Polite Form and Verb Stems

Posted by Tae Kim

Not being rude in Japan

The Japanese we have learned so far is all well and good if you're 5-years old. Unfortunately,
adults are expected to use a politer version of the language (called 丁寧語) when addressing
certain people. People you will probably use 丁寧語 with are: 1) people of higher social rank,
and 2) people you are not familiar with. Deciding when to use which language is pretty much a
matter of "feel". However, it is a good idea to stick with one form for each person.

Later (probably much later), we will learn an even politer version of the language called
honorific （尊敬語） and humble （謙譲語） form. It will be more useful than you may think
because store clerks, receptionists, and such will speak to you in those forms. But for now, let's
concentrate on just 丁寧語, which is the base for 尊敬語 and 謙譲語.

Fortunately, it is not difficult to change casual speech to polite speech. There may be some slight
changes to the vocabulary (for example, "yes" and "no" become 「はい」 and 「いいえ」
respectively in polite speech), and very colloquial types of gobi obviously are not used in polite
speech. (Don't worry; we haven't even gone over those yet.) Essentially, the only main difference
between polite and casual speech comes at the very end of the sentence. You cannot even tell
whether a person is speaking in polite or casual speech until the sentence is finished.

The stem of verbs

In order to conjugate all u-verbs and ru-verbs into their respective polite forms, we will first
learn about the stem of verbs. This is often called the masu-stem in Japanese textbooks but we
will call it just the stem because it is used in many more conjugations than just its masu-form.
The stem is really great because it's very easy to produce and is useful in many different types of
grammar.

Rules for extracting the stem of verbs

 ru-verbs - Remove the 「る」

例) 食べる → 食べ
 u-verbs - The last vowel sound changes from an / u / vowel sound to an / i / vowel sound.
例) 泳ぐ → 泳ぎ
 Exceptions - 「する」 becomes 「し」 and 「くる」 becomes 「き」.

The stem when used by itself can be a very specialized and limited way of creating nouns from
verbs. While the 「の」 particle allows you to talk about verbs as if they were nouns, the stem
actually turns verbs into nouns. In fact, in very rare cases, the stem is used more often than the
verb itself. For example, the stem of 「怒る」（いかる） is used more often than the verb
itself. The movie, "Fists of Fury" is translated as 「怒りの鉄拳」 and not 「怒る鉄拳」. In
fact, 「怒る」 will most likely be read as 「おこる」, a completely different verb with the
same meaning and kanji! There are a number of specific nouns (such as 「休み」) that are really
verb stems that are used like regular nouns. However, in general we cannot take any verb and
make it into a noun. For example, the following sentence is wrong.

（誤）　飲みをする。- (This sentence makes sense but no one talks like this)

However, a useful grammar that works in general for stems of all verbs is using the stem as a
target with a motion verb (almost always 「行く」 and 「来る」 in this case). This grammar
means, "to go or to come to do [some verb]". Here's an example.

（１）　明日、映画を見に行く。- Tomorrow, go to see movie.

「見に」 is the stem of 「見る」 combined with the target particle 「に」.

The motion target particle 「へ」 sounds like you're literally going or coming to something
while the 「に」 particle implies that you are going or coming for the purpose of doing
something.

（１）　昨日、友達が遊びへきた。
- Yesterday, friend came to a playing activity. (Sounds a bit strange)

（２）　昨日、友達が遊びにきた。
- Yesterday, friend came to play.

The expression 「楽しみにする」 meaning "to look forward to" is formed from grammar
similar to this but is a special case and should be considered a set expression.

Other verbs are also sometimes attached to the stem to create new verbs. For example, when
「出す」 is attached to the stem of 「走る」, which is 「走り」, you get 「走り出す」
meaning "to break out into a run". Other examples include 「切り替える」, which means "to
switch over to something else", and 「付け加える」, which means "to add something by
attaching it". You can see how the separate meanings of the two verbs are combined to create the
new combined verb. For example, 「言い出す」 means "to start talking", combining the
meaning, "to speak" and "to bring out". There are no general rules here, you need to just
memorize these combined verbs as separate verbs in their own right.

Things that are written in a formal context such as newspaper articles also use the stem as a
conjunctive verb. We will come back to this later in the formal expression lesson.

Using 「～ます」 to make verbs polite

Of course, the reason I introduced the verb stem is to learn how to conjugate verbs into their
polite form... the masu-form! The masu-form must always come at the end of a complete
sentence and never inside a modifying subordinate clause. When we learn compound sentences,
we will see that each sub-sentence of the compound sentence can end in masu-form as well.

To conjugate verbs into the masu-form, you attach different conjugations of 「ます」 to the
stem depending on the tense. Here is a chart.

A conjugation chart with sample stem 「遊び」

ます conjugations Stem+ます
Plain ます 遊びます
Negative ません 遊びません
Past ました 遊びました
Past-Neg ませんでした 遊びませんでした

Examples

As usual, let's see some examples.

（１）　明日、大学に行きます。
- Tomorrow, go to college.

（２）　先週、ボブに会いましたよ。
- You know, met Bob last week.

（３）　晩ご飯を食べませんでしたね。
- Didn't eat dinner, huh?

（４）　面白くない映画は見ません。
- About not interesting movies, do not see (them).

Using 「です」 for everything else

For any sentence that does not end in a ru-verb or u-verb, the only thing that needs to be done is
to add 「です」 or 「でした」. You can also do this for substituted nouns (both 「の」 and
「ん」) by just treating them like regular nouns. Another important thing to remember is that if
there is a declarative 「だ」, it must be removed. In being polite, I guess you can't be so bold as
to forwardly declare things the way 「だ」 does. Just like the masu-form, this must also go at
the end of a complete sentence. Here is a chart illustrating the conjugations.

i-adjective (だ cannot be used)

Casual Polite
 Plain かわいい かわいいです
Negative かわいくない かわいくないです
Past かわいかった かわいかったです
Past-Neg かわいくなかった かわいくなかったです
na-adjective/noun (might have to remove だ)
Casual Polite
Plain 静か（だ） 静かです
Negative 静かじゃない 静かじゃないです
Past 静かだった ※静かでした
Past-Neg 静かじゃなかった 静かじゃなかったです

※ Notice in the case of noun/na-adjective only, the past tense becomes 「でした」. A very
common mistake is to do the same for i-adjectives. Remember 「かわいいでした」 is wrong!

Examples

As usual, let's see some examples.

（１）　子犬はとても好きです。
- About puppies, like very much. (The most natural translation is that someone likes puppies
very much but there is not enough context to rule out that the puppies like something very
much.)

（２）　昨日、時間がなかったんです。
- It was that there was no time yesterday.

（３）　その部屋はあまり静かじゃないです。
- That room is not very quiet.

（４）　先週に見た映画は、とても面白かったです。
- Movie saw last week was very interesting.

※ Reality Check

I have heard on a number of occasions that the negative non-past conjugation as given here is not
an "officially" correct conjugation. Instead what's considered to be a more "correct" conjugation
is to actually replace the 「ないです」 part with 「ありません」. The reasoning is that the
polite negative form of the verb 「ある」 is not 「ないです」 but 「ありません」.
Therefore, 「かわいくない」 actually becomes 「かわいくありません」 and 「静かじゃな
い」 becomes 「静かじゃありません」.
The reality of today's Japanese is that what's supposed to be the "official" conjugation sounds
rather stiff and formal. In normal everyday conversations, the conjugation presented here will be
used almost every time. While you should use the more formal conjugations for written works
using the polite form, you'll rarely hear it in actual speech. In conclusion, I recommend studying
and becoming familiar with both types of conjugations.

A more formal negative conjugation

Casual Polite
Negative かわいくない かわいくありません
Past-Neg かわいくなかった かわいくありませんでした
Negative 静かじゃない 静かじゃありません
Past-Neg 静かじゃなかった 静かじゃありませんでした

Examples

（１）　その部屋はあまり静かじゃないですよ。
- You know, that room is not very quiet.

（２）　その部屋はあまり静かじゃありませんよ。
- You know, that room is not very quiet.

「です」 is NOT the same as 「だ」

Many of you who have taken Japanese classes have probably been taught that 「です」 is the
polite version of 「だ」. However, I want to point some several key differences here and the
reasons why they are in fact completely different things. It is impossible to fully explain the
reasons why they are fundamentally different without discussing grammar that have yet to be
covered so I would like to target this toward those who have already started learning Japanese
and have been incorrectly misinformed that 「だ」 is the casual version of 「です」. For the
rest of you new to this, you can easily skip this part.

I'm sure most of you have learned the expression 「そう」 by now. Now, there are four ways to
make a complete sentence using the state-of-being with 「そう」 to produce a sentence that
says, "That is so."

Different ways to say, "That is so."

（１）　そう。
（２）　そうだ。
（３）　そうです。
（４）　そうでございます。
The first 「そう」 is the implied state of being and
「そうだ」 is the declarative. As I've stated before, the non-assuming soft spoken
「そう」 is often used by females while the more confident
「そうだ」 is often used by males.
「そうです」 is the polite version of
「そう」, created by attaching 「です」 to the noun.
「そうです」 is not the polite version of
「そうだ」 where the 「だ」 is replaced by 「です」 and I'll explain why.

Perhaps we wanted to make that sentence into a question instead to ask, "Is that so?" There are
several ways to do this but some possibilities are given in the following. (This grammar is
covered in a later section.)

Different ways to ask, "Is that so?"

（１）　そう？
（２）　そうか？
（３）　そうですか？

As I've explained before, the 「だ」 is used to declare what one believes to be a fact. Therefore,
「そうだ か？」 is not a valid way to ask a question because it is declaring a fact and asking a
question at the same time. But the fact that 「そうですか」 is a valid question shows that 「で
す」 and 「だ」 are essentially different. 「そうです」, in showing respect and humbleness, is
not as assertive and is merely the polite version of 「そう」.

Besides the difference in nuance between 「だ」 and 「です」, another key difference is that
「だ」 is used in many different types of grammar to delineate a subordinate clause. 「です」,
on the other hand, is only used at the end of a sentence to designate a polite state-of-being. For
instance, consider the two following sentences. (This grammar is covered in a later section.)

（正）　そうだと思います - I think that is so.

（誤）　そうですと思います - (Incorrect sentence)

「そうだと思います」 is valid while 「そうですと思います」 is not because 「です」 can

only go at the end of the sentence. 「です」 can only be in a subordinate clause when it is a
direct quote of what someone said such as the following.

（１）　「はい、そうです」と答えた。

In conclusion, replacing 「です」 with 「だ」, thinking one is the polite equivalent of the other
or vice-versa will potentially result in grammatically incorrect sentences. It is best to think of
them as totally separate things (because they are).

Addressing People
Posted by Tae Kim
Not only is it important to use the right type of language with the right people, it is also
important to address them by the right name. It is also important to address yourself with the
proper level of politeness. Japanese is special in that there are so many ways of saying the simple
words, "I" and "you". We will go over some of ways to refer to yourself and others.

Referring to yourself
There are many ways to say "I" in Japanese. Some of these words are not as common and others
are hopelessly outdated. We will go over the most common ones that are in use today. The
usages of all the different words for "I" is separated into two categories: gender and politeness. In
other words, there are words that are usually used by males and words that are usually only used
by females and they all depend on the social context.

Before going into this: a note about the word 「私」. The official reading of the kanji is 「わた
くし」. This is the reading you is used in a formal context (for example, a speech by the
president of a company). This reading will probably be accompanied with honorific and humble
forms, which we will cover later. In all other situations, it is usually read as 「わたし」. This is
the most generic reference to "I" in terms of politeness and gender; therefore it is usually one of
the first words taught to students of Japanese.

Here is a list of the most common words for "I" and how they are used:

1. 私（わたくし） - Used by both males and females for formal situations.

2. 私（わたし） - Used by both males and females for normal polite situations.
3. 僕 - Used primarily by males from fairly polite to fairly casual situations.
4. 俺 - A very rough version of "I" used almost exclusively by males in very casual
situations.
5. あたし - A very feminine and casual way to refer to oneself. Many girls have decided to
opt for 「わたし」 instead because 「あたし」 has a cutesy and girly sound.
6. One's own name - Also a very feminine and kind of childish way to refer to oneself.
7. わし - Usually used by older men well in their middle-ages.

