Catalyst Castle

Here’s a review of some of the things I’ve been learning while studying Japanese. I’m writing about them here as a refresher to me, and to share with anyone who might be interested in the language.

Mostly, I’ve been learning about Japanese grammar, starting with verbs. There are three kinds of verbs. Ichidan verbs all end in “ru”, and you conjugate them all the same way. Yodan verbs may end in different ways, including with “ru”, and you conjugate them differently depending on how they end. If a verb ends in “ru” it might be ichidan or yodan, and you just have to learn which it is through experience. The third kind of verb is irregular verbs. There are only a handful of them and they’re conjugated in ways that defy the normal laws of Japanese grammar. Sounds like English, huh?

To make an ichidan verb past-tense simply remove the “ru” at the end of it and add “ta”. For example, the word taberu, which means “to eat”, would become tabeta, which means “did eat”.

To make a yodan verb past-tense you remove the last syllable of the word to get the root, and then add a different ending depending on how the word originally ended. For example, with the word kiku, which means “to listen”, you remove the “ku” and add “ita”. This makes the word kiita, which means “did listen”. There is a handy chart in my Japanese grammar book that tells you how to change each ending for a yodan verb. I’ll transcribe it here:

“u” becomes “tta” “tsu” becomes “tta” “ru” becomes “tta”

“mu” becomes “nda” “nu” becomes “nda” “bu” becomes “nda”

“ku” becomes “ita” “gu” becomes “ida” “su” becomes “shita”

Fun fact: All ordinary present-tense verbs end with u.

Japanese also has a more formal version of verbs. To make an ichidan verb formal you remove the “ru” at the end and add “masu”. So the formal version of taberu would be tabemasu. To make a formal ichidan verb past-tense you remove the “su” at the end of “masu”, and add “shita” as if it were a yodan verb being made past-tense. So tabemasu would become tabemashita.

To make a yodan verb formal, you simply remove the last vowel from the word and add “imasu”. So kiku would become kikimasu. As with the ichidan formal, to make a yodan formal into a past-tense, you turn the last “su” into “shita”. So kikimasu becomes kikimashita.

Next, I’ve learned a little bit about particles. No indicates possession. O indicates that something is being acted upon. Example:

Japanese: Watashi no mizu o nonda
Literal English: I belonging to water was acted upon did drink

-or-

Japanese: Watashi no mizu o nonda
English: I drank my water.

Ka at the end of a statement makes it a question. Example:

Japanese: Watashi no mizu o nonda ka
English: I drank my water?

You can change any verb into a negative form by changing the ending as well. With an ichidan verb you drop the “ru” and add “nai”. So taberu (to eat) would become tabenai (not eat). With a yodan verb you drop the last vowel and add “anai”. So kiku (to listen) would become kikanai (not listen).

Now, to make an ichidan verb negative and past-tense you drop the “ru” and add “nakatta”. So taberu becomes tabenakatta. To make a yodan verb negative and past-tense you replace the last vowel with “anakatta”. For example, kiku becomes kikanakatta.

Making things a bit more complicated once again is the formal version of verbs. To make an ichidan verb formal and negative you drop the “ru” and add “masen”. So taberu becomes tabemasen. To make it formal, negative, and past-tense, you simply add “deshita” to the end of that. To say in a formal way that you didn’t eat would be tabemasen deshita.

To make a yodan verb formal and negative you drop the last vowel and add “imasen”. So kiku becomes kikimasen. Like ichidan, to make it formal, negative, and past-tense, you add “deshita”, making it kikimasen deshita.

Next is the gerund or –te form of a verb. This is easy to get and is used for a couple of things. To get the gerund form of a verb simply make it a normal past-tense verb, but change the last “a” to an “e”. So because taberu in past-tense would be tabeta, the gerund form is tabete. Because kiku in past-tense would be kiita, the gerund form is kiite.

One use of the gerund form is to make a polite request or command. For example:

Japanese: Watashi no mizu o nonde
English: Drink my water.

Another use of the gerund form is to list a sequence of actions in natural order. For example:

Japanese: Watashi wa shokuji o tabete deta
English: I ate a meal and left.

Changing the verb taberu (to eat) to its gerund form indicates that the following verb, deru (leave), is an action that follows.

The last thing I learned about in my lessons was a couple of irregular verbs and how to conjugate them.

One is suru which means “to do”. When changing this verb, for some reason the “ru” gets dropped and ignored completely, and the “su” is changed instead. Again, my grammar book has a nice chart to summarize how this verb changes, and I’ll transcribe some of that here.


Another irregular verb is kuru which means “to come”. Below is a similar chart as the one for suru, also copied from my grammar book.


Well, that’s pretty much everything I’ve covered so far. I’m looking forward to my next lesson.