VERBS AND ADJECTIVES

Verbs are really cool in Japanese! Unlike in English or French, verbs are quite simple in their terminology. You will never persons, plural or singular; in Japanese its all the same. The only things that can change a verb's form:

There are also some complements but not as much and they are just placed after the verb, unlike the complex sub-sentences of French and English. On the other hand, you might have noticed that the title indicates also "Adjectives". It is just that Japanese adjectives behave like verbs and change form for the same reasons, although they are even easier. So the last section of this page will talk a bit about them.

	Minus	Medium	Superior
Present positive	-ru (any raw form) -る	-masu -ます
Present negative	-nai -ない	-masen -ません
Past positive	-ta -た	-mashita -ました
Past negative	-you -よう	-mashou -ましょう
*Present Active positive**	-te iru -ている	-te imasu -ています
*Present Active negative**	-te inai -ていない	-te imasen -ていません
*Past Active positive**	-te ita -ていた	-te imashita -ていました
*Past Active negative**

* the Active form simply means that the action is presently done, or was done meanwhile. It is the equivalent of "I am going" or "I was going".

With this table you can construct almost verb form, not just those with "ru" at the end. 食べる taberu, for instance, may be transformed by removing the -ru of its raw form and replacing it by the rest. Really simple, right? Alright, now you can notice there are different degrees here; Minus (for very very friendly conversation or middle-of-sentence verb) ; Medium (for most common, end of sentence verbs) ; Superior (as end-of-sentence verb, when the one you are speaking to is an important person).

ある aru and いる iru are two verbs that specify something that exists (but not exactly and equivalent of "to be"). The distinction is that aru is used for inanimate (objects) while iru is for animate (people, animals).

Also, there is 帰る kaeru et 戻る modoru who both mean "come back". But kaeru is always to return home or in one's country while modoru is just to retrace one's steps.

As you might know, Japanese adjectives behave a bit like verbs. Indeed, they change form just like them. In fact, they are even easier (and like verbs, the real tough part is the kanji that characterize some of them). Here they are:

*: adverbials are used to be placed in front of complementary verbs that give more information on the adjective. For instance, なる naru (to become) appears often as this kind of verbs:

With 早い(hayai, "being quick" or "being early"); 早く(hayaku, "quick" or "early")

The very common adjective いい "ii" (being fine) is a bit special. He has a correspondent that makes the forms other than present for him. It is よい yoi. You probably know いい ii and いいです iidesu. But: よかってんです yokattadesu (past positive, medium) and so on... replacing all the forms but the present until the adverbial, which becomes よく yoku.

	Minus	Medium	Superior
Present positive	-い -i	-いです -i desu
Present negative	-くない or -くわない -kunai or -ki wa nai	-くありません -くわありません -ku arimasen or -ku wa arimasen
Past positive	-かった -katta	-かったです -katta desu
Past negative


Adverbial*	-く -ku