Let's see how different types of sentences use the appropriate version of "I". 「わたくし」 is
left out because we have yet to go over very formal grammatical expressions.

（１）　私の名前はキムです。- My name is Kim. (Neutral, polite)

（２）　僕の名前はキムです。- My name is Kim. (Masculine, polite)
（３）　僕の名前はボブだ。- My name is Bob. (Masculine, casual)
（４）　俺の名前はボブだ。- My name is Bob. (Masculine, casual)
（５）　あたしの名前はアリス。- My name is Alice. (Feminine, casual)

Referring to others by name

Japanese does not require the use of "you" nearly as much as English does. I hope that the
examples with Bob, Alice, and Jim have shown that people refer to other people by their names
even when they are directly addressing that person. Another common way to address people is
by their title such as 「社長」、「課長」、「先生」, etc. The word 「先生」 is used to
generally mean any person who has significant knowledge and expertise in something. For
example, people usually use 「先生」 when directly addressing doctors or teachers (obviously).
You can also include the person's last name such as 「田中先生」 (teacher Tanaka). In the case
where your relationship with the person doesn't involve any title, you can use their name (usually
their last name) attached with 「さん」 to show politeness. If calling them by their last name
seems a little too polite and distant, the practice of attaching 「さん」 to their first name also
exists. More endearing and colloquial versions of 「さん」 include 「くん」 and 「ちゃん」.
「くん」 is usually attached to the name of males who are of equal or lower social position.
(For example, my boss sometimes calls me 「キムくん」). 「ちゃん」 is a very endearing
way to refer to usually females of equal or lower social position.

Referring to others with "you"

Please do not use 「あなた」 just like you would use the word "you" in English. In directly
addressing people, there are three levels of politeness: 1) Using the person's name with the
appropriate suffix, 2) Not using anything at all, 3) Using 「あなた」. In fact, by the time you
get to three, you're dangerously in the area of being rude. Most of the time, you do not need to
use anything at all because you are directly addressing the person. Constantly pounding the
listener with "you" every sentence sounds like you are accusing the person of something.

「あなた」 is also an old-fashioned way for women to refer to their husband or lover. Unless
you are a middle-aged women with a Japanese husband, I doubt you will be using 「あなた」
in this fashion as well.

Here is a list of some words meaning "you" in English. You will rarely need to use any of these
words, especially the ones in the second half of the list.

1. あなた - Generally only used when there is no way to physically address the person or
know the person's name. For example, direct questions to the reader on a form that the
reader must fill out would use 「あなた」.
2. 君 - Can be a very close and assuming way to address girls (especially by guys). Can also
be kind of rude.
3. お前 - A very rough and coarse way to address someone. Usually used by guys and often
changed to 「おめえ」.
4. あんた - A very assuming and familiar way to address someone. The person using this is
maybe miffed off about something.
5. 手前 - Very rude. Like 「お前」, to add extra punch, people will usually say it like,
「てめ～～」. Sounds like you want to beat someone up. I've only seen this one used in
movies and comic books. In fact, if you try this on your friends, they will probably laugh
at you and tell you that you've probably been reading too many comic books.
6. 貴様 - Very, very rude. Sounds like you want to take someone out. I've also only seen
this one used in comic books. I only go over it so you can understand and enjoy comic
books yourself!
Referring to others in third person
You can use 「彼」 and 「彼女」 for "he" and "she" respectively. Notice that 「彼」 and 「彼
女」 can also mean "boyfriend" and "girlfriend". So how can you tell which meaning is being
used? Context, of course. For example, if someone asks, 「彼女ですか？」 the person is
obviously asking if she is your girlfriend because the question, "Is she she?" doesn't make any
sense. Another less commonly used alternative is to say 「ガールフレンド」 and 「ボーイフ
レンド」 for, well, I'm sure you can guess what they mean.

Referring to family members

Referring to family members is a little more complicated than English. (It could be worse, try
learning Korean!) For the purpose of brevity, (since this is a grammar guide and not a vocabulary
guide) we will only go over the immediate family. In Japanese, you refer to members of other
people's family more politely than your own. This is only when you are talking about members
of your own family to others outside the family. For example, you would refer to your own
mother as 「母」 to people outside your family but you might very well call her 「お母さん」
at home within your own family. There is also a distinction between older and younger siblings.
The following chart list some of the most common terms for family members. There may also be
other possibilities not covered in this chart.

Family member chart

One's own family Someone else's family
Parents 両親 ご両親
Mother 母 お母さん
Father 父 お父さん
Wife 妻 奥さん
Husband 夫 ご主人
Older Sister 姉 お姉さん
Older Brother 兄 お兄さん
Younger Sister 妹 妹さん
Younger Brother 弟 弟さん
Son 息子 息子さん
Daughter 娘 娘さん

Another word for wife, 「家内」 is often considered politically incorrect because the kanji used
are "house" and "inside" which implies that wives belong in the home. Amen. (Just kidding)
The Question Marker
Posted by Tae Kim

Questions in polite form

The question marker is covered here because it is primarily used to clearly indicate a question in
polite sentences. While it is entirely possible to express a question even in polite form using just
intonation, the question marker is often attached to the very end of the sentence to indicate a
question. The question marker is simply the hiragana character 「か」 and you don't need to add
a question mark. For previously explained reasons, you must not use the declarative 「だ」 with
the question marker.

Example 1

田中さん：　お母さんはどこですか。- Where is (your) mother?

鈴木さん：　母は買い物に行きました。- (My) mother went shopping.

Example 2

キムさん：　イタリア料理を食べに行きませんか。 - Go to eat Italian food?

鈴木さん：　すみません。ちょっと、お腹がいっぱいです。- Sorry. (My) stomach is a
little full.

Here the question is actually being used as an invitation just like how in English we say, "Won't
you come in for a drink?"
「すみません」 is a polite way of apologizing. Slightly less formal is 「ごめんなさい」
while the casual version is simply 「ごめん」.

The question marker in casual speech

It makes sense to conclude that the question marker would work in exactly the same way in
casual speech as it does in polite speech. However, this is not the case. The question marker
「か」 is usually not used with casual speech to make actual questions. It is often used to
consider whether something is true or not. Depending on the context and intonation, it can also
be used to make rhetorical questions or to express sarcasm. It can sound quite rough so you
might want to be careful about using 「か」 for questions in the plain casual form.

Examples

（１）　こんなのを本当に食べるか？
- Do you think [he/she] will really eat this type of thing?
（２）　そんなのは、あるかよ！
- Do I look like I would have something like that?!

Instead of 「か」, real questions in casual speech are usually asked with the explanatory の
particle or nothing at all except for a rise in intonation, as we have already seen in previous
sections.

（１）　こんなのを本当に食べる？
- Are you really going to eat something like this?

（２）　そんなのは、あるの？
- Do you have something like that?

「か」 used in subordinate clauses

Another use of the question marker is simply grammatical and has nothing to do with the
politeness. A question marker attached to the end of a subordinate clause makes a mini-question
inside a larger sentence. This allows the speaker to talk about the question. For example, you can
talk about the question, "What did I eat today?" In the following examples, the question that is
being considered is in red.

（１）　昨日何を食べたか忘れた。- Forgot what I ate yesterday.

（２）　彼は何を言ったかわからない。- Don't understand what he said.
（３）　先生が学校に行ったか教えない？ - Won't you inform me whether teacher went to
school?

In sentences like （３） where the question being considered has a yes/no answer, it is common
(but not necessary) to attach 「どうか」. This is roughly equivalent to saying, "whether or not"
in English. You can also include the alternative as well to mean the same thing.

（１）　先生が学校に行ったかどうか知らない。- Don't know whether or not teacher went

to school.
（２）　先生が学校に行ったか行かなかったか知らない。- Don't know whether teacher
went to school or didn't.

Using question words

While we're on the topic of questions, this is a good time to go over question words (where, who,
what, etc.) and what they mean in various contexts. Take a look at what adding the question
marker does to the meaning of the words.

Question Words
Word+Question Marker Meaning
誰か Someone
 何か Something
いつか Sometime
どこか Somewhere
どれか A certain one from many

As you can see by the following examples, you can treat these words just like any regular nouns.

（１）　誰かがおいしいクッキーを全部食べた。- Someone ate all the delicious cookies.

（２）　誰が盗んだのか、誰か知りませんか。- Doesn't anybody know who stole it?
（３）　犯人をどこかで見ましたか。- Did you see the criminal somewhere?
（４）　この中からどれかを選ぶの。- (Explaining) You are to select a certain one from
inside this [selection].

Question words with inclusive meaning

The same question words in the chart above can be combined with 「も」 in a negative sentence
to mean "nobody" （誰も）, "nothing" （何も）, "nowhere" （どこも）, etc.

「誰も」 and 「何も」 are primarily used only for negative sentences. Curiously, there is no
way to say "everything" with question words. Instead, it is conventional to use other words like
「全部」. And although 「誰も」 can sometimes be used to mean "everybody", it is customary
to use 「皆」 or 「皆さん」

The remaining three words 「いつも」 (meaning "always") and 「どれも」 (meaning "any
and all"), and 「どこも」 (meaning everywhere) can be used in both negative and positive
sentences.

Inclusive Words
Word+も Meaning
誰も Everybody/Nobody
何も Nothing (negative only)
いつも Always
どこも Everywhere
どれも Any and all

（１）　この質問の答えは、誰も知らない。- Nobody knows the answer of this question.

（２）　友達はいつも遅れる。 - Friend is always late.
（３）　ここにあるレストランはどれもおいしくない - Any and all restaurants that are
here are not tasty.
（４）　今週末は、どこにも行かなかった。- Went nowhere this weekend.

(Grammatically, this 「も」 is the same as the topic particle 「も」 so the target particle
「に」 must go before the topic particle 「も」 in ordering.)

Question words to mean "any"

The same question words combined with 「でも」 can be used to mean "any". One thing to be
careful about is that 「何でも」 is read as 「なんでも」 and not 「なにでも」

Words for "Any"

Word+でも Meaning
誰でも Anybody
何でも Anything
いつでも Anytime
どこでも Anywhere
どれでも Whichever

（１）　この質問の答えは、誰でも分かる。- Anybody understands the answer of this

question.
（２）　昼ご飯は、どこでもいいです。- About lunch, anywhere is good.
（３）　あの人は、本当に何でも食べる。- That person really eats anything.

‹ Addressing People up Compound Sentences ›

Compound Sentences
Posted by Tae Kim

In this section, we will learn various ways to combine multiple simple sentences into one
complex sentence. For example, we will learn how to chain separate sentences together to
express multiple actions or states. In other words, if we have two simple sentences with the same
subject, "I ran" and "I ate", we will learn how to group them together to mean, "I ran and ate."
We will also learn how to do this with adjectives and nouns. (Ex: He is rich, handsome, and
charming.)

Expressing a sequence of states

It is very easy to combine a chain of nouns and adjectives to describe a person or object. For
example, in English if we wanted to say, "He is X. He is Y. He is Z." since all three sentences
have the same noun, we would usually say, "He is X, Y, and Z." In Japanese, we can do the same
thing by conjugating the noun or adjective. The last noun or adjective remains the same as
before.

How to chain nouns and adjectives together

 Nouns and na-adjectives: Attach 「で」 to the noun or na-adjective.

 例）　一般的 → 一般的で
 例）　静か → 静かで
 I-adjectives and negative noun/adjective: Replace the 「い」 with 「くて」.
※For 「いい」 and 「かっこいい」, the 「い→よ」 exception applies here as well.
 例）　狭い → 狭くて
 例）　彼女じゃない → 彼女じゃなくて
 例）　いい → よくて

Examples

（１）　私の部屋は、きれいで、静かで、とても好き。
- My room is clean, quiet, and I like it a lot.

（２）　彼女は、学生じゃなくて、先生だ。
- She is not a student, she is a teacher.

（３）　田中さんは、お金持ちで、かっこよくて、魅力的ですね。
- Tanaka-san is rich, handsome, and charming, isn't he?

