temporal' conditional. The 'atemporal' conditional is next.

Replace with for the otherconditional, "if".

(

)

(

)

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

Replace with for thevolitional, "let'sX".

() ()


23/32


( ) ( )

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()() ()

() ()

() ()

The volitional is also sometimes called thepresumptiveor thehortative. Look these big words up in a good English

dictionary if you're curious. Personally I think the term 'presumptive' is a misnomer because this form doesn't really

connote a presumption, but an intention. The term 'hortative' would be accurate if this conjugation was directed

towards the listener, or to both the speaker and listener, but seems inappropriate when only the speaker is the

intended subject. But I digress.

Replace with for theimperative, "doXdammit".

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()


24/32


() ()

() ()

It can't be stressed enough that this conjugation is rude. Don't use it in polite conversation. Don't use it with strangers

unless you're ready to defend yourself. However, you can safely use it in a monologue, or when talking about

someone behind their back amongst your friends. An example of a monologue:

"'Go!', I thought."

And here's a rude one:

"Die you bastard!"

Note that this can be easy to confuse with the gerund. There's a world of difference between saying " " and

saying "". The former is a command, the latter is a request, although somewhat abrupt.

Replace with for thenegative, "doesn'tX". This then becomes an adjective.

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()


25/32


() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

Notice that the negative form of is . This is easily explained if you consider a missing 'w' in the

form of the verb. Since Japanese has no 'wi', 'wu', 'we', or 'wo' the 'w' consonant does not appear, but it does exist

in the negative with . In fact, at one point Japanese did actually have 'wi' and 'we' and these were used in the

conjugation of verbs like , although such sounds have since disappeared.

An aside:The 'wi' and 'we' sounds are still occasionally seen used in literature with the twocharacters

and , or andin. Few Japanese people can actually pronounce them as such. The particle written

inorinis often denoted inas 'wo', and indeed it once was pronounced this wayand filled this niche in conjugation. All of these have since fallen out of use in modern Japanese except for which

is still used as a particle. It probably kept its form instead of changing to because it is easier to differentiate from

the prefix.

Replace with for thepotential, "can doX". This becomes a verb.

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()


26/32


() ()

() ()

Replace with for thecausative, "make someone doX". This becomes a verb.

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

As with , the requires ainstead of an.

Replace with for thepassive, "Xis done [by ...]". This becomes a verb.

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()


27/32


() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

This is essentially the same as the previous causative conjugation. Simply replace in the causative withto

produce the passive.

Replace with for thepassive causative, "to be made to doXbysomeone". This becomes a

verb.

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

() ()

This conjugation is actually just a combination of the causative and passive, ie the passive form of the verb

formed by the causative of the root verb. But it's often listed as a distinct conjugation of the root verb in many

grammar books and so is presented here separately.

Irregular Verbs


28/32


Irregular Verbs

The previous verb paradigms were fairly regular, even in the spots where particular types deviated from the norm.

Memorizing the different conjugations is not terribly difficult, and there aren't a lot of conjugations possible. Almost

every verb in Japanese follows one of the two or paradigms.

But even Japanese has irregular verbs. Most books say that there are only two irregular verbs in all of Japanese: and(). These two must be memorized separately from all the others. However, even they make sense in

their own way once analyzed closely.

First we'll look at (), "to come".

() infinitive "come", "will come" or "comes [often, ...]"

() root add ; note that is not used

() gerund "come and [...]"

() past tense "came"

() conditional "if/once someonecomes", some sense of 'when'

() alternative "do things like come"

() conditional "if someonecomes", no sense of 'when'

() volitional "let's come" (has nothing to do with orgasm, sorry)() imperative "come!", rude

() negative "won't come" or "doesn't come [often, ...]

() potential "can come"

() causative "make someonecome"

() passive "come viaX" (FIXME: awful example)


29/32


() causative passive "be made to come [by someone]"

Now let's consider , "to do".

infinitive "do", "will do" or "does [often, ...]"

root add or gerund "doesXand [...]"

past tense "did"

conditional "if/once someonedoes", some sense of 'when'

alternative "do things like doing"

conditional "if someonedoes", no sense of 'when'

volitional "let's do"

imperative "do!", rude

negative "won't do" or "doesn't do [often, ...]

() potential "can do", usually

causative "make someonedo"

passive "be done"

causative passive "be made to do [bysomeone]"

A little trick to remember suru is that many of the conjugations match what you would get if you conjugated a lone

verb ''. It works somewhat like like , eg , , .

Look closely at the potential conjugation of above. It says, "can do". But is also shown. Usually

is used to indicate the potentiality of doing something, but sometimesis used such as in the sentence "

" ( ) "someone I can love"


30/32


(), someone I can love .

There are actually a number of other verbs which are also irregular in Japanese, although traditionally textbooks and

grammar books prefer to ignore them or pretend that they aren't irregular. These irregulars are all verbs which

have certain peculiarities about them. A list of these verbs is given below.

() "to be"() "to go"

"to do" (honorific)

() "to give" (honorific)

() "to say" (honorific)

() "to be" (honorific)

"to be" (honorific)

The first two are very basic verbs which tend to be irregular in nearly all human languages, Japanese being no

exception. The latter five are honorific verbs used only in polite speech. Their irregularities are all found only in the

root form and actually represent verb conjugation paradigms once active in old Japanese but now preserved in

these verbs mostly due to their use in certain set phrases such as (, "good

morning", lit. "it is early") and (, "excuse me").

The verb (, "to be") is only irregular in one form, the negative. In this conjugation it is written . Astutereaders may note that is also the suffix added to all negative conjugations of other verbs. In this one case there

just isn't a verb to add it to. In the negative of the polite form however it is.

The verb (, "to go") varies from its related verbs in that instead of the expected, ,

, , it is actually , , , .


31/32


32/32

Dirty Guide to Japanese

Documents

Transcript of Dirty Guide to Japanese