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Verbs in all basic forms.

May 6th 2008 04:53
Present.

Present form of verbs is the most common, and simply indicates an action. These verbs always end in the suffix ~ます (~masu).

To Go: いきます (ikimasu)
To Eat: たべます (tabemasu)
To Drink: のみます (nomimasu)

Past.

To make a verb into past form, you remove す and add した (Shita).

Have Gone: いきました (ikimashita)
Have Eaten: たべました (tabemashita)

Have Drunk: のみました (nomimashita)

Negative.

To make a sentence negative you again remove す, this time replacing it with せんです (sen (desu)). Desu at the end makes it more polite but is not essential.

Doesn’t go: いきませんです (ikimasen (desu))
Doesn’t eat: たべませんです (tabemasen (desu))
Doesn’t drink: のみませんです (nomimasen (desu))

Past Negative.

We’ve seen that ません (masen) makes a word negative. If you remember, です (desu) is used in Japanese to finish a sentence. To make a past negative verb, we use the negative ません (masen) with the past tense of です (desu); でした (deshita).


Didn’t go: いきませんでした (ikimasen deshita)
Didn’t eat: たべませんでした (tabemasen deshita)
Didn’t drink: のみませんでした (nomimasen deshita)

Questions.

If you remember, the best way to make a question is to add a か (ka) to the end of a sentence. This is true of all the above examples.

Does it/he/she go?: いきますか (ikimasuka)
Did it/he/she eat?: たべましたか (tabemashita)
Didn’t he/she/it drink?: のみませんでしたか (nomimasen deshitaka)

Negative form written as a question usually indicates a polite invitation.

Won’t you drink?: のみませんか/のみませんですか (nomimasenka/nomimasen desu ka). The second of these two options is most polite.

Plain form.

Plain form is the more relaxed, colloquial version of a verb. It is less polite and should only be used with friends. For Present positive verbs it’s best to simply use the ~ます (~masu) form up the top.

Plain past

For plain past form, just remove ます and add た.Words that end in み (Mi) are an exception as they also replace み with ん (N), and use だ instead of た.

Have Gone: いきた (ikita)
Have Eaten: たべた (tabeta)
Have Drunk: のんだ (nonda)

Plain Present negative

For plain present negative, where a verb does not end with an い (i) sound, such as in たべます (tabemasu), you simply remove ます (masu) and add ない (nai).
If it does end with an い (i) sound then the い (i) sound is replaced with it’s あ (a) line equivalent. For example, with のみます (nomimasu), み (Mi) is replaced with ま (ma) before ない (nai) is added.

Doesn’t go: いかない (ikanai)
Doesn’t eat: たべない (tabenai)
Doesn’t Drink: のまない (nomanai)

Plain Past Negative

Plain past Negative is the exact same as present negative, except instead of adding ない (nai), you add なかた

Didn’t go: いかななかた (ikanakata)
Didn’t Eat: たべななかた (tabenakata)
Didn’t Drink: のまななかた (nomanakata)

As above, all plain form verbs can be changed to questions by adding か (ka) to the end.
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Verbs and Verb Forms In Japanese

July 2nd 2007 01:22
This post isn't going to list verbs. Instead it is going to discuss the various basic verb forms found in Japanese, starting with absolute basics.

To do this we're going to use an easy example: Tabemasu. This is a verb meaning 'to eat'.

Masu is the ending of most verbs. When you end a verb with sentence with a Masu verb you don't need to add Desu to the end.

Masu is the present positive form of a verb. This is also the future tense - whether the statement is meant as current or for the future is defined by the context.

Verbs can be uses in a positive or a negative way. To make a Verb into a negative, remove masu and add masen. E.g, Tabemasu becomes tabemasen. Does not eat.

Verbs can also convey a past tense. To do this, we change Masu into Mashita. For example, I ate Sushi is Sushi o tabemashita.

Finally we can convey both of these forms by saying keeping our current nagative form and adding the past tense desu - deshita - sushi o tabemasen deshita - I did not eat sushi.

FROM OTHER LESSONS
Desu form at our lesson on Desu.

VOCAB
Sushi - Japanese Rice rolls.
Tabemasu - To eat.
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