As you can see, the 「で」 attached to 「お金持ち」 obviously cannot be the context particle
「で」 here because there is no verb. It might be helpful to think of 「で」 as merely a
substitution for 「だ」 that can be chained together.

Expressing a sequence of verbs with the te-form

In a similar fashion, you can express multiple actions. It is usually interpreted as a sequence of
event. (I did [X], then I did [Y], then I finally did [Z].) There are two forms: positive and
negative. The tense of all the actions is determined by the tense of the last verb.

How to chain verbs together

1. Positive: Conjugate the verb to its past tense and replace 「た」 with 「て」 or 「だ」
with 「で」. This is often called the te-form even though it could sometimes be 'de' .
2. Negative: Same as i-adjectives, replace 「い」 with 「くて」.

 This rule also works for the polite 「です」 and 「ます」 endings.
  例）　学生です → 学生でした → 学生でして
 例）　買います → 買いました → 買いまして

Sample conjugations
Past Tense Te-form Negative Te-form
食べた 食べて 食べない 食べなくて
行った 行って 行かない 行かなくて
した して        しない しなくて
遊んだ 遊んで 遊ばない 遊ばなくて
飲んだ 飲んで 飲まない 飲まなくて

Examples

（１）　食堂に行って、昼ご飯を食べて、昼寝をする。
- I will go to cafeteria, eat lunch, and take a nap.

（２）　食堂に行って、昼ご飯を食べて、昼寝をした。
- I went to cafeteria, ate lunch, and took a nap.

（３）　時間がありまして、映画を見ました。
- There was time and I watched a movie.

Expressing reason or causation using 「から」 and 「の

で」
You can connect two complete sentences using 「から」 to indicate a reason for something.
The two sentences are always ordered [reason] から [result]. When the reason is a non-
conjugated noun or na-adjective, you must add 「だ」 to explicitly declare the reason in the
form of 「(noun/na-adjective)だか ら」. If you forget to add the declarative 「だ」 to 「か
ら」, it will end up sounding like the 「から」 meaning "from" which was first introduced in
Particles 2.

Examples

（１）　時間がなかったからパーティーに行きませんでした。
- There was no time so didn't go to party.

（２）　友達からプレゼントが来た。
- Present came from friend.
（３）　友達だからプレゼントが来た。
- Present came because (the person is) friend. (This sentence sounds a bit odd.)

Either the reason or the result can be omitted if it is clear from the context. In the case of polite
speech, you would treat 「から」 just like a regular noun and add 「です」. When you omit
the result, you must include the declarative 「だ」 or 「です」.

田中さん）　どうしてパーティーに行きませんでしたか。- Why didn't you go to the

party?
山田さん）　時間がなかったからです。- It's because I didn't have time.

一郎）　パーティーに行かなかったの？- You didn't go to the party?

直子）　うん、時間がなかったから。- Yeah, because I didn't have time.

（１）　時間がなかった。- I didn't have time.

（２）　だからパーティーに行かなかったの？ - Is that why you didn't go to the party?

Notice that 山田さん and 直子 could have used the explanatory 「の」 to express the same
thing. In other words, 山田さん could have also said, 「時間がなかったのです」 or 「時間
がなかったんです」 while 直子 could have said 「時間がなかったの」 (we'll assume she
wants to use the more feminine form). In fact, this is where 「ので」 possibly came from. Let's
say you want to combine two sentences: 「時間がなかったのだ」 and 「パーティーに行か
なかった」. Remember we can treat the 「の」 just like a noun so we can use what we just
learned in the first section of this lesson.

（１）　時間がなかったのだ＋パーティーに行かなかった
becomes:
（２）　時間がなかったのでパーティーに行かなかった。

In fact, 「ので」 is almost interchangeable with 「から」 with a few subtle differences. 「か
ら」 explicitly states that the sentence preceding is the reason for something while 「ので」 is
merely putting two sentences together, the first with an explanatory tone. This is something I call
causation where [X] happened, therefore [Y] happened. This is slightly different from 「から」
where [Y] happened explicitly because [X] happened. This difference tends to make 「ので」
sound softer and slightly more polite and it is favored over 「から」 when explaining a reason
for doing something that is considered discourteous.

（１）　ちょっと忙しいので、そろそろ失礼します。
- Because I'm a little busy, I'll be making my leave soon.
（「失礼します」, which literally means "I'm doing a discourtesy", is commonly used as a
polite way to make your leave or disturb someone's time.）

Reminder: Don't forget that the explanatory 「の」 requires a 「な」 for both non-conjugated
nouns and na-adjectives. Review Particles 3 to see why.

（１）　私は学生なので、お金がないんです。
- Because I'm a student, I have no money (lit: there is no money).
（２）　ここは静かなので、とても穏やかです。
- It is very calm here because it is quiet.

（３）　なので、友達に会う時間がない。
- That's why there's no time to meet friend.

Just like how the explanatory 「の」 can be shortened to 「ん」, in speech, the 「ので」 can
be changed to 「んで」 simply because it's easier to slur the sounds together rather then
pronouncing the / o / syllable.

（１）　時間がなかったんでパーティーに行かなかった。
- Didn't go to the party because there was no time.

（２）　ここは静かなんで、とても穏やかです。
- It is very calm here because it is quiet.

（３）　なんで、友達に会う時間がない。
- That's why there's no time to meet friend.

Using 「のに」 to mean "despite"

Grammatically, 「のに」 is used exactly the same way as 「ので」. When used to combine
two simple sentences together, it means "[Sentence 1] despite the fact that [Sentence 2]."
However the order is reversed: [Sentence 2]のに[Sentence 1].

Examples

（１）　毎日運動したのに、全然痩せなかった。
- Despite exercising every day, I didn't get thinner.

（２）　学生なのに、彼女は勉強しない。
- Despite being a student, she does not study.

Expressing contradiction using 「が」 and 「けど」

Used in the same manner as 「から」 and 「ので」, 「が」 and 「けど」 also connect two
sentences together but this time to express a contradiction. Just like 「から」 the declarative
「だ」 is required for nouns and na-adjectives. And just like 「から」 and 「ので」, either
part of the contradiction can be left out.

Examples

（１）　デパートに行きましたが、何も欲しくなかったです。
- I went to department store but there was nothing I wanted.
（２）　友達に聞いたけど、知らなかった。
- I asked (or heard from) a friend but he (or I) didn't know.

（３）　今日は暇だけど、明日は忙しい。
- I'm free today but I will be busy tomorrow.

（４）　だけど、彼がまだ好きなの。
- That may be so, but it is that I still like him. (explanation, feminine tone)

It may seem odd but 「聞く」 can either mean "to listen" or "to ask". You may think this may
become confusing but the meaning is usually clear within context. In （２）、 we're assuming
that the friend didn't know, so the speaker was probably asking the friend. Yet again we see the
importance of context in Japanese because this sentence can also mean, "I heard from a friend
but I didn't know" since there is neither subject nor topic.

Similar to the difference between 「から」 and 「ので」, 「が」 has a softer tone and is
slightly more polite than 「けど」. Though this isn't a rule as such, it is generally common to
see 「が」 attached to a 「～ます」 or 「～です」 ending and 「けど」 attached to a regular,
plain ending. A more formal version of 「けど」 is 「けれど」 and even more formal is 「け
れども」, which we may see later when we cover formal expressions.

Unlike the English word for contradiction such as "but" or "however", 「けど」 and 「が」 do
not always express a direct contradiction. Often times, especially when introducing a new topic,
it is used as a general connector of two separate sentences. For example, in the following
sentences, there is no actual contradiction but 「が」 and 「けど」 are used simply to connect
the sentences. Sometimes, the English "and" becomes a closer translation than "but".

（１）　デパートに行きましたが、いい物がたくさんありました。
- I went to the department store and there was a lot of good stuff.

（２）　マトリックスを見たけど、面白かった。
- I watched the "Matrix" and it was interesting.

Expressing multiple reasons using 「し」

When you want to list reasons for multiple states or actions you can do so by adding 「し」 to
the end of each subordinate clause. It is very similar to the 「や」 particle except that it lists
reasons for verbs and state of being. Again, for states of being, 「だ」 must be used to explicitly
declare the state of being for any non-conjugated noun or na-adjective. Let's look at some
examples.

（１）　どうして友達じゃないんですか？- Why isn't him/her friend (seeking explanation)?

（２）　先生だし、年上だし・・・。- Well, he's/she's the teacher, and older...
（１）　どうして彼が好きなの？- Why (do you) like him?
（２）　優しいし、かっこいいし、面白いから。- Because he's kind, attractive, and
interesting (among other things).

Notice that 「優しくて、かっこよくて、面白いか ら。」 could also have worked but much
like the difference between the 「と」 and 「や」 particle, 「し」 implies that there may be
other reasons.

Expressing multiple actions or states using 「～たりする」

This is the verb version of the 「や」 particle. You can make an example list of verbs among a
possible larger list by conjugating each verb into the past tense and adding 「り」. At the end,
you need to attach the verb 「する」. Just like the 「や」 particle, the tense is determined by
the last verb, which in this case will always be 「する」 (since you have to attach it at the end).

You can also use this with the state of being to say that you are a number of things at various
random times among a larger list. Similar to regular verbs, you just take the noun or adjective for
each state of being and conjugate it to the past state of being and then attach 「り」. Then
finally, attach 「する」 at the end.

Rules for stating a list of verbs among a larger list using 「～たりする」

 Verbs - Conjugate each verb to the past tense and add 「り」. Finally, add 「する」 at
the very end.
例) 食べる、飲む → 食べた、飲んだ → 食べたり、飲んだり → 食べたり、飲ん
だりする
 State of being - Conjugate the noun or adjective for each state of being and add 「り」.
Finally, add 「する」 at the very end.
例) 簡単、難しい → 簡単だった、難しかった → 簡単だったり、難しかったり →
簡単だったり、難しかったりする

（１）　映画を見たり、本を読んだり、昼寝したりする。
- I do things like (among other things) watch movies, read books, and take naps.

（２）　この大学の授業は簡単だったり、難しかったりする。
- Class of this college is sometimes easy, sometimes difficult (and other times something else
maybe).

As you can see, the tense and negative/positive state is controlled by the last 「する」.

（３）　映画を見たり、本を読んだりした。
- I did things like (among other things) watch movies, and read books.

（４）　映画を見たり、本を読んだりしない。
- I don't do things like (among other things) watch movies, and read books.
（５）　映画を見たり、本を読んだりしなかった。
- I didn't do things like (among other things) watch movies, and read books.

Other uses of the te-form

Posted by Tae Kim

The te-form is incredibly useful as it is used widely in many different types of grammatical
expressions. We will learn about enduring states with the 「～ている」 and 「～てある」
form. Even though we have learned various conjugations for verbs, they have all been one-time
actions. We will now go over how one would say, for example, "I am running." We will also
learn how to perform an action for the future using the 「～ておく」 expression and to express
directions of actions using 「～ていく」 and 「～てくる」.

Using 「～ている」 for enduring states

We already know how to express a state of being using 「です」, 「だ」, etc. However, it only
indicates a one-time thing; you are something or not. This grammar, however, describes a
continuing state of an action verb. This usually translates to the gerund in English except for a
few exceptions, which we will examine later. We can make good use of the te-form we learned
in the last section because the only thing left to do is add 「いる」! You can then treat the result
as a regular ru-verb.

This 「いる」 is the same ru-verb describing existence, first described in the negative verb
section. However, in this case, you don't have to worry about whether the subject is animate or
inanimate.

Using 「～ている」 for enduring states

 To describe a continuing action, first conjugate the verb to the te-form and then attach the
verb 「いる」. The entire result conjugates as a ru-verb.
 例）　食べる → 食べて → 食べている
 例）　読む → 読んで → 読んでいる

The result conjugates as a ru-verb regardless of what the original verb is

Positive Negative
Non-Past 読んでいる reading 読んでいない is not reading
Past 読んでいた was reading 読んでいなかった was not reading

Examples
（１）　友達は何をしているの？- What is friend doing?
（２）　昼ご飯を食べている。- (Friend) is eating lunch.

