So I am doing lesson 3 of Genki. I am on verb conjugation. The book says I will learn the dictionary forms, the present tense affirmation forms, and the present tense negative forms. The thing is goes straight into ru-verb, u-verbs and irregular verbs without explaining what it means by the forms.
Could anyone clarify for me please?
Could you be more specific what is confusing to you?
Dictionary form, present tens affirmative, present tense negative are orthogonal to ru-verb, u-verb and irregular verbs.
As an aside a more βnormalβ way to refer to these different verb types is γγ γ(u-verb), γγ‘γ γ(ru-verb) and irregular. Genki thinks ru- and u- verb are easier for some reason. Just so you know if you look something up on the internet regarding that point.
So you have verbs like γ―γͺγ - to speak, which is a γγ γ verb and therefore conjugated differently to γγΉγ - to eat which is a γγ‘γ γ verb.
Irregular verbs are luckily rare in Japanese. The main ones being γγ and γγ
All of these categories have different ways of how you have to conjugate them to get to present tense negative for example.
Present negative means: I do not (γγΎγγ) | I donβt eat (γγΉγΎγγ) | I donβt speak (γ―γͺγγΎγγοΌ
Present positive means: I do (γγΎγ) | I eat (γγΉγΎγ) | I speak (γ―γͺγγΎγ)
Dictionary form is how you find it in the dictionary: to do (γγ)| to eat(γγΉγ) | to speak(γ―γͺγ)
I was confused mainly about what dictionary form, present negative and present positive meant. Thanks.
One follow up. Do u-verb, ru-verbs and irregular words effect the words in anyway or are they just spelling?
Itβs not a different spelling. Itβs how Japanese verbs are categorized.
It has an effect on how you have to conjugate them from the dictionary form to get to the other forms/tenses. You will learn many more forms in the rest of Genki, and how you build these forms for each verb depends on if it is a ru- or an u-verb.
Conjugation happens in (I think) every language. I donβt know what your mother tongue is, but if we take English you also have conjugtations:
I speak, she speaks | I wasnβt speaking, she wasnβt speaking | I spoke, she spoke
How you get from the base to the correct tense/form is called conjugation. In English as example adding ed is normally how you get to the past tense (talk β talked). But many verbs are irregular (speak β spoke). In Japanese MOST verbs are regular and there are 2 categories of regular verbs RU- and U-verbs.
To expand on this, γ-verbs drop the γ when conjugating, while γ-verbs have the final γ sound change to something else when conjugating.
γ-verb example: ι£γΉγ ι£γΉγͺγ ι£γΉγ
γ-verb example: ι£²γ ι£²γΎγͺγ ι£²γγ
Irregular verbs conjugate irregularly. Fortunately, thereβs only two of them: γγ and γγ
γγ γγͺγ γγ
γγ γγͺγ γγ
θ‘γ(γγ) is probably worth mentioning in the irregular category since it become γγ£γ¦ and not γγγ¦ as you would expect from a γγ godan verb
I am an English speaker but the word conjugation was not really taught to me. I get the concept though.
To make sure I understand. So something like βto eatβ has conjugation for ru-verb, u-verbs and irregular verbs and they all effect effect the word they make.
Am I right?
No, each verb is in one category. The category doesnβt mean anything, itβs just language plumbing.
Itβs like how in English some verbs take βdβ in past conjugations (hired) and some take ed (talked) and some others something completely different (spoke, not speaked).
You need to know the category to come up with the correct form but it has no additional meaning. If you donβt know that γγΉγ is ichidan you donβt know if you should conjugate γγΉγ or γγΉγ£γ in the past.
Ah I see. I apologize. I think I worded my question wrong. I wanted to know if there was a difference between ru-verbs, u-verbs and irregular verbs besides spelling. Thank you.
Oh no, itβs completely arbitrary. Itβs like grammatical gender in languages like Spanish or French, where every word is either feminine or masculine. There are some patterns you can recognize to help guess which is which but at the end of the day itβs fairly arbitrary and will involve some rote memorization.