6.1 - Basic Ichidan Verb Conjugation

Like all languages, Japanese has its fair share of verbs to convey the concept of an action that is either being done, was done, is done, was being done, can be done, can't be done, could be done, could not be done and will be done. Pretty darn simple. Unlike English, Japanese has 3 different kinds of verbs:

1. U verbs (verbs that end in ...u) called 'Godan Verbs'

2. Ru verbs (verbs that end in ...ru) called 'Ichidan Verbs'

3. The exceptions (suru and kuru)

First, let's talk about ru/Ichidan verbs. These are verbs that end in either iru or eru. These are actually the Group 2 verbs but we'll learn them first because they are the easiest of the bunch. Some examples are:

taberu - to eat

miru - to see

ageru - to give ('ageru' can mean 'to raise' if written using a different kanji)

kotaeru - to answer (a question)

ikiru - to live

These are the plain-form or dictionary-form Ichidan/ru verbs. This means they are not conjugated/converted to a different verb form yet. They are in the form that you'd find them inside a dictionary.

You can, of course, make basic sentences only using the dictionary-form:

boku wa ringo o taberu. (I (will) eat apple(s).)

But they'll almost always seem a little bit off and straight-up unnatural if spoken just in this form all the time. For example, in English if you want to convey the message that you have already done eating, you don't just say 'I eat food'. It becomes: 'I ate food'. This is a conjugation in essence. Ate is the past-tense/conjugated form of the verb eat. There are many other conjugations both in English and in Japanese. We'll look at how to easily conjugate any ru verb (that ends in iru or eru).

First, let's learn the simple stuff: polite form and negative form of ru verbs.

If you replace the ru  in an Ichidan verb with 'masu', it turns into the polite dictionary-form verb. This is not really a conjugation, but important nonetheless. Examples:

taberu --- tabe masu  (to eat)

miru --- mi masu (to see)

kotaeru --- kotae masu (to answer)

ageru --- age masu (to give)


Pretty darn simple, right? Just drop the ru and put  masu in its place. Simple as that and you've got yourself the polite-form of every ru verb ever.

Now, let's talk about the negative-form of ru verbs. This is just as simple:
You drop the ru  and put 'nai' in it's place:


taberu --- tabe nai (to not eat)

miru --- mi nai (to not see)

kotaeru --- kotae nai (to not answer)

ageru --- age nai (to not give)


To convert these negated forms into politer ones, you add 'masen' instead of 'nai'.

e.g. tabe masu --- tabe masen (this means the same thing as tabenai but is politer.)

Now, there's this one verb that might trick you into believing that it's an Ichidan verb, whereas it's actually a Group 1 or Godan Verb. That deceptive verb is:

kaeru - to return (home)

It ends in 'eru' so most learners tend to think it's an Ichidan verb but it's NOT an Ichidan-verb and thus no rules mentioned above apply to kaeru. We'll learn about Godan verbs later as they are slightly more advanced than Ichidan verbs.

Now, on to the real conjugations for Ichidan/ru verbs.

Past-tense:

In all ru verbs, past-tense can be achieved simply by discarding the ru  and replacing it with 'ta'. This 'ta' conjugation is also called the 'Ta-form'.

For example:

taberu --- tabeta (ate) (informal)

Again, to make this past-tense form politer and more formal, we simply add mashita instead of ta.

So:

taberu --- tabe mashita (ate) (formal)

Let's say: I ate (an) apple. It now becomes:

Either:

"boku wa ringo o tabeta."

Or:

"boku wa ringo o tabemashita."

Past-Negative:

Although this may sound complicated, it's really simple. So now you know that the past-tense of miru (to see) is mita or mi mashita, but what about the past-negative form?

Just replace nai from the regular negative form with nakatta and you have your past-negative form:

miru --- minai (to not see)

minai --- mi nakatta (did not see)

This is about it for the informal past-negative form. The formal past-negative is quite easy too.

Just add deshita after the formal negative form that uses masen. For example:

miru --- mi masen (to not see)
mi masen --- mi masen deshita (did not see)

Example:
'ano tori wo mi mashita ka?' - 'Did you see that bird?'
'iie, mi nakatta.' - 'No, I didn't see (it).'