Note that once you've changed it into a regular ru-verb, you can do all the normal conjugations.
The examples show the masu-form and plain negative conjugations.

（１）　何を読んでいる？- What are you reading?

（２）　教科書を読んでいます。- I am reading textbook.

（１）　話を聞いていますか。- Are you listening to me? (lit: Are you listening to story?)
（２）　ううん、聞いていない。- No, I'm not listening.

Since people are usually too lazy to roll their tongues to properly pronounce the 「い」, in more
casual situations, the 「い」 is simply dropped. This is a convenience for speaking. If you were
writing an essay or paper, you should always include the 「い」. Here are the abbreviated
versions of the previous examples.

（１）　友達は何をしてるの？- What is friend doing?

（２）　昼ご飯を食べてる。- (Friend) is eating lunch.

（１）　何を読んでる？- What are you reading?

（２）　教科書を読んでいます。- I am reading textbook.

（１）　話を聞いていますか。- Are you listening to me? (lit: Are you listening to story?)
（２）　ううん、聞いてない。- No, I'm not listening.

Notice how I left the 「い」 alone for the polite forms. Though people certainly omit the
「い」 even in polite form, you might want to get used to the proper way of saying things first
before getting carried away with casual abbreviations. You will be amazed at the extensive types
of abbreviations that exist in casual speech. (You may also be amazed at how long everything
gets in super polite speech.) Basically, you will get the abbreviations if you just act lazy and slur
everything together. Particles also get punted off left and right.

For example:
（１）　何をしているの？(Those particles are such a pain to say all the time...)
（２）　何しているの？ (Ugh, I hate having to spell out all the vowels.)
（３）　何してんの？ (Ah, perfect.)

Enduring state of being rather than enduring state of action

There are certain cases where an enduring state doesn't translate into the gerund form. In fact,
there is a ambiguity in whether one is in a state of doing an action versus being in a state that
resulted from some action. This is usually decided by context and common practices. For
example, although 「結婚している」 can technically mean someone is in a chapel currently
getting married, it is usually used to refer to someone who is already married and is currently in
that married state. We'll now discuss some common verbs that often cause this type of confusion
for learners of Japanese.

「知る」
「知る」 means "to know". English is weird in that "know" is supposed to be a verb but is
actually describing a state of having knowledge. Japanese is more consistent and 「知る」 is
just a regular action verb. In other words, I "knowed" (action) something and so now I know it
(state). That's why the English word "to know" is really a continuing state in Japanese, namely:
「知っている」.

「知る」 vs 「分かる」
「分かる」 meaning "to understand" may seem similar to 「知る」 in some cases. However,
there is a difference between "knowing" and "understanding". Try not to confuse 「知ってい
る」 with 「分かっている」. 「分かっている」 means that you are already in a state of
understanding, in other words, you already get it. If you misuse this, you may sound pompous.
("Yeah, yeah, I got it already.") On the other hand, 「知っている」 simply means you know
something.

Examples

（１）　今日、知りました。- I found out about it today. (I did the action of knowing today.)
（２）　この歌を知っていますか？- Do (you) know this song?
（３）　道は分かりますか。－Do you know the way? (lit: Do (you) understand the road?)
（４）　はい、はい、分かった、分かった。 - Yes, yes, I got it, I got it.

Motion Verbs (行く、来る、etc.)

It is reasonable to assume the actions 「行っている」 and 「来ている」 would mean, "going"
and "coming" respectively. But unfortunately, this is not the case. The 「～ている」 form of
motion verbs is more like a sequence of actions we saw in the last section. You completed the
motion, and now you exist in that state. (Remember, 「いる」 is the verb of existence of
animate objects.) It might help to think of it as two separate and successive actions: 「行っ
て」、and then 「いる」.

Examples

（１）　鈴木さんはどこですか。－Where is Suzuki-san?
（２）　もう、家に帰っている。- He is already at home (went home and is there now).

（３）　先に行っているよ。- I'll go on ahead. (I'll go and be there before you.)

（４）　美恵ちゃんは、もう来ているよ。- Mie-chan is already here, you know. (She came
and is here.)

Using 「～てある」 for resultant states

Appropriately enough, just like there is an 「ある」 to go with 「いる」, there is a 「～てあ
る」 form that also has a special meaning. By replacing 「いる」 with 「ある」, instead of a
continuing action, it becomes a resultant state after the action has already taken place. Usually,
this expression is used to explain that something is in a state of completion. The completed
action also carries a nuance of being completed in preparation for something else.

Examples

Since this grammar describes the state of a completed action, it is common to see the 「は」 and
「も」 particles instead of the 「を」 particle.

（１）　準備はどうですか。- How are the preparations?

（２）　準備は、もうしてあるよ。 - The preparations are already done.

（１）　旅行の計画は終った？- Are the plans for the trip complete?

（２）　うん、切符を買ったし、ホテルの予約もしてある。-
Uh huh, not only did I buy the ticket, I also took care of the hotel reservations.

Using the 「～ておく」 form as preparation for the future

While 「～てある」 carries a nuance of a completed action in preparation for something else,
「～ておく」 explicitly states that the action is done (or will be done) with the future in mind.
Imagine this: you have made a delicious pie and you're going to place it on the window sill for it
to cool so that you can eat it later. This image might help explain why the verb 「おく」 （置
く）, meaning "to place", can be used to describe a preparation for the future. (It's just too bad
that pies on window sills always seem to go through some kind of mishap especially in
cartoons.) While 「置く」 by itself is written in kanji, it is customary to use hiragana when it
comes attached to a conjugated verb (such as the te-form).

Examples

（１）　晩ご飯を作っておく。- Make dinner (in advance for the future).

（２）　電池を買っておきます。- I'll buy batteries (in advance for the future).

「ておく」 is also sometimes abbreviated to 「～とく」 for convenience.

（１）　晩ご飯を作っとく。- Make dinner (in advance for the future).
（２）　電池を買っときます。- I'll buy batteries (in advance for the future).

Using motion verbs （行く、来る） with the te-form

You can also use the motion verb "to go" （行く）and "to come" with the te-form, to show that
an action is oriented toward or from someplace. The most common and useful example of this
the verb 「持つ」 (to hold). While 「持っている」 means you are in a state of holding
something (in possession of), when the 「いる」 is replaced with 「いく」 or 「くる」, it
means you are taking or bringing something. Of course, the conjugation is the same as the
regular 「行く」 and 「来る」.
Examples

（１）　鉛筆を持っている？- Do (you) have a pencil?

（２）　鉛筆を学校へ持っていく？- Are (you) taking pencil to school?
（３）　鉛筆を家に持ってくる？- Are (you) bringing pencil to home?

For these examples, it may make more sense to think of them as a sequence of actions: hold and
go, or hold and come. Here are a couple more examples.

（１）　お父さんは、早く帰ってきました。- Father came back home early.

（２）　駅の方へ走っていった。- Went running toward the direction of station.

The motion verbs can also be used in time expressions to move forward or come up to the
present.

（１）　冬に入って、コートを着ている人が増えていきます。
- Entering winter, people wearing coat will increase (toward the future).

（２）　一生懸命、頑張っていく！
- Will try my hardest (toward the future) with all my might!

（３）　色々な人と付き合ってきたけど、いい人はまだ見つからない。
- Went out (up to the present) with various types of people but a good person hasn't been found
yet.

（４）　日本語をずっと前から勉強してきて、結局はやめた。
- Studied Japanese from way back before and eventually quit.

Potential Form
Posted by Tae Kim

Expressing the ability to do something

In Japanese, the ability to do a certain action is expressed by conjugating the verb rather than
adding a word such as the words "can" or "able to" in the case of English. All verbs conjugated
into the potential form become a ru-verb.

The Potential Form

Once again, the conjugation rules can be split into three major groups: ru-verbs, u-verbs, and
exception verbs. However, the potential form of the verb 「する」 (meaning "to do") is a
special exception because it becomes a completely different verb: 「できる」 （出来る）

Rules for creating potential form

 1. ru-verbs - Replace the 「る」 with 「られる」.
（例）　見る → 見られる
2. u-verbs - Change the last character from a / u / vowel sound to the equivalent / e / vowel
sound and add 「る」.
（例）　遊ぶ → 遊べ → 遊べる
3. Exceptions - 「する」 becomes 「できる」 and 「くる」 becomes 「こられる」.

※Remember that all potential verbs become ru-verbs.

Sample u-verbs Exception Verbs

Sample ru-verbs
ローマ字 Plain Potential
Plain Potential ローマ字
Plain Potential (Pot.)
する できる
食べる 食べられる 話す 話せる hanasu hanaseru
くる こられる
着る 着られる 書く 書ける kaku kakeru
信じる 信じられる 遊ぶ 遊べる asobu asoberu
寝る 寝られる          
待つ 待てる matu materu
起きる 起きられる
飲む 飲める nomu nomeru
出る 出られる
取る 取れる toru toreru
掛ける 掛けられる
死ぬ 死ねる shinu shineru
調べる 調べられる
買う 買える kau kaeru

It is also possible to just add 「れる」 instead of the full 「られる」 for ru-verbs. For example,
「食べる」 becomes 「食べれる」 instead of 「食べられる」. I suggest learning the official
「られる」 conjugation first because laziness can be a hard habit to break and the shorter
version, though common, is considered to be slang.

Examples

（１）　漢字は書けますか？
- Can you write kanji?

（２）　残念だが、今週末は行けない。
- It's unfortunate, but can't go this weekend.

（３）　もう信じられない。
- I can't believe it already.

Potential forms do not have direct objects

The potential form indicates that something is possible but no actual action is actually taken.
While the potential form remains a verb, since it is describing the state of something you must
not use the direct object 「を」 as you have done with regular verbs. For example the following
sentences are incorrect.

（誤）　富士山を登れた。
（誤）　重い荷物を持てます。

Here are the corrected versions:

（正）　富士山が登れた。- Was able to climb Fuji-san.
（正）　重い荷物は持てます。- Am able to hold heavy baggage.

Are 「見える」 and 「聞こえる」 exceptions?

There are two verbs 「見える」 and 「聞こえる」 that mean that something is visible and
audible, respectively. When you want to say that you can see or hear something, you'll want to
use these verbs. If however, you wanted to say that you were given the opportunity to see or hear
something, you would use the regular potential form. However, in this case, it is more common
to use the type of expression as seen in example （３）.

Examples

（１）　今日は晴れて、富士山が見える。
- It cleared up today and Fuji-san is visible.

（２）　友達のおかげで、映画はただで見られた。
- Thanks to [my] friend, [I] was able to watch the movie for free.

（３）　友達のおかげで、映画をただで見ることができた。
- Thanks to [my] friend, [I] was able to watch the movie for free.

You can see that （３） uses the generic noun for an event to say literally, "The event of seeing
movie was able to be done." which essentially means the same thing as 「見られる」. You can
also just use generic noun substitution to substitute for 「こと」.

（１）　友達のおかげで、映画をただで見るのができた。

Here's some more examples using 「聞く」, can you tell the difference? Notice that 「聞こえ
る」 always means "audible" and never "able to ask".

（１）　久しぶりに彼の声が聞けた。
- I was able to hear his voice for the first time in a long time.

（２）　周りがうるさくて、彼が言っていることがあんまり聞こえなかった
- The surroundings were noisy and I couldn't hear what he was saying very well。
「ある」, yet another exception
You can say that something has a possibility of existing by combining 「ある」 and the verb
「得る」 to produce 「あり得る」. This essentially means 「あることができる」 except
that nobody actually says that, they just use 「あり得る」. This verb is very curious in that it
can be read as either 「ありうる」 or 「ありえる」, however; all the other conjugations such
as 「ありえない」、「ありえた」、and 「ありえなかった」 only have one possible
reading using 「え」.

Examples

（１）　そんなことはありうる。
- That kind of situation/event is possible (lit: can exist).

（２）　そんなことはありえる。
- That kind of situation/event is possible (lit: can exist).

（３）　そんなことはありえない。
- That kind of situation/event is not possible (lit: cannot exist).

