I’m beginning the whole conjugation thing, and have noticed that many transitivity pairs switch from る to other ーう roots. Is there a general rule about predicting when a verb ending in る might be an ーう verb that has to do with transitivity? Or am I doomed to guessing?
So far, I am constantly guessing wrong.
I am not having issues with transitivity, just with the whole るs that are うs thing.
You should understand that the intranstive verb is different from the transtive, aka you can’t conjuncate a transtive to an intranstive or vice versa
But rest assured, there are some patterns Japanese Verbs - Transitive and Intransitive Pairs
Hah, I was literally just about to post that exact link.
But yeah, only patterns, not rules. Transitive/intransitive verb pairs tend to be in opposite verb groups, but aren’t always.
There’s relatively few godan verbs that look like ichidan verbs, so it’s best to assume those verbs are ichidan and memorize the exceptions.
Not to hijack the thread or post discouraging words, buuut… it’s true that compared to the total number of godan verbs, relatively few end in る. On the other hand, compared to the total number of verbs ending in る, less than half of those are ichidan. Or at least, according to this list of verbs - of the 531 godan verbs listed, only 177 end in る, but there’s only 149 ichidan verbs in total. Though, this is supposedly a list of all verbs, so it’s probable that many aren’t in common usage. It’s also possible there’s a whole bunch of compound verbs in there - I haven’t really read through in detail. Though I must confess I’m not completely clear on why you brought that up…
Well only verbs ending in ~える and ~いる are relevant anyway.
As to why I brought it up, I guess I was pointing out that it’s better to just assume (until you learn otherwise) that an ichidan-looking verb is in fact ichidan, rather than looking for a pattern related to transitivity.
Totally agree
if you’re guess is correct then it is all good, and if it is wrong you will learn from the mistake
That list is great! Thank you.
I was heading toward mode switching with the change in transitivity, so that helps resolve my question.
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