Japanese

• Japanese verbs have different conjugation patterns depending on what type they are: godan, ichidan, or irregular.
• Godan verbs, also known as う -verbs, Group I verbs, and consonant-root verbs, conjugate by replacing the る -part with ない to make them negative.
• Ichidan verbs, also known as る -verbs, Group II verbs, and vowel-root verbs, conjugate by replacing the る -part with ない to make them negative.
• Irregular verbs, also known as 変格動詞, conjugate differently than both godan and ichidan verbs.
• Japanese verbs can conjugate to express a variety of meanings, including whether a verb is in the present or past, whether it's positive or negative, and more.
• Before conjugating a verb, it's helpful to understand its verb type.
• Japanese verbs come in three types: godan verbs, ichidan verbs, and irregular verbs.
• The "root" of a verb is the part that remains the same when the verb is conjugated.
• Conjugating these verbs is easy — the る ending is replaced with a new verb ending.
• Only the part that remains the same, the /k/, is included in the root.
• The next group of verbs we'll look at is ichidan verbs, which include 見る (mi ru ), "to see," 起きる (oki ru ), "to wake up," 開ける (ake ru ), "to open," and 食べる (tabe ru ), "to eat."
• These verbs are called " る -verbs" in many Japanese textbooks because they all end in the hiragana character る.
• The character that comes before the る is unaffected, and so it remains on the same single hiragana line.
• The root of 聞く is kik , which is pronounced /k/.
• These verbs are called 一段 (one-level) verbs because only one hiragana line is involved per verb root.
• The linguistics term for ichidan verbs is vowel-root verbs.
• The part of the verb that changes when the word is conjugated, such as 聞 く (k u ) → 聞 き ます (k i ), is not included in the root.
• These verbs, where the last part of the root are consonants like /k/, are called "consonant-root verbs."
• Phonology, or sound, plays a significant role in verb conjugation.
• The sound /w/ did exist in Japanese a long time ago, and its loss has ripple effects on aspects of Modern Japanese, such as verb conjugations.
• In Japanese, the sound /w/ was lost at the beginning of certain syllables over the past 1000 years.
• The loss of the /w/ sound in English words like "though" and "cough" is an example of sound-based factors influencing verb conjugations.
• Around the year 1000 A.D., linguists believe 上 was pronounced /wuwe/, 田舎 was pronounced /winaka/, and 買う was pronounced /kawu/.
• Language is a dynamic and changing system, and sound drifts like the loss of the /w/ sound are examples of this.
• The patterns of conjugations for godan verbs in the て form, the past tense suffix 〜た, and some other forms that use 〜た like 〜たり and 〜たら, can be explained by a concept in Japanese linguistics called 音便, which refers to changes in pronunciation that occur to make a word easier to say.
• The conjugations of 買う, which end in う, can seem like exceptions because they use the /w/ sound, but these exceptions can be explained by the historical context of the sound drift.
• Godan verbs, also known as う -verbs, Group I verbs, and consonant-root verbs, can be identified by their endings in the plain/dictionary form, which end in a character on the う -line of the hiragana chart.
• The ん character is used when a verb stem ends in /m/, /n/, or /b/.
• If the verb root ended in /k/, the verb ending would be attached with a /t/ sound.
• Out of this, three unique conjugation patterns were born: Double Consonant, Assimilation, and Consonant Removal.
• A verb root is the part of the verb that doesn't change when the verb is conjugated.
• Ancient Japanese speakers decided that some conjugations that begin with a /t/ sound, like the て form, were too difficult/not pleasing to pronounce with certain verb roots.
• When a verb root ends in /k/ or /g/, the consonant was removed completely, but the vowel remained.
• If the verb root ended in a /g/, the verb ending would be attached with a /d/ sound.
• The double consonant (small っ ) is used when a verb root ends in /w/, /t/, or /r/.
• Instead of pronouncing these sounds, it was deemed easier/more pleasing to drop them before conjugations that start with a /t/ sound, and to add in a double consonant small っ instead.
• The vowel sound that comes before "る" is a good indicator of whether a verb is a godan or ichidan verb.
• Ancient Japanese speakers felt that pronouncing these sounds before /t/ conjugations was too difficult, and so they blended them together by dropping the verb stem ending sound, replacing it with ん , and transforming the /t/ to a /d/.
• The root of a verb, also known as the "tabe" in Japanese, remains the same throughout all conjugations and is always a vowel, "e".
• If the vowel sound is /e/ or /i/, the verb is probably an ichidan verb, but there are exceptions.