（４）　彼が寝坊したこともありうるね。
- It's also possible that he overslept. (lit: The event that he overslept also possibly exists.)

（５）　それは、ありえない話だよ。
- That's an impossible story/scenario. (lit: That story/scenario cannot exist.)

‹ Other uses of the te-form up Using する and なる with the に particle ›

Using する and なる with the に particle

Posted by Tae Kim

We can use the verbs 「する」 and 「なる」 in conjunction with the 「に」 particle to make
various useful expressions. We are used to using the object particle with 「する」 because
something is usually done to something else. We will see how the meaning changes when we
change the particle to 「に」. As for 「なる」, it is always used with the 「に」 particle
because "becoming" is not an action done to something else but rather a target of change. The
only grammatical point of interest here is using 「なる」 with i-adjectives and verbs.

Using 「なる」 and 「する」 for nouns and na-adjectives

As already explained, using 「なる」 with nouns and na-adjectives presents nothing new and
acts pretty much the way you'd expect.
（１）　彼の日本語が上手になった。
- His Japanese has become skillful.

（２）　私は医者になった。
- I became a doctor.

（３）　私は有名な人になる。
- I will become a famous person.

For adjectives, using the verb 「する」 with the 「に」 particle is just a review back to the
lesson on adverbs. However, for nouns, when you use the verb 「する」 with the 「に」
particle, it means that you are going to do things toward something. This changes the meaning of
「する」 to mean, "to decide on [X]". This is a common expression to use, for instance, when
you are ordering items on a menu.

（１）　私は、ハンバーガーとサラダにします。
- I'll have the hamburger and salad. (lit: I'll do toward hamburger and salad.)

（２）　他にいいものがたくさんあるけど、やっぱりこれにする。
- There are a lot of other good things, but as I thought, I'll go with this one.

If you think this expression is strange, think about the English expression, "I'll go with the
hamburger." Exactly where are you going with the hamburger?

Using 「なる」 with i-adjectives

Because the 「に」 particle is a target particle that is used for nouns and by extension na-
adjectives, we need to use something else to show that something is becoming an i-adjective.
Since "becoming" expresses a change in state, it makes sense to describe this process using an
adverb. In fact, you'll notice that we were already using adverbs (of a sort) in the previous
section by using 「に」 with na-adjectives.

（１）　去年から背が高くなったね。
- Your height has gotten taller from last year, huh?

（２）　運動しているから、強くなる。
- I will become stronger because I am exercising.

（３）　勉強をたくさんしたから、頭がよくなった。
- Since I studied a lot, I became smarter. (lit: head became better)

Using 「なる」 and 「する」 with verbs

You may be wondering how to use 「なる」 and 「する」 with verbs since there's no way to
directly modify a verb with another verb. The simple solution is to add a generic noun such as a
generic event: こと （事） or an appearance/manner: よう （様）. These nouns don't refer to
anything specific and are used to describe something else. In this case, they allow us to describe
verbs in the same manner as nouns. Here are some examples of how to use these generic nouns
with 「する」 and 「なる」.

（１）　海外に行くことになった。
- It's been decided that I will go abroad. (lit: It became the event of going abroad.)

（２）　毎日、肉を食べるようになった。
- It became so that I eat meat everyday. (lit: It became the appearance of eating meat everyday.)

（３）　海外に行くことにした。
- I decided I will go abroad. (lit: I did toward the event of going abroad.)

（４）　毎日、肉を食べるようにする。
- I will try to eat meat everyday. (lit: I will do toward the manner of eating meat everyday.)

You can modify a verb with 「なる」 or 「する」 by first making it into a noun clause and
then treating it just like a regular noun. Pretty clever, huh? I hope the literal translations give you
a sense of why the example sentences mean what they do. For example, in （４） 「～ように
する」 translates into "to make an effort toward..." but in Japanese, it's really only a target
towards acting in a certain manner.

Since potential verbs describe a state of feasibility rather than an action (remember, that's why
the 「を」 particle couldn't be used), it is often used in conjunction with 「～ようになる」 to
describe a change in manner to a state of feasibility. Let's take this opportunity to get some
potential conjugation practice in.

（１）　日本に来て、寿司が食べられるようになった。
- After coming to Japan, I became able to eat sushi.

（２）　一年間練習したから、ピアノが弾けるようになった。
- Because I practiced for one year, I became able to play the piano.

（３）　地下に入って、富士山が見えなくなった。
- After going underground, Fuji-san became not visible.

Conditionals
Posted by Tae Kim

How to say "if" in Japanese

This whole section is dedicated to learning how to say "if" in Japanese. Oh, if only it was as
simple as English. In Japanese, there's four (count them, four) ways to say "if"! Thankfully, the
conjugations are sparse and easy especially since you don't have to deal with tenses.
Expressing natural consequence using 「と」
We'll first cover the simplest type of "if" which is the natural consequence conditional. This
means that if [X] happens, [Y] will happen as a natural consequence. No question about it. If I
drop a ball, it will fall to the ground. If I turn off the lights at night, it will get dark. We can
express this type of condition in the following format.

Rules for using the conditional 「と」

1. Attach 「と」 to the condition followed by the result that would occur should the
condition be satisfied
= [Condition] + と + [Result]
2. State of being must be made explicit
= [State of Being] + だと + [Result]

Examples

（１）　ボールを落すと落ちる。
- If you drop the ball, it will fall.

（２）　電気を消すと暗くなる。
- If you turn off the lights, it will get dark.

These examples are designed to show how 「と」 is used to express natural consequence.
However, even if the statement isn't a natural consequence in itself, the 「と」 will tell the
audience that it is nevertheless expected to be a natural consequence.

（１）　学校に行かないと友達と会えないよ。
- If you don't go to school, you can't meet your friends.

（２）　たくさん食べると太るよ。
- If you eat a lot, you will get fat, for sure.

（３）　先生だと、きっと年上なんじゃないですか？
- If he's a teacher, he must be older for sure, right?

The "for sure" part is the implied meaning supplied by the 「と」. The speaker is saying that the
following condition will occur in that situation, no matter what. As you can see from the last
example, if the condition is a state-of-being, it must be expressed so explicitly using 「だ」.
This applies to all non-conjugated nouns and na-adjectives as I'm sure you're used to by now.
This will also help prevent confusion with other types of 「と」.

Contextual conditionals using 「なら（ば）」

Another relatively easy to understand type of "if" is the contextual conditional. You can use this
particle to express what will happen given a certain context. For example, if you wanted to say,
"Well, if everybody's going, I'm going too" you would use the 「なら」 conditional because you
are saying that you will go in the context of everybody else going. The contextual conditional
always requires a context in which the conditional occurs. For instance, you would use it for
saying things like, "If that's what you are talking about..." or "If that's the case, then..."

In a sense, you are explaining what would occur if you assume a certain condition is satisfied. In
other words, you are saying "if given a certain context, here is what will happen." You will see
this reflected in the English translations as the phrase "if given" in the examples.

The 「なら」 is attached to the context in which the conditional occurs. The format is the same
as the 「と」 conditional, however, you must not attach the declarative 「だ」.

Rules for using the contextual conditional 「なら」

1. Attach 「なら」 to the context in which the conditional would occur

= [Assumed Context] + なら + [Result]
2. You must not attach the declarative 「だ」.

Examples

（１）　みんなが行くなら私も行く。
- If given that everybody is going, then I'll go too.

（２）　アリスさんが言うなら問題ないよ。
- If given that Alice-san says so, there's no problem.

Example Dialogue

アリス）　図書館はどこですか。
- Where is the library?

ボブ）　図書館なら、あそこです。- If given that you're talking about the library, then it's
over there.

The following is incorrect.

（誤）　図書館だならあそこです。

You can also decide to use 「ならば」 instead of just 「なら」. This means exactly the same
thing except that it has a more formal nuance.

General conditionals using 「ば」

The next type of conditional just expresses a regular "if" condition without any assumptions or
embedded meanings. The conjugation rules for the 「ば」 conditional is below. Note, the
conjugation rule for nouns and na-adjectives is actually using the verb 「ある」 in 「である」,
a formal expression we'll learn much later.
Conjugation Rules for 「ば」

1. For verbs, change the last /u/ vowel sound to the equivalent /e/ vowel sound and attach
「ば」
（例） 食べる　→　食べれ → 食べれば
（例） 待つ　→　待て → 待てば
2. For i-adjectives or negatives ending in 「ない」, drop the last 「い」 and attach 「けれ
ば」.
（例） おかしい　→　おかしければ
（例） ない　→　なければ
3. For nouns and na-adjectives, attach 「であれば」
（例） 学生　→　学生であれば
（例） 暇　→　暇であれば

Examples

（１）　友達に会えれば、買い物に行きます。
- If I can meet with my friend, we will go shopping.

（２）　お金があればいいね。
- If I had money, it would be good, huh?

（３）　楽しければ、私も行く。
- If it's fun, I'll go too.

（４）　楽しくなければ、私も行かない。
- If it's not fun, I'll also not go.

（５）　食べなければ病気になるよ。
- If you don't eat, you will become sick.

Past conditional using 「たら（ば）」

I call this next conditional the past conditional because it is produced by taking the past tense and
just adding 「ら」. It is commonly called the 「たら」 conditional because all past-tense ends
with 「た／だ」 and so it always becomes 「たら／だら」. Like the 「ば」 conditional, it is
also a general conditional.

Conjugation Rule for 「たら（ば）」

1. First change the noun, adjective, or verb to its past tense and attach 「ら」
（例） 自動　→　自動だった → 自動だったら
（例） 待つ　→　待った → 待ったら
（例） 読む　→　読んだ　→　読んだら
（例） 忙しい　→　忙しかった → 忙しかったら
Examples

（１）　暇だったら、遊びに行くよ。
- If I am free, I will go play.

（２）　学生だったら、学生割引で買えます。
- If you're a student, you can buy with a student discount.

For i-adjectives and verbs, it is very difficult to differentiate between the two types of
conditionals, and you can make life easier for yourself by considering them to be the same.
However, if you must insist, I searched around the web for an explanation of the difference that I
can agree with. Here is the original text. Basically, the 「たら」 conditional focuses on what
happens after the condition. This is another reason why I call this the past conditional because
the condition is "in the past" (not literally) and we're interested in the result not the condition.
The 「ば」 conditional, on the other hand, focuses on the conditional part.

Let's compare the difference in nuance.

（A）　友達に会えれば、買い物に行きます。- We will go shopping, if I can meet with my
friend.
（B）　友達に会えたら、買い物に行きます。- If I can meet with my friend, we will go
shopping.

（A）　お金があればいいね。- It would be good, if I had money, huh?

（B）　お金があったらいいね。- If I had money, it would be good, huh?

Going by the context, the 「～たら」 form sounds more natural for both examples because it
doesn't seem like we're really focusing on the condition itself. We're probably more interested in
what's going to happen once we meet the friend or how nice it would be if we had money.

The past conditional is the only type of conditional where the result can be in the past. It may
seem strange to have an "if" when the result has already taken place. Indeed, in this usage, there
really is no "if", it's just a way of expressing surprise at the result of the condition. This has little
to do with conditionals but it is explained here because the grammatical structure is the same.

（１）　家に帰ったら、誰もいなかった。
- When I went home, there was no one there. (unexpected result)

（２）　アメリカに行ったら、たくさん太りました。
- As a result of going to America, I got really fat. (unexpected result)

You can also use 「たらば」 instead of 「たら」. Similar to 「ならば」, this means exactly
the same thing except that it has a more formal nuance.

How does 「もし」 fit into all of this?

Some of you may be aware of the word 「もし」 which means "if" and may be wondering how
it fits into all of this. Well, if you want to say a conditional, you need to use one of the
conditionals discussed above. 「もし」 is really a supplement to add a sense of uncertainty on
whether the condition is true. For instance, you might use it when you want to make an invitation
and you don't want to presume like the following example.

（１）　もしよかったら、映画を観に行きますか？
- If by any chance it's ok with you, go to watch movie?

