う - Verbs (negative form)
Structure
座る + らない
歌う + わない
歩く + かない
話す + さない
打つ + たない
死ぬ + なない
飛ぶ + ばない
休む + まない
泳ぐ + がない
Exceptions:
ある ￫ ない
座る + りません
座る + らない です
歌う + いません
歌う + わない です
歩く + きません
歩く + かない です
話す + しません
話す + さない です
打つ + ちません
打つ + たない です
死ぬ + にません
死ぬ + なない です
飛ぶ + びません
飛ぶ + ばない です
休む + みません
休む + まない です
泳ぐ + ぎません
泳ぐ + がない です
Exceptions:
ある ￫ ありません
ないです
For crying out loud, stop using verbs that end with る when you’re quizzing for う-verbs. Unless I missed a lesson for memorizing う-verbs that end with る, it feels like some cheap ‘gotcha!’ or trick question.
Also, the explanation for identifying verbs ending withる that are う-verbs is completely unhelpful in terms of lesosns (“These verbs can be identified by the る changing, rather than being removed when conjugated”). That’s nice, but until I actually conjugate the verb, I won’t know if it’s a る-verb or not. And then I failed the test.
Hey there! Thanks for reaching out.
Remember that in essence, verbs will always fall into one of three categories:
This is a fundamental part of Japanese, so it’s super useful to have a solid grasp of it.
Ichidan and godan る-ending verbs can be tricky to differentiate from one another, I can totally see where your frustration comes from. I’ve listed some resources here for you to help you out!
In the off-chance that you skipped those lessons (we don’t teach ない・ません without teaching the base lesson first), here they are:
This video helped me out a lot back when I was studying this concept:
Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any more questions.
That video was super helpful!
Hi!
Just to clarify so I don’t get it mixed up, Godan Verbs are five-step and Ichidan Verbs are one-step right?
That is exactly right!
Godan and Ichidan both literally mean that, five-steps or one-step!
The “intentionally not” vs “unintentionally not” is reversed for る vs う verbs. Is that (heh) intentional?
る:
う:
Hi, I had the same question as @andrewsouthpaw
for the る verb negative, ない is listed as “unintentionally not” as far as nuance and ません has the “intentionally not” nuance
but the next lesson う verb negative, this is reversed (see screenshot in post immediately above).
Is this intended, or is it a typo?
Thank you very much!
Changing this now so that they are the same. Just to be clear though, whether something is ない or ません itself will not change the nuance apart from the politeness. The nuance itself will need to be understood from other context (if there is any).
Why do I get this lesson after already being quizzed on the negative forms and not before?
Like, I did actually piece the rules of the negative article together from getting the questions wrong, and then hitting see answer, but why necessitate a negative feedback on this material by not even showing it to me first?
Hello and welcome to the forums!
If you learnt this through the regular ‘Learn’ queue then this shouldn’t have happened. I am trying to think of ways the scenario you are describing may have happened. Did you perhaps add this grammar point directly to your review queue instead of first seeing it through ‘Learn’? Or perhaps you mean you were quizzed on the negative form in other questions? If so, are you using the default Bunpro order or perhaps a textbook order like Genki?
If you can give some more details as to what happened and how you’re using Bunpro I can hopefully tell you what went wrong (or if this is a bug!). Cheers!
