I’m a supper dupper begginer and although I haven’t had any particular trouble with grammar I just don’t know where to start with conjugation. I’m trying to learn Ichidan/Godan verbs but I always either forget or mix everything. How did you guys learn them, and would you do anything different?
I need some guidance, and maybe some ressources 
Btw this is my first post, I’ve had a lot of fun reading in this community and everyone is really inspiring, big <3 to everyone!
Two references to start:
Sartori Reader has Conjugations for Ichidan in its free part, so could be a reference to get a practical feel for verb conjugations:
https://www.satorireader.com/series/human-japanese-intermediate-extra-credit#human-japanese-intermediate-extra-credit-101
And there is also an introduction here:
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese-grammar/verb-conjugation-groups/
Welcome!
I used the textbook Genki, and after a few chapters I started reading graded readers to see more examples in context. The only thing I would do different would be to move through the material faster. I was slow and it took me years to get through Genki 1. In retrospect, I should have just read it like a book, been less rigorous about doing all the exercises, and just kept going to get the job done.
But there’s lots of different ways to do this! Just choose one way out of all the advice you get, no need to do everything.
Keep going and have fun!
Ichidan means they have one way of being said, godan means they have five.
Also known as ru and u-verbs for the following reason.
Ichidan/ru:
たべる (eat)
おきる (get up)
かりる (borrow)
あびる (bathe)
These verbs end in る, and, when conjugated, only add something after the stem, that is, the part before る.
For example:
たべない (negative)
たべます (masu)
たべる (dictionary)
たべられる (potential/can)
たべよう (volitional/let’s)
おきない
おきます
おきる
おきられる
おきよう
かりない
かります
かりる
かりられる
かりよう
あびない
あびます
あびる
あびられる
あびよう
In all of these, the two first syllables (i.e., the stem) don’t change, and as such, they’re always said one way.
Godan/u:
のむ (drink)
ねむる (sleep)
かす (lend)
はしる (run)
These verbs end in う つ る む ぶ ぬ す く ぐ, and, when conjugated, the last syllable changes accordingly.
The reason I arranged the ichidan verbs as negative, masu, dictionary, potential/can, and volitional/let’s, is because the godan verbs use a different vowel for each of these forms.
For example:
のまない ー あ
のみます ー い
のむ ー う
のめる ー え
のもう ー お
ねむらない
ねむります
ねむる
ねむれる
ねむろう
かさない
かします
かす
かせる
かそう
はしらない
はしります
はしる
はしれる
はしろう
In all of these, the last syllable changes, and as such, they can be said in five different ways.
Because of this, ichidan verbs are easy to conjugate, and godan verbs take a bit more work, but still follow simple rules.
Does this help?
A dictionary like jisho.org or takoboto can tell you what kind of verb it is, and its conjugations.
What I feel might happen a lot when you selfstudy is, that you think “but there is this and that and that other form, that I’ve seen in sentences, I need to know them” but actually you don’t - at least for now. It’s easiest to start with simple ます-sentences and work your way up there step by step. no need to worry about complicated stuff at first.
When I started learning japanese - which was like 7 years ago - I started with the Marugoto book series: Book 1 then 2 then 3 then Genki 1, Genki 2 and now Marugoto 4 so for me that was the so to say “normal way of progression” you’d almost also be getting in classroom studies. It helped in not getting overwhelmed, but also requires you to not dive into too advanced literature right away.
One can do that to learn, but IMO it’s more efficient that way…
Also as a bit of advertisement for the Marugoto books: since they’re all in color and with a lot of cute pictures I found them easier to get into than Genki for example since it’s more playful.
Give this a try maybe:
I personally prefer this type of holistic approach over something like Genki that goes really progressively and takes forever to give you the big picture (and starts with ます forms before teaching the basics, which I think makes learning conjugations more complicated than it should be).
YES thank you sm
I spent a few weeks a few years ago trying to learn that sort of thing by rote and got absolutely nowhere.
In the end reading, listening, and shadowing without paying special attention to what grammar was going on or whether something was an ichidan or godan verb worked fine. Your brain will learn the patterns just from the sounds.
I’ve never consciously learned the past-continuous form for any verb in any language but, take the verb ‘drink’ 飲む, if I want to say ‘was drinking’ it’s automatically just 飲んでいた [actually, more likely to say 飲んでた, because the い often gets dropped in speech], because I’ve heard -む verbs change in that way often enough and repeated it often enough that it’s automatic.
Anyway, I’m not saying you shouldn’t rote learn them, just that it’s not necessary. unless you’ve got some kind of test coming up. There’s probably more useful things you could do with that time - read graded readers, listen to podcasts, watch beginner Japanese comprehensible input videos on YouTube, etc, etc.
This youtube video explains the patterns very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDxMzqlEjVs
As a beginner, you shouldn’t stress too much about it. Focus on gaining comprehensible input, the verb conjugations eventually come to you as you see more example sentences in the wild. I recommend shadowing (repeating after native speakers), especially with common daily phrases so you build muscle memory. 
My favorite youtuber for beginner comprehensible input: https://www.youtube.com/@DailyJapanese
This isn’t helpful at all, but, I’m so happy to realize that this has fallen so far back into my automatic mind that i didn’t even understand the question for a bit.
It really is just a time spent exposing to it type-thing, printing out a little sheet with examples of all the types and over time of reading, it just starts to feel right. I wish there was a better answer, but that’s how I did it. Just osmosis absorption.
YES! As soon as I read the title of the post I wanted to share the same videos. Cure Dolly Japanese is a golden resource for grammar studying. You will find out that there is no such thing as conjugation in Japanese…
In my experience, practicing how to conjugate all of the different verb forms is super important! If you haven’t already, I recommend going through the Steven Kraft verb conjugation exercises. He has simple charts that show how to conjugate different verbs into various tenses, and the site basically throws dozens of verbs at you and just has you practice conjugating them over and over again until you can get it right. I don’t think SRS is a great fit for practicing verb conjugation - for me at least, brute force memorization really is the way to go. Daily practice with something like Steven Kraft will go a long way.
Heey!
A lot of people already gave you resources to learn conjugations, so I won’t give you more, but I think it is also extremely important to practice! Conjugation is difficult, and it is easier to let your brain learn by itself more than trying to memorize a ton of rules and irregularities.
So, once you have a basic understanding of the conjugations, you can start practicing reading or listening to anything you want, and also use this app or any other similar.
https://wkdonc.github.io/conjugation/drill.html
btw, don’t try to learn all the conjugations at the same time!
start by the past tense, then maybe the te form, and start practicing before trying to learn new ones
you’ll have to know your best way to learn and pick the method that fits your style. personally I do better with practical examples rather than pure memorization; but some is unavoidable, especially the exceptions to rules.
As far as comprehensive input goes, it’s more likely to notice the conjugated form, and needing to figure out the dictionary form (or the polite form), not the other way round.
Actually, input can help very well with distinguishing and remembering ichidan and godan as well.
Still, going from dictionary form to various forms, like with production, can help indirectly with remember the opposite way.
This chart looks super helpful, thankyou.
mindblown!
Oh boy, so all that time I spent learning conjugations could have been spent learning the… not-conjugations?
Cure Dolly likes to call the conjugations “auxiliary verbs” or somesuch. How that makes them easier to memorise, I haven’t the foggiest idea.