（２）　もし時間がないなら、明日でもいいよ。
- If given that there's no time, tomorrow is fine as well. (Not certain whether there is no time)

‹ Using する and なる with the に particle up Expressing "must" or "have to" ›

Expressing "must" or "have to"

Posted by Tae Kim

When there's something that must or must not be done

In life, there are things that we must or must not do whether it's taking out the trash or doing our
homework. We will cover how to say this in Japanese because it is a useful expression and it also
ties in well with the previous section. We will also learn how to the say the expression, "You
don't have to..." to finish off this section.

Using 「だめ」, 「いけない」, and 「ならない」 for things

that must not be done
If you don't know what 「だめ」（駄目） means, I suggest looking it up in WWWJDIC and
clicking on the [Ex] link to see the example sentences. It essentially means "no good" but
carefully check out the example sentences because it can be used in many different ways. The
other two key words in this section are 「いけない」 and 「ならない」 and they have
essentially the same basic meaning as 「だめ」. However, while 「いけない」 can be used by
itself, 「ならない」 must only be used in the grammar presented here. In addition, while 「い
けない」 and 「ならない」 conjugate like i-adjectives they are not actual adjectives. Let's
learn how to use these words to express things that must not be done.

How to say: Must not [verb]

 Take the te-form of the verb, add the 「は」 (wa) particle and finally attach either 「だ
め」、「いけない」、or 「ならない」.
例） 入る → 入って + は + だめ／いけない／ならない = 入ってはだめ／入っては
いけない／入ってはならない
（１）　ここに入ってはいけません。
- You must not enter here.

（２）　それを食べてはだめ！
- You can't (must not) eat that!

（３）　夜、遅くまで電話してはならない。
- You must not use the phone until late at night.

（４）　早く寝てはなりませんでした。
- Wasn't allowed to sleep early.

The difference between 「だめ」、「いけない」、and 「ならない」 is that, first of all, 「だ

め」 is casual. While 「いけない」 and 「ならない」 are basically identical, 「ならない」
is generally more for things that apply to more than one person like rules and policies.

Expressing things that must be done

You may have predicted that the opposite of "You must not do" would use 「いける」 or 「な
る」 because they look like the positive version of 「いけない」 and 「ならない」. However,
「いけない」 and 「ならない」 must always be negative, so this is not correct. In actuality,
we still use the same 「だめ／いけない／ ならない」 and use the opposite of the verb that
goes in front of it instead. This double negative can be kind of confusing at first but you will get
used to it with practice. There are three ways to conjugate the verb before adding 「だめ／いけ
ない／ならない」 and two of them involve conditionals so aren't you glad that you just learned
conditionals in the previous section?

How to say: Must [verb]

1. Negative te-form + 「は」 (wa) particle + だめ／いけない／ならない

2. Negative verb + 「と」 conditional + だめ／いけない／ならない
3. Negative verb + 「ば」 conditional + だめ／いけない／ならない

●The first method is the same as the "must not do" grammar form except that we simply negated
the verb.

（１）　毎日学校に行かなくてはなりません。- Must go to school everyday.

（２）　宿題をしなくてはいけなかった。- Had to do homework.

●The second method uses the natural conditional that we learned in the last lesson. Literally, it
means if you don't do something, then it automatically leads to the fact that it is no good. (In
other words, you must do it.) However, people tend to use it for situations beyond the natural
consequence characterization that we learned from the last section because it's shorter and easier
to use than the other two types of grammar.
（１）　毎日学校に行かないとだめです。- Must go to school everyday.

（２）　宿題をしないといけない。- Have to do homework.

●The third method is similar to the second except that it uses a different type of conditional as
explained in the last lesson. With the 「ば」 conditional, it can be used for a wider range of
situations. Note that since the verb is always negative, for the 「ば」 conditional, we will
always be removing the last 「い」 and adding 「ければ」.

（１）　毎日学校に行かなければいけません。 - Must go to school everyday.

（２）　宿題をしなければだめだった。- Had to do homework.

It may seem like I just breezed through a whole lot of material because there are three grammar
forms and 「だめ／いけない／ ならない」 adding up to nine possible combinations (3x3).
However, some combinations are more common than others but I did not explicitly point out
which were more common because any combination is technically correct and going over style
would merely confuse at this point. Also, keep in mind that there is nothing essentially new in
terms of conjugation rules. We already covered conditionals in the last lesson and adding the wa
particle to the te-form in the beginning of this section.

※ Reality Check

Although we spent the last section explaining 「～なければ」 and 「～なくては」, the reality
is that because they are so long, they are practically never used in real conversations. While they
are often used in a written context, in actual speech, people usually use the 「と」 conditional or
the various shortcuts described below. In casual speech, the 「と」 conditional is the most
prevalent type of conditional. Though I explained in depth the meaning associated with the
「と」 conditional, you have to take it with a grain of salt here because people are inherently
lazy.

Various short-cuts for the lazy

You may have been grumbling and complaining about how long most of the expressions are just
to say you must do something. You can end up with up to eight additional syllables just to say "I
have to..."!

Well, others have thought the same before and people usually use short abbreviated versions of
「なくては」 and 「なければ」 in casual speech. Teachers are often reluctant to teach these
overly familiar expressions because they are so much easier to use which is bad for times when
they might not be appropriate. But, on the other hand, if you don't learn casual expressions, it
makes it difficult to understand your friends (or would-be friends if you only knew how to speak
less stiffly!). So here they are but take care to properly practice the longer forms so that you will
be able to use them for the appropriate occasions.

Casual abbreviations for things that must be done

 1. Simply replace 「なくて」 with 「なくちゃ」
2. Simply replace 「なければ」 with 「なきゃ」

Right now, you may be saying, "What the?" because the "abbreviations" are about the same
length as what we've already covered. The secret here is that, unlike the expressions we learned
so far, you can just leave the 「だめ／いけない／ならない」 part out altogether!

（１）　勉強しなくちゃ。 - Gotta study.

（２）　ご飯を食べなきゃ。 - Gotta eat.

The 「と」 conditional is also used by itself to imply 「だめ／いけない／ならない」.

（１）　学校に行かないと。－Gotta go to school.

There is another 「ちゃ」 abbreviation for things that you must not do. However, in this case,
you cannot leave out 「だめ／いけない／ならない」. Since this is a casual abbreviation,
「だめ」 is used in most cases.

One very important difference for this casual form is that verbs that end in 「む」、「ぶ」、
「ぬ」 use 「じゃ」 instead of 「ちゃ」. Essentially, all the verbs that end in 「んだ」 for
past tense fall in this category.

Casual abbreviations for things that must not be done

1. Replace 「ては」 with 「ちゃ」

2. Replace 「では」 with 「じゃ」

（１）　ここに入っちゃだめだよ。 - You can't enter here.

（２）　死んじゃだめだよ！ - You can't die!

On a final note, in general, 「ちゃ」 sounds a bit cutesy or girly. You've already seen an
example of this with the 「ちゃん」 suffix. Similarly, 「なくちゃ」 also sounds a bit cutesy or
childish.

Saying something is ok to do or not do

Now let's learn how to say either that it's ok to do or not do something. I decided to shove this
section in here because in Japanese, this is essential how to say that you don't have to something
(by saying it's ok to not do it). The grammar itself is also relatively easy to pick up and makes for
a short section.

By simply using the te-form and the 「も」 particle, you are essentially saying, "even if you do
X..." Common words that come after this include 「いい」, 「大丈夫」, or 「構わない」.
Some examples will come in handy.
（１）　全部食べてもいいよ。- You can go ahead and eat it all. (lit: Even if you eat it all, it's
good, you know.)
（２）　全部食べなくてもいいよ。- You don't have to eat it all. (lit: Even if you don't eat it
all, it's good, you know.)
（３）　全部飲んでも大丈夫だよ。- It's OK if you drink it all. (lit: Even if you drink it all,
it's OK, you know.)
（４）　全部飲んでも構わないよ。- I don't mind if you drink it all. (lit: Even if you drink it
all, I don't mind, you know.)

In casual speech, 「～てもいい」 sometimes get shortened to just 「～ていい」 （or 「～で
いい」 instead of 「～でもいい」 ）.
（１）　もう帰っていい？- Can I go home already?
（２）　これ、ちょっと見ていい？- Can I take a quick look at this?

‹ Conditionals up Desire and Suggestions ›

 Printer-friendly version

I was so confused since I

I was so confused since I knew tame (ni) meant for something/some reason :D but then I noticed
the kanji was different... lol homonyms are so confusing :S

Posted by Anonymous on Aug 25th, 2011 at 8:34 am.

 reply

So in that last section, you

So in that last section, you showed us how:

"its okay to do something" and
" its okay to do not something"

But how do you say "it is not okay to do or do not something" ?

Youve told us "if its okay", but not "if its not okay".
"It's not okay to-" is the same as "You musn't-" or "you're not allowed to-" then?

It's not a huge question but it would be nice if you could clear that up for me, because i'm
wondering though.

Greetings & love your guide!

Posted by Anonymous on Aug 9th, 2011 at 1:28 pm.

  reply

Yes, "It's not okay to " is

Yes, "It's not okay to " is the same as "You mustn't" or "you're not allowed to".

Posted by Anonymous on Aug 15th, 2011 at 4:52 am.

 reply

Thankyou very much!

Thankyou very much!

Posted by Anonymous on Aug 20th, 2011 at 11:58 am.

 reply

Typo? "However, in this case,

Typo?
"However, in this case, you cannot leave out the 「だめ／いけない／ならない」 part out."
Out is repeated twice :)
Thanks Tae Kim for the great job.

Posted by Anonymous on Mar 2nd, 2011 at 8:15 am.

 reply

Thanks!

Thanks!

Posted by Tae Kim on Mar 2nd, 2011 at 3:57 pm.

 reply

Might also add that verbs

Might also add that verbs ending with ぐ also adopt じゃ for things that must not be done.
急いじゃダメ

Posted by Anonymous on Nov 18th, 2010 at 6:07 pm.

 reply

In the example

In the example "夜、遅くまで電話してはならない。/ You must not use the phone until late
at night." does it mean that you can use the phone once it is late at night, or that you cannot keep
using the phone until it's nighttime?

Posted by Anonymous on Oct 30th, 2010 at 10:08 am.

 reply

The latter.

The latter.

Posted by Anonymous on Nov 1st, 2010 at 3:33 pm.

 reply

Isn't それを食べるのはだめ more natural

Isn't それを食べるのはだめ more natural than それ食べてはだめ?

Posted by Anonymous on Jul 15th, 2010 at 7:46 pm.

Expressing "must" or "have to"

Posted by Tae Kim

When there's something that must or must not be done

In life, there are things that we must or must not do whether it's taking out the trash or doing our
homework. We will cover how to say this in Japanese because it is a useful expression and it also
ties in well with the previous section. We will also learn how to the say the expression, "You
don't have to..." to finish off this section.
Using 「だめ」, 「いけない」, and 「ならない」 for things
that must not be done
If you don't know what 「だめ」（駄目） means, I suggest looking it up in WWWJDIC and
clicking on the [Ex] link to see the example sentences. It essentially means "no good" but
carefully check out the example sentences because it can be used in many different ways. The
other two key words in this section are 「いけない」 and 「ならない」 and they have
essentially the same basic meaning as 「だめ」. However, while 「いけない」 can be used by
itself, 「ならない」 must only be used in the grammar presented here. In addition, while 「い
けない」 and 「ならない」 conjugate like i-adjectives they are not actual adjectives. Let's
learn how to use these words to express things that must not be done.

How to say: Must not [verb]

 Take the te-form of the verb, add the 「は」 (wa) particle and finally attach either 「だ
め」、「いけない」、or 「ならない」.
例） 入る → 入って + は + だめ／いけない／ならない = 入ってはだめ／入っては
いけない／入ってはならない

（１）　ここに入ってはいけません。
- You must not enter here.

（２）　それを食べてはだめ！
- You can't (must not) eat that!

（３）　夜、遅くまで電話してはならない。
- You must not use the phone until late at night.

（４）　早く寝てはなりませんでした。
- Wasn't allowed to sleep early.

The difference between 「だめ」、「いけない」、and 「ならない」 is that, first of all, 「だ

め」 is casual. While 「いけない」 and 「ならない」 are basically identical, 「ならない」
is generally more for things that apply to more than one person like rules and policies.

