Japanese verb groups

learn more about the verb groups in japanese!

Dividing Japanese verbs into groups is a didactic practice often used by teachers and authors of Japanese books.

Japanese verb groups

The idea is to facilitate learning, dividing verbs into groups according to their endings and verbal inflection rules.

Introduction to Japanese Verbs

As everyone may already know, the japanese verbs they are not easy to learn, but they are certainly much easier than verbs in Portuguese. This is due to the fact that Japanese verbs are inflected only in three verb tenses: affirmative present, negative present, affirmative past, and negative past tense.

When it comes to future tense, the Japanese often use special constructions with tense adverbs. Creating sentences in the future is something simpler than many imagine, but that is the subject of future articles.

When it comes to formality, Japanese verbs can be divided into two parts: informal and formal. This means that Japanese verbs can be inflected in eight different ways, one formal and one informal for each tense.

Japanese verb groups

Basically there are three groups of verbs in Japanese, created from their phonetic endings and pattern of verb inflections. Because of this, it is not always possible to find the group of a verb by its written form and it is necessary to be careful not to confuse the groups of a verb in Japanese.

Another important curiosity is the okurigana, which is the part of the verb that doesn't change. It's easy to see the okurigana of a verb because it's usually the kanji itself, and the part that can be modified is the rest of the word written in hiragana.

Group 1 - Verbs ending in "u"

When I say ?verbs ending in u?, I'm not saying that the Japanese verbs in this group end with the vowel ?, but that they can end with the vowel ? or with any syllable with the sound of “u”. (????????????????)

This group of verbs in Japanese is also known as godan-doushi, or simply godan.

Examples:

?? - drink

?? - wait

?? - hear

?? - write

?? - to speak

Group 2 – Verbs ending in “iru” and “eru”

This group of verbs is composed of Japanese verbs ending with syllables ??or ??. These syllables are not always seen when writing verbs using kanji. In fact, these two endings are more visible in the pronunciation of verbs rather than in their writing.

This group of verbs is also known as ichidan-doushi, or just ichidan.

Examples:

?? - wear

?? - to see

??? - wake up

??? ? jump down

??? - believe

??? ? Open

??? ? to give

?? ? get out

?? ? to sleep

???? eat

Group 3 ? the irregular verbs

Irregular verbs are composed of the verbs ?? and ??. A very interesting feature of these Japanese verbs is the ability to connect to other words, forming verbs you can't imagine.

Usually the Japanese take a word, be it from Japanese origin or foreign, and add ?? or ?? in front of her to create a new verb. like the word ???, that with the verb ?? will come ?????.

Examples:

???? - studying

???? - travel

???? – export

??????? To dance

Some Japanese verb exceptions

The Japanese language, like any other language, has its exceptions, and one of them is the classification of verbs into groups.

When it comes to sorting into Japanese verb groups, we need to be careful with the verbs below, even though they have the ending ?? and ??, they belong to the group of verbs ending in “u” and not to the second group of Japanese verbs.

This confusion happens because of the phonetic division. Realize that even though they end up with the sound ?? and ??, these verbs also end using a syllable with a “u” sound, and this is what causes the great confusion.

Examples:

?? - to enter

?? - run

?? – need, need

?? – return, return, return

?? - limit

?? - Cut

?? – know, know

Watch the video below about Japanese verb groups:

Kanji calligraphy exercise

Below are the Japanese ideographic symbols used in this article. Selecting the desired kanji, copy and paste them into Worksheet for Kana and Kanji Practice , a new window will open where you can see the printable file and practice Japanese calligraphy by covering the gray symbols and then trying to write yourself. Just print and practice.

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