Te-form:

This is an important verb form that has many uses. It can either act as a polite command when used on its own, or as the conjunction 'AND THEN' when joining two sentences/clauses together. For Ichidan verbs, it's straightforward: just replace 'ru' with 'te'.

For example:

taberu --- tabete (or tabe mashite)

miru --- mite (mi mashite)

Example sentence:

1. 'tabete kudasai' - 'Please eat.' (used as command)

2. 'terebi wo mite ringo wo tabeta.' - 'I watched TV and then ate an apple.' (used as 'AND THEN')

Present-tense:

The ru form or the masu form can both be used as the present-tense form for any verb. Luckily for us, there is no future tense in Japanese. You might be surprised to hear this but remember: the present tense and future tense are the same in Japanese. Therefore, context matters when interpreting the meaning of a sentence.

This means tabe masu [Ichidan] can mean "to eat (now)" or "will eat (later)" depending upon the context.

The phrase kachi masu (to win) [Godan] can very well mean "I win (now)." or "I will win (later)" depending upon the context similarly.

No more needs to be said about this. This is literally all there is to the present tense.

Present-Continuous Form:

This form is the equivalent to '-ing' in English and tells that the verb is being performed. To change any verb, Ichidan or Godan, to its present-continuous form, we simply take it's Te-form and add iru or imasu after it.

For example,

1. shaberu - 'to speak' becomes shabete iru/shabete imasu (I am speaking.)

2. taberu - 'to eat' becomes tabete iru/tabete imasu (I am eating.)



Past-Continuous Form:

This form tells us that a verb was being done. To convert an Ichidan verb to its past-continuous form, we simply take its present-continuous form and replace 'ru' with 'ta' or 'mashita' to turn it into past tense.

For example,

1. shaberu - 'to speak' becomes 'shabete ita' or 'shabete imashita' ((I) was speaking.)
2. kangaeru - 'to think' becomes 'kangaete ita' or 'kangaete imashita' ((I) was thinking.)

Rude-command/Imperative Form:

Like the 'Te-form' which is the polite command form, there's also the rude command form. For Ichidan verbs, just replace 'ru' with 'o'.

For example, the rude-command form of miru is miro, meaning 'See!' At beginner level, you must refrain from using the rude-command form in conversations as they are only fitting in certain moments. For now, just use the 'Te-form' described above if you want to command someone.

Conditional/If Form:

This form is exactly what you think it is. It turns a verb to its 'if-form'. For Ichidan verbs, we simply replace the 'ru' with 'reba'. For example, the verb kotaeru becomes 'kotaereba', meaning 'If I answer...' or 'If you answer...' depending upon the context. Similarly, tabereba means 'If I eat...'.

e.g. tabereba ii desu. - 'It's good if you eat.'

Potential/can-do Form:

This form tells us that you/someone is able to do an action. To convert any Ichidan verb to it's potential form, we simply replace the 'ru' with 'rareru'.
For example, for the Ichidan verb 'taberu', its potential form would be: 'taberareru', meaning '(I) can eat'.

Past-Potential/Can-NOT-do Form:

This form translates to 'can't do' in English. The procedure is straightforward. We simply take the potential form and replace the ending 'ru' with 'nai'.

Let's consider the Ichidan verb 'shinjiru' meaning 'to believe'. The potential form is shinjirareru (can believe) which becomes shinjirarenai ((I) can't believe).

Volitional/Let's Form:

This form is used when you want to do something alongside others. It's like "Let's..." in English. For Ichidan verbs, we simply replace 'ru' with 'you'. For example tabeyou means 'Let's eat!'. 

'issho ni' means something along the lines of 'together' and signifies closeness and familiarity. You can use issho ni before the let's form when inviting someone to do something alongside you.

e.g. issho ni tabeyou! - 'Let's eat together.'

Extra:

To be formal, we say 'masen ka' instead of 'you' when inviting someone.

e.g. issho ni tabe masen ka? - This literally means 'Won't you eat with me?' but that's how the Japanese make requests.