Expressing things that must be done

You may have predicted that the opposite of "You must not do" would use 「いける」 or 「な
る」 because they look like the positive version of 「いけない」 and 「ならない」. However,
「いけない」 and 「ならない」 must always be negative, so this is not correct. In actuality,
we still use the same 「だめ／いけない／ ならない」 and use the opposite of the verb that
goes in front of it instead. This double negative can be kind of confusing at first but you will get
used to it with practice. There are three ways to conjugate the verb before adding 「だめ／いけ
ない／ならない」 and two of them involve conditionals so aren't you glad that you just learned
conditionals in the previous section?
How to say: Must [verb]

1. Negative te-form + 「は」 (wa) particle + だめ／いけない／ならない

2. Negative verb + 「と」 conditional + だめ／いけない／ならない
3. Negative verb + 「ば」 conditional + だめ／いけない／ならない

●The first method is the same as the "must not do" grammar form except that we simply negated
the verb.

（１）　毎日学校に行かなくてはなりません。- Must go to school everyday.

（２）　宿題をしなくてはいけなかった。- Had to do homework.

●The second method uses the natural conditional that we learned in the last lesson. Literally, it
means if you don't do something, then it automatically leads to the fact that it is no good. (In
other words, you must do it.) However, people tend to use it for situations beyond the natural
consequence characterization that we learned from the last section because it's shorter and easier
to use than the other two types of grammar.

（１）　毎日学校に行かないとだめです。- Must go to school everyday.

（２）　宿題をしないといけない。- Have to do homework.

●The third method is similar to the second except that it uses a different type of conditional as
explained in the last lesson. With the 「ば」 conditional, it can be used for a wider range of
situations. Note that since the verb is always negative, for the 「ば」 conditional, we will
always be removing the last 「い」 and adding 「ければ」.

（１）　毎日学校に行かなければいけません。 - Must go to school everyday.

（２）　宿題をしなければだめだった。- Had to do homework.

It may seem like I just breezed through a whole lot of material because there are three grammar
forms and 「だめ／いけない／ ならない」 adding up to nine possible combinations (3x3).
However, some combinations are more common than others but I did not explicitly point out
which were more common because any combination is technically correct and going over style
would merely confuse at this point. Also, keep in mind that there is nothing essentially new in
terms of conjugation rules. We already covered conditionals in the last lesson and adding the wa
particle to the te-form in the beginning of this section.

※ Reality Check

Although we spent the last section explaining 「～なければ」 and 「～なくては」, the reality
is that because they are so long, they are practically never used in real conversations. While they
are often used in a written context, in actual speech, people usually use the 「と」 conditional or
the various shortcuts described below. In casual speech, the 「と」 conditional is the most
prevalent type of conditional. Though I explained in depth the meaning associated with the
「と」 conditional, you have to take it with a grain of salt here because people are inherently
lazy.

Various short-cuts for the lazy

You may have been grumbling and complaining about how long most of the expressions are just
to say you must do something. You can end up with up to eight additional syllables just to say "I
have to..."!

Well, others have thought the same before and people usually use short abbreviated versions of
「なくては」 and 「なければ」 in casual speech. Teachers are often reluctant to teach these
overly familiar expressions because they are so much easier to use which is bad for times when
they might not be appropriate. But, on the other hand, if you don't learn casual expressions, it
makes it difficult to understand your friends (or would-be friends if you only knew how to speak
less stiffly!). So here they are but take care to properly practice the longer forms so that you will
be able to use them for the appropriate occasions.

Casual abbreviations for things that must be done

1. Simply replace 「なくて」 with 「なくちゃ」

2. Simply replace 「なければ」 with 「なきゃ」

Right now, you may be saying, "What the?" because the "abbreviations" are about the same
length as what we've already covered. The secret here is that, unlike the expressions we learned
so far, you can just leave the 「だめ／いけない／ならない」 part out altogether!

（１）　勉強しなくちゃ。 - Gotta study.

（２）　ご飯を食べなきゃ。 - Gotta eat.

The 「と」 conditional is also used by itself to imply 「だめ／いけない／ならない」.

（１）　学校に行かないと。－Gotta go to school.

There is another 「ちゃ」 abbreviation for things that you must not do. However, in this case,
you cannot leave out 「だめ／いけない／ならない」. Since this is a casual abbreviation,
「だめ」 is used in most cases.

One very important difference for this casual form is that verbs that end in 「む」、「ぶ」、
「ぬ」 use 「じゃ」 instead of 「ちゃ」. Essentially, all the verbs that end in 「んだ」 for
past tense fall in this category.

Casual abbreviations for things that must not be done

1. Replace 「ては」 with 「ちゃ」

2. Replace 「では」 with 「じゃ」
（１）　ここに入っちゃだめだよ。 - You can't enter here.

（２）　死んじゃだめだよ！ - You can't die!

On a final note, in general, 「ちゃ」 sounds a bit cutesy or girly. You've already seen an
example of this with the 「ちゃん」 suffix. Similarly, 「なくちゃ」 also sounds a bit cutesy or
childish.

Saying something is ok to do or not do

Now let's learn how to say either that it's ok to do or not do something. I decided to shove this
section in here because in Japanese, this is essential how to say that you don't have to something
(by saying it's ok to not do it). The grammar itself is also relatively easy to pick up and makes for
a short section.

By simply using the te-form and the 「も」 particle, you are essentially saying, "even if you do
X..." Common words that come after this include 「いい」, 「大丈夫」, or 「構わない」.
Some examples will come in handy.

（１）　全部食べてもいいよ。- You can go ahead and eat it all. (lit: Even if you eat it all, it's
good, you know.)
（２）　全部食べなくてもいいよ。- You don't have to eat it all. (lit: Even if you don't eat it
all, it's good, you know.)
（３）　全部飲んでも大丈夫だよ。- It's OK if you drink it all. (lit: Even if you drink it all,
it's OK, you know.)
（４）　全部飲んでも構わないよ。- I don't mind if you drink it all. (lit: Even if you drink it
all, I don't mind, you know.)

In casual speech, 「～てもいい」 sometimes get shortened to just 「～ていい」 （or 「～で
いい」 instead of 「～でもいい」 ）.
（１）　もう帰っていい？- Can I go home already?
（２）　これ、ちょっと見ていい？- Can I take a quick look at this?

Desire and Suggestions

Posted by Tae Kim

How to get your way in Japan

We will now learn how to say what you want either by just coming out and saying it or by
making discreet suggestions. The major topics we will cover will be the 「たい」 conjugation
and the volitional form. We will also learn specialized uses of the 「たら」 and 「ば」
conditionals to offer advice.
Verbs you want to do with 「たい」
You can express verbs that you want to perform with the 「たい」 form. All you need to do is
add 「たい」 to the stem of the verb. However, unlike most conjugations we learned where the
verb turns into a ru-verb, this form actually transforms the verb into an i-adjective (notice how
「たい」 conveniently ends in 「い」). This makes sense because the conjugated form is a
description of something that you want to do. Once you have the 「たい」 form, you can then
conjugate it the same as you would any other i-adjective. However, the 「たい」 form is
different from regular i-adjectives because it is derived from a verb. This means that all the
particles we normally associate with verbs such as 「を」、「に」、「へ」、or 「で」 can
all be used with the 「たい」 form, which is not true for regular i-adjectives. Here's a chart just
for you.

「たい」 conjugations
Positive Negative
Non-Past 行きたい 行きたくない
Past 行きたかった 行きたくなかった

Examples

（１）　何をしたいですか。
- What do you want to do?

（２）　温泉に行きたい。
- I want to go to hot spring.

（３）　ケーキ、食べたくないの？
- You don't want to eat cake?

（４）　食べたくなかったけど食べたくなった。
- I didn't want to eat it but I became wanting to eat.

Example （４） was very awkward to translate but is quite simple in Japanese if you refer to
"Using 「なる」 with i-adjectives". The past tense of the verb 「なる」 was used to create
"became want to eat". Here's a tongue twister using the negative 「～たくない」 and past-tense
of 「なる」： 「食べたくなくなった」 meaning "became not wanting to eat".

This may seem obvious but 「ある」 cannot have a 「たい」 form because inanimate objects
cannot want anything. However, 「いる」 can be used with the 「たい」 form in examples like
the one below.

（５）　ずっと一緒にいたい。
- I want to be together forever. (lit: Want to exist together for long time.)
Also, you can only use the 「たい」 form for the first-person because you cannot read other
people's mind to see what they want to do. For referring to anyone beside yourself, it is normal to
use expressions such as, "I think he wants to..." or "She said that she wants to..." We will learn
how to say such expressions in a later lesson. Of course, if you're asking a question, you can just
use the 「たい」 form because you're not presuming to know anything.

（６）　犬と遊びたいですか。
- Do you want to play with dog?

Indicating things you want or want done using 「欲しい」

In English, we employ a verb to say that we want something. In Japanese, "to want" is actually
an i-adjective and not a verb. We saw something similar with 「好き」 which is an adjective
while "to like" in English is a verb. While I didn't get too much into the workings of 「好き」, I
have dedicated a whole section to 「欲しい」 because it means, "to want something done"
when combined with the te-form of a verb. We will learn a more polite and appropriate way to
make requests in the "Making Requests" lesson instead of saying, "I want this done."

Though not a set rule, whenever words come attached to the te-form of a verb to serve a special
grammatical function, it is customary to write it in hiragana. This is because kanji is already used
for the verb and the attached word becomes part of that verb.

Examples

（１）　大きい縫いぐるみが欲しい！
- I want a big stuffed doll!

（２）　全部食べてほしいんだけど・・・。
- I want it all eaten but...

（３）　部屋をきれいにしてほしいのよ。
- It is that I want the room cleaned up, you know.

Like I mentioned, there are more appropriate ways to ask for things which we won't go into until
later. This grammar is not used too often but is included for completeness.

Making a motion to do something using the volitional form

(casual)
The term volitional here means a will to do something. In other words, the volitional form
indicates that someone is setting out to do something. In the most common example, this simply
translates into the English "let's" or "shall we?" but we'll also see how this form can be used to
express an effort to do something in a lesson further along.
To conjugate verbs into the volitional form for casual speech, there are two different rules for ru-
verbs and u-verbs. For ru-verbs, you simply remove the 「る」 and add 「よう」. For u-verbs,
you replace the / u / vowel sound with the / o / vowel sound and add 「う」.

Conjugations rules for the casual volitional form

 For ru-verbs: Remove the 「る」 and add 「よう」

例） 食べる → 食べ + よう → 食べよう
 For u-verbs: Replace the / u / vowel sound with the / o / vowel sound and add 「う」
例） 入る → 入ろ + う → 入ろう

Here is a list of verbs you should be used to seeing by now.

Sample u-verbs Exception Verbs
Sample ru-verbs
ローマ字 Plain Volitional
Plain Volitional ローマ字
Plain Volitional (Vol.)
する しよう
食べる 食べよう 話す 話そう hanasu hanasou
くる こよう
着る 着よう 聞く 聞こう kiku kikou
信じる 信じよう 泳ぐ 泳ごう oyogu oyogou
寝る 寝よう asobu asobou
     遊ぶ 遊ぼう     
起きる 起きよう 待つ 待とう matu matou
出る 出よう
飲む 飲もう nomu nomou
掛ける 掛けよう
直る 直ろう naoru naorou
捨てる 捨てよう
死ぬ 死のう shinu shinou
調べる 調べよう
買う 買おう kau kaou

Examples

I doubt you will ever use 「死のう」 (let's die) but I left it in for completeness. Here are some
more realistic examples.

（１）　今日は何をしようか？
- What shall [we] do today?

（２）　テーマパークに行こう！
- Let's go to theme park!

（３）　明日は何を食べようか？
- What shall [we] eat tomorrow?
（４）　カレーを食べよう！
- Let's eat curry!

Remember, since you're setting out to do something, it doesn't make sense to have this verb in
the past tense. Therefore, there is only one tense and if you were to replace 「明日」 in （３）
with, for example, 「昨日」 then the sentence would make no sense.

