A spot I’m still shaky with are verb forms. I have a good handle on い form as that’s the polite form (and every book and tutorial teaches it), but the rest I haven’t found a good resource for really nailing down the concept in my head.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to get a good grasp on the various verb forms?
I find that this is bunpro’s strength, honestly. At a certain point, you’ve done so much conjugation through your answers that you’ve basically memorized them.
Might I recommend Bunpro’s very own Kaijugation game for conjugation practice?
Kaijugation | Bunpro Arcade
I currently have only been pinged to learn the negative form in my reviews, maybe I’m doing something wrong.
As far as knowing when to use which conjugation, that will just come with time. However, if you want some help with knowing how to conjugate, these videos by Tokini Andy are very helpful.
I stumbled on this YouTube video the other day (along with an interactive tool the Youtuber made) and maybe it can help:
the tool the video referenced is sadly not available, he made it only to use as a guide for the video, I’d love to see that tool become a reality.
If you struggle with verbs, here’s a quiz :
Have you learnt the base hiragana ?
Do you know the four verb groups (fourth is suru verbs which are so commun I felt they deserved the spotlight) ? Not evrything, just the concept of each.
Do you know what a base and a form is ?
If you at least know all of this, you just need to repeat and repeat seeing examples for it to stick in your mind.
But if one has trouble being understood, it won’t even work spamming it.
In summary :
First group (go dan = five columns) also known as う verbs
Second group (ichi dan = one column) AKA る verbs
Irregulars (suru kuru, add desu [even if it’s NOT a verb], aru, iru to said group)
Suru verbs (ex: to study = benkyou suru)
You start with the easiest group (ichi dan) to understand the base + terminasion structure.
Only present for now.
Taberu → Tabe + ru (dictionnary form)
Tabenai → Tabe + nai (negative form)
Tabemasu → Tabe + masu (polite form)
Tabemasen → Tabe + masen (polite negative form)
Now, irregulars :
Suru → Shinai, Shimasu, Shimasen
Kuru → Konai, Kimasu, Kimasen
Da → Dewanai (ではない), Desu, Dewa arimasen
Which you can also write Janai and Ja arimasen, IMO I find it simpler, and “normal” while Dewa is formal
Aru → Nai, Arimasu, Arimasen
Iru → Inai, Imasu, Imasen
With this, you can tackle most structures using these verbs AND suru verbs :
Benkyou suru → Benkyou + suru in the wanted form
U verbs / First group / Godan requires to understand bases :
Nomu → Noma Nomi Nomu Nome Nomo
Then you add the terminaison like ru verbs.
Nomu-> Base
Nomimasu → Base I + masu
Nomimasen → Base I + masen
Nomanai → Base A + nai
I know the basic writing systems and the verb groups, my struggle is when I need to conjugate, I keep messing up the rules and I just can’t seem to nail it down, I keep using くない when I should be using じゃない or just ない, and vise versa.
Bunpro likes to show me 3 versions of it, but then only accepts 1 version, so I get tripped up on which version they’re asking for in the review.
I’d love a tool or an article that just goes into a deep dive into all the forms and explains them as I just seem to have a disconnect that’s hindering my progress.
Ahhh ! I see.
くない
ない
じゃない ではない
Kunai is for adjectives actually, you also have times on them.
Nai is Aru negative form.
Janai / Dewanai is Desu/Da negative form.
You made a post about verbs but since you mentionned Kunai, I assume you have troubles identifying CASES.
You need to read the example first. You have a translation by default.
If said translation has “The table was not/wasn’t X” and wasn’t is in red, you’re looking for a negative verb.
For example :
Tsukue 机 Desk
Atsui 熱い Hot
机がある。NOUN is subject to “to be in the existence meaning”(There is a desk)
机がない。NOUN is subject to “not be in the existence meaning”(There isn’t a desk)
机です。NOUN “to be in the description meaning” (It is a desk)
机じゃなう。NOUN negative “to be in the description meaning” (It isn’t a desk)
熱いです。 ADJ to be (It is hot to the touch)
熱くないです。ADJ negative to be (It isn’t hot to the touch)
Try to remember the key translation hints :
There is
It is a NOUN
It is ADJ
I’m having a few hardships with them, that’s why I’d love a deep dive or reference sheet I could study to help memorize the various rules.
I find Kaijugation a little too much app for practicing conjugation. I currently use Conju Dojo and it’s really helped a lot. Mind you the app is somewhat broken but it’s great for simply drilling and that’s really all I needed. I knock out thirty conjugations per day as part of my morning routine.
I appreciate this, I’ll check it out
I recommended buying the genki textbook [or checking the internet archive…]
there’s a chart in the back.
Doing the ‘practice’ section Drills, along with the audio CD really helped me get them down pat.
I’ll take a look, thanks
The Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar is the absolute best reference text on, well, basic Japanese grammar you can find in English. I highly recommend that essentially every (English-speaking) Japanese learner track down a copy. Basic covers all the grammar you need to know through N4 and a good deal of N3. I’m pretty convinced that almost every single English-language teaching resource for Japanese is based heavily around those books. It’s not a textbook, so it’s not very great to learn from, but it’s extremely handy for questions exactly like this. It’s extremely available and easy to find, too.
I think the stuff about the “being in existence meaning” can be a little confusing, especially considering that that だ is just a contraction of である
I think it really is as simple as “が marks the subject. ある is ‘to be’. Therefore: 机がある= A desk is. 机だ= (some other subject) is a desk.
There’s a drastic difference between how it USED to be and what modern japanese sees as meaning.
Desu vs Iru / Aru
In modern japanese, desu is often said to be a descriptive “to be”.
You can say :
This painting, (it) is a cat (not a living one).
I’m french.
Sentence da/desu.
While aru / iru are often said to be “existence” to be.
You can say with iru :
I have a (living) cat.
It is a (living) cat.
ga iru
And with aru :
In this painting, there is a cat (not a living one, the painting has a representation of a cat).
ga aru
That’s why treating da as just de aru doesn’t work in modern japanese.
Desu cannot express what aru/iru do, the opposite is also true.
You could also play on nuances. By saying there is a living cat in the painting. The listener corrects your japanese. The cat jumps out and scratches their face. You repeat it in the past tense now. 4 koma level of comedy.
である can still be used in place of だ in all cases, they are essentially interchangeable (though it’s not considered correct grammar to use だ before nouns and statements of uncertainty like かもしれない, so the reverse is not true.) The difference is formal register.
である is the verb ある using で so it can function as a copula. だ is a contraction of this grammatical construct. As I said, it’s the difference between “A desk is.” (Note the full stop) and “(Something) is a desk.”
So it would not be “In this painting, there is a cat.” It would be “In this painting, a cat is,” because “cat” is the subject.
You’re still hung up on de aru.
De aru is only used in some novels and extremely formal settings.
Here’s the bunpro lesson that LITERALLY tells you to not confuse de aru (the old version) with desu (modern use)
“である (or であります) is a construction in Japanese that is considered to be the formal equivalent of だ. This should not be confused with the polite speech word です, as である is simply a combination of the conjunctive form of だ, and the う - Verb, ある.” (note how it’s built with da, not with de)
And once again, you cannot use it as aru / iru, only where desu/da applied.
“である may be used in any place that だ would usually be used, but is most likely to be found at the end of sentences/statements.”
We translate it as “is” because it doesn’t exist in our languages. It doesn’t translate naturally if we kept japanese as its literal translation.
It’s the same debate of translations for taberu meaning both present and future tenses.
If you still think this is an error, then please go and report the lesson. It’s N3.