活用. The inflections of verbs and adjectives. How the endings of verbs and adjectives change to reflect grammatical factors such as tense and aspect.
Questions tagged [conjugations]
550 questions
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Differences among -たら, なら, -と, -んだったら, -ば, etc
The Japanese language has a lot of patterns for "if" clauses. What are the differences among the following patterns and how do we choose to use one over the others?:
行くと
行ったら
行くなら
行けば
行くんだったら
行くのなら
行くとしたら
行くことになったら
行くならば
p/s: Please add any other…
Lukman
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What is the difference between the negative forms -ず and -ぬ?
-ず and -ぬ are two alternatives to the negative form -ない / -ません. But I noticed that depending on the word, it's either -ず or -ぬ, although it seems like some words can take both suffixes. Some examples I have encountered:
-ず
知らず (lyric in song "タッチ"…
Lukman
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Does -ou / -you / -mashou conjugation have a negative form?
Does the -ou / -you / -mashou (the "let's X") form have a negative counterpart? For example, how do I say "let's not X" for the following?:
行こう
食べよう
寝ましょう
As far as I can remember, the Japanese courses I took in college did not teach me the…
Lukman
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～うございます - keigo い-adjectives
I'm not sure if this is actual keigo, or just a polite form of adjectives. Anyway, there are several that we're all familiar with that are still used today.
はやい → おはようございます
ありがたい → ありがとうございます
めでたい → おめでとうございます
There are a couple of others I've…
istrasci
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How to differentiate ～られる conjugation between passive form and potential form?
For verbs of group 2, whose ～ます form is formed by dropping the ending ～る from the plain form, both the passive and potential forms have the same conjugation: ～られる. Example:
食べられる
1. to be eaten
2. can eat / edible
Other than looking at the…
Lukman
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Why is 知りません the negative form of 知っています？
I'm reading Minna no Nihongo (Chapter 15) and it says what I wrote in the question. I would think the negative would be 知っていません。
dotnetN00b
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Why is it なさそう and not なそう
"It seems there is none" is なさそう, which escapes the usual rule for 形容詞 (イ-adjectives), which says "drop the い and add そう".
Is there a historical explanation for this exception? And does it have anything to do with なさいません?
Earthliŋ
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What is the difference between 見える【みえる】／聞こえる【きこえる】 and 見られる【みられる】／聞ける【きける】?
In Japanese, there is a potential form to express that it's possible for something to be done.
My own examples of potential form:
辛【から】い食【た】べ物【もの】が食【た】べられる。 (I can eat spicy foods.)
ギターが弾【ひ】ける。 (I can play the guitar.)
But I also know of 見【み】える…
atlantiza
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Is Japanese really an agglutinative language?
In the linguistics topic of language typology, Japanese is often included in lists of agglutinative (or agglutinating) languages, but when learning or reading about Japanese grammar exclusively this is rarely if ever mentioned. Other examples of…
hippietrail
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Meaning of ぬ added to 連用形 / masu-stem, as in 風立ちぬ
What does the ぬ at the end of 立ち specify? I can't find a verb that is just 立ちぬ, is this some kind of special form? Can this be done with other verbs as well?
風立ちぬ, for reference, is Miyazaki's new film's name.
user3457
19
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3 answers
Conjunctive form (e.g. 書き) vs Conj + mono (e.g. 書き物)
I'm trying to fully understand the plain conjunctive form without a suffix. I've seen it mainly in the form of 話, where it means a talk or speech. So I think it means something along the lines of "the thing that is produced when someone speaks for a…
Benjamin Lindley
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What exactly does an adjective stem + そう mean?
The other day I posted a picture of some food on Facebook, and I noticed that all of my Japanese friends were saying 「おいしそう」. I made a good guess to what it meant, but I wasn't certain what exactly they were saying. I've seen this stem+そう with other…
Miguel
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About 「同{おな}じ」 and 「同{おな}じく」
As far as I know, 「[同じ]{おなじ}」 is not a 形容詞{けいようし} (-i adjective) so how does it become 「[同じく]{おなじく}」? Or does 「同じく」 not come from 「同じ」?
Also, are there any other non i-adjectives that have -ku counterparts (regardless of the answer for above)?
Lukman
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What is the difference between [plain form of verb]～そう and [root of verb]～そう?
I heard both forms of [plain form of verb]～そう and [root of verb]～そう in an anime I watched, reproduced below, so I'm wondering how are they different and how to choose to use one over the other?
行けるそう
行けそう
What are these conjugations called? And…
Lukman
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Does "te-form" of a verb always include て/で? Why?
In so-called 学校文法 (the Japanese grammar which all native Japanese speakers learn at around middle school), one form of a verb is called 連用形 (aka continuative form), which looks like this (screenshot from 連用形 on Japanese Wikipedia):
As you can see,…
naruto
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