Making a motion to do something using the volitional form

(polite)
The conjugation for the polite form is even simpler. All you have to do is add 「～ましょう」
to the stem of the verb. Similar to the masu-form, verbs in this form must always come at the end
of the sentence. In fact, all polite endings must always come at the end and nowhere else as
we've already seen.

Conjugations rules for the polite volitional form

 For all verbs: Add 「～ましょう」 to the stem of the verb

例） 食べる → 食べ + ましょう → 食べましょう
例） 入る → 入り + ましょう → 入りましょう

Sample verbs
Plain Volitional
する しましょう
くる きましょう
寝る 寝ましょう
行く 行きましょう
遊ぶ 遊びましょう

Examples

Again, there's nothing new here, just the polite version of the volitional form.

（１）　今日は何をしましょうか？
- What shall [we] do today?

（２）　テーマパークに行きましょう
- Let's go to theme park!

（３）　明日は何を食べましょうか？
- What shall [we] eat tomorrow?
（４）　カレーを食べましょう
- Let's eat curry!

Making Suggestions using the 「ば」 or 「たら」

conditional
You can make suggestions by using the 「ば」 or 「たら」 conditional and adding 「どう」.
This literally means, "If you do [X], how is it?" In English, this would become, "How about
doing [X]?" Grammatically, there's nothing new here but it is a commonly used set phrase.

Examples

（１）　銀行に行ったらどうですか。
- How about going to bank?

（２）　たまにご両親と話せばどう？
- How about talking with your parents once in a while?

Acting on subordinate clauses

Posted by Tae Kim

In the section about modifying subordinate clauses, we learned how to treat a subordinate clause
like an adjective to directly modify a noun. We will extend the functionality of subordinate
clauses by learning how to perform an action on a subordinate clause. Obviously, we cannot
simply attach the 「を」 particle to a subordinate clause because the 「を」 particle only
applies to noun phrases. We need something to encapsulate the subordinate clause into a unit that
we can perform actions on. This is done by making a quoted phrase.

While in English, you can just add quotes and a comma to make a quotation, Japanese requires
attaching 「と」 at the end of the quote. This is completely different from the 「と」 particle
and the 「と」 conditional. Unlike quotes in English, we can perform many different types of
actions on the quote besides the standard "he said", "she said", etc. For example, we can perform
the action, "to think" or "to hear" to produce phrases such as, "I think [subclause]" or "I heard
[subclause]" This is very important in Japanese because Japanese people seldom affirm definite
statements. This also why we will have to eventually cover many other types of grammar to
express uncertainty or probability.

The direct quote

We'll learn the simplest type of quoted phrase, which is the direct quote. Basically, you are
directly quoting something that was said. This is done by simply enclosing the statement in
quotes, adding 「と」 and then inserting the appropriate verb. The most common verbs
associated with a direct quote would be 「言う」 and 「聞く」 but you may use any verbs
related to direct quotation such as: 「叫ぶ」, 「呼ぶ」, 「呟く」, etc. This type of quotation is
often used for dialogue in novels and other narrative works.

Examples

（１）　アリスが、「寒い」と言った。
- Alice said, "Cold".

（２）　「今日は授業がない」と先生から聞いたんだけど。- It is that I heard from the

teacher, "There is no class today."

The verb does not need to be directly connected to the subordinate clause. As long as the verb
that applies to the subordinate clause comes before any other verb, you can have any number of
adjectives, adverbs or nouns in between.

（１）　「寒い」とアリスが田中に言った。- "Cold," Alice said to Tanaka.

The interpreted quote

The second type of quote is the quote along the lines of what someone actually said. It's not a
word-for-word quote. Since this is not a direct quote, no quotations are needed. You can also
express thoughts as an interpreted quote as well. By using this and the verb 「思う」 you can
say you think that something is so-and-so. You will hear Japanese people use this all the time.
You can also use the verb 「考える」 when you are considering something.

Examples

（１）　先生から今日は授業がないと聞いたんだけど。
- I heard from the teacher that there is no class today.

（２）　これは、日本語で何と言いますか。- What do you call this in Japanese? (lit: About

this, what do you say in Japanese?)

（３）　私は、アリスと言います。- I am called Alice. (lit: As for me, you say Alice.)

In an interpreted quote, the meaning of 「言う」 may change as you see in examples （２）
and （３）. Actually, as you can see from the literal translation, the meaning remains the same
in Japanese but changes only when translated to normal English. (We'll learn more about various
ways to use 「いう」 in the next lesson.)

Here are some examples of thoughts being used as quoted subordinate clauses. In example
（５）, the question marker is used with the volitional to insert an embedded question.

（４）　カレーを食べようと思ったけど、食べる時間がなかった。
- I thought about setting out to eat curry but I didn't have time to eat.
（５）　今、どこに行こうかと考えている。
- Now, I'm considering where to set out to go.

Unlike the direct quotation, which you can just copy as is, if the quoted subordinate clause is a
state-of-being for a noun or na-adjective, you have to explicitly include the declarative 「だ」 to
show this.

（１）　彼は、これは何だと言いましたか。
- What did he say this is?

（２）　彼は高校生だと聞いたけど、信じられない。
- I heard that he is a high school student but I can't believe it.

Notice how 「だ」 was added to explicitly declare the state-of-being that is highlighted in the
English translation. You can really see how important the 「だ」 is here by comparing the
following two sentences.

（A）　これは何だと言いましたか。
- What did [he] say this is?

（B）　何と言いましたか。
- What did [he] say?

Using 「って」 as a casual version of 「と」

You may be surprised to hear that there is a shorter and casual version of the quoted subordinate
clause since it's already only one hiragana character, 「と」. However, the important point here
is that by using this casual shortcut, you can drop the rest of the sentence and hope your audience
can understand everything from context.

Examples

（１）　智子は来年、海外に行くんだって。
- Tomoko said that she's going overseas next year.

（２）　もうお金がないって。
- I already told you I have no money.

（３）　え？何だって？
- Huh? What did you say?

（４）　今、時間がないって聞いたんだけど、本当？
- I heard you don't have time now, is that true?

（５）　今、時間がないって、本当？
- You don't have time now (I heard), is that true?
「って」 can also be used to talk about practically anything, not just to quote something that
was said. You can hear 「って」 being used just about everywhere in casual speech. Most of the
time it is used in place of the 「は」 particle to simply bring up a topic.

Examples

（１）　明日って、雨が降るんだって。
- About tomorrow, I hear that it's going to rain.

（２）　アリスって、すごくいい人でしょ？
- About Alice, she's a very good person, right?

Defining and Describing

Posted by Tae Kim

The various uses of 「いう」

In the previous lesson, we learned how to quote a subordinate clause by encasing it with 「と」.
This allowed us to talk about things that people have said, heard, thought, and more. We also
took a look at some examples sentences that used 「と」 and 「言う」 to describe how to say
something in Japanese and even what to call oneself. In this section, we will learn that with
「と」, we can use
「いう」 in a similar fashion to define, describe, and generally just talk about the thing itself.
We'll also see how to do the same thing with the casual 「って」 version we first learned about
in the last lesson.

Using 「いう」 to define

In the last lesson, we briefly looked at how to introduce ourselves by using 「と」 and 「い
う」. For instance, we had the following example, which Alice used to introduce herself.

（１）　私はアリスといいます。- I am called Alice. (lit: As for me, you say Alice.)

This sentence pattern is probably one of the first things beginner Japanese students learn in the
classroom. In this case, the verb 「いう」 doesn't mean that somebody actually said something.
Rather, Alice is saying that people in general say "Alice" when referring to her. While using
kanji for 「いう」 is perfectly acceptable, in this case, since nothing is actually being said, using
hiragana is also common.

This idea of describing what a person is known or referred to as can also be extended to objects
and places. We can essentially define and identify anything we want by using 「という」 in this
manner. As you can imagine, this is particularly useful for us because it allows us to ask what
things are called in Japanese and for the definition of words we don't know yet.
Examples

（１）　これは、なんという魚ですか。
- What is this fish referred to as?.

（２）　この魚は、鯛といいます。
- This fish is known as "Tai".

（３）　ルミネというデパートはどこにあるか、知っていますか？
- Do you know where the department store called "Lumine" is?

（４）　「友達」は、英語で「friend」という意味です。
- The meaning of "tomodachi" in English is "friend".

Using 「いう」 to describe anything

We learned how to use 「という」 to describe what something is known or referred to as.
However, we can take this idea even further by attaching two subordinate clauses. At this point,
「いう」 is so abstract that it doesn't even really have a meaning. When a subordinate clause is
encapsulated with 「と」, you must have a verb to go along with it and 「いう」 is simply
being used as a generic verb to enable us to talk about any subordinate clause. This allows us to
describe and explain just about anything ranging from a single word to complete sentences. As
you can imagine, this construction is quite useful and employed quite often in Japanese.

Examples

（１）　主人公が犯人だったというのが一番面白かった。
- The most interesting thing was that the main character was the criminal.

（２）　日本人はお酒に弱いというのは本当？
- Is it true that Japanese people are weak to alcohol?

（３）　独身だというのは、嘘だったの？
- It was a lie that you were single?

（４）　リブートというのは、パソコンを再起動するということです。
- Reboot means to restart your computer.

We can abstract it even further by replacing the subordinate clause with a generic way of doing
something. In this case, we use 「こう」、「そう」、「ああ」、and 「どう」, which when
combined with 「いう」 means "this way, "that way", "that way (far away in an abstract sense)"
and "what way" respectively.

Examples
（１）　あんたは、いつもこういう時に来るんだから、困るんだよ。
- It's because you always come at times like these that I'm troubled.

（２）　そういう人と一緒に仕事をするのは、嫌だよね。
- [Anybody would] dislike doing work together with that type of person, huh?

（３）　ああいう人と結婚できたら、幸せになれると思います。
- I think you can become happy if you could marry that type of person.

（４）　大学に行かないって、どういう意味なの？
- What do you mean, "You're not going to go to college?"

Rephrasing and making conclusions with 「という」

We can attach the question marker 「か」 to 「という」 in order to add a questioning element.
This construction is used when you want to rephrase or redefine something such as the following
dialogue.

Example Dialogue

（Ａ）　みきちゃんは、あんたの彼女でしょう？
- Miki-chan is your girlfriend, right?

（Ｂ）　う～ん、彼女というか、友達というか、なんというか・・・
- Um, you might say girlfriend, or friend, or something…

This construction is used all the time, particularly in casual conversations. It can be used to
correct something, come to a different conclusion, or even as an interjection.

Examples

（１）　お酒は好きというか、ないと生きていけない。
- I like alcohol or rather, can't live on without it.

（２）　多分行かないと思う。というか、お金がないから、行けない。
- Don't think I'll go. Or rather, can't because there's no money.

（３）　というか、もう帰らないとだめですけど。
- Rather than that, I have to go home already.

Rather than using 「か」 to rephrase a conclusion, we can also simply use 「こと」 to sum up
something without rephrasing anything.

Example Dialogue

（Ａ）　みきちゃんが洋介と別れたんだって。
- I heard that Miki-chan broke up with Yousuke.
（Ｂ）　ということは、みきちゃんは、今彼氏がいないということ？
- Does that mean Miki-chan doesn't have a boyfriend now?

（Ａ）　そう。そういうこと。
- That's right. That's what it means.

Using 「って」 or 「て」 for 「という」

As mentioned in the previous lesson, 「って」 is very often used in causal slang in place of
「と」, because it allows us to leave out the rest of the sentence and assume context (or just
plain assumption) will take care of the rest. We already saw that we can use 「って」 to replace
「という」 as well. However, since we just learned how to use 「という」 to do much more
than just simply say something, there is a limit to just how much you can leave out. In any case,
「って」 will allow us to leave out not only 「いう」 but also any accompanying particles as
you can see in the following example.

Examples

（１）　来年留学するというのは、智子のこと？
- The studying abroad next year thing, is that Tomoko?

（２）　来年留学するって智子のこと？
- The studying abroad next year thing, is that Tomoko?

「だって」 is also another phrase that leaves out just about everything. By convention, it is
used to express disagreement or dissatisfaction usually to whine, complