Genki Verbs, Transitive vs Intransitive method

Japanese Language Grammar
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Hey guys found some sort of pattern at least with the genki verbs, and I know some people have found patterns(but don’t always work) too I just wanted to add. I don’t feel like looking up if this applies all all verbs, or if someone mentioned this already so here we go

We can put them in to two categories, And three tiers of deduction:

All Verbs that end in す are transitive,
Transitive -----> Intransitive
壊す -----> 壊れる
汚す -----> 汚れる
落とす -----> 落ちる
沸かす -----> 沸く

Most Verbs That have the え in the middle, are transitive(unless they have a す counterpart)
Transitive -----> Intransitive
開ける -----> 開く
閉める -----> 閉まる
入れる -----> 入る
つける -----> つく

1st Tier of deduction:
If it has a す ending, it is always Transitive

Transitive -----> Intransitive
壊す -----> 壊れる
汚す -----> 汚れる
落とす -----> 落ちる
沸かす -----> 沸く

2nd Tier of deduction:
If it has a く ending, its always Intransitive:
Transitive -----> Intransitive:
開ける -----> 開く
つける -----> つく
沸かす -----> 沸く

3rd Tier of deduction:
That leaves two verbs,
Transitive -----> Intransitive:
閉める -----> 閉まる
入れる -----> 入る
Which falls into the category of え middle being Transitive. (mostly)

Now at least you can pass your genki test in 15 minutes. :^)

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Every Transitivity pattern is listed here: http://www.imabi.net/transitivity.htm

The most unfortunate part is that 25% of verbs fall into Eru/U but that pattern goes both ways.

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Second tier of deduction:

What about 聞く and 書く?

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I was just doing the transitivity pairs on the genki page, but do they have intransitive parts?

Yeah I know that’s why I tried to add with the す and く ending.

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Ah, didn’t realize you were referencing a specific page. I just thought of verbs that were in Genki. My bad.

The intransitive for 聞く would be 聞こえる.

As for 書く…It’s long past my usual bed time, so I’m drawing blanks. 書いてある would be the closest of which I could think immediately, but I don’t think it has a pair, actually. I’ll edit this tomorrow morning when I get a chance to get my brain working again and/or research.

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No you’re fine, and I guess from what syphus linked there’s already a similar but better method than mine for all verbs

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I’ve found a good division on tran vs intran verbs. There’s always exceptions, but this might at least help learning those verbs that do have a pattern:

https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-grammar/intransitive-verbs-vs-transitive-verbs/

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This solved maybe a quarter of my leeches. Why grammar is so important.

This video explains it as well:

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The whole video was pretty cool, love the format! :slight_smile:

She mentioned patterns 1,2 and 5 of the article I posted. Apparently, there’s 8. I haven’t checked them all because I just discovered the article :sweat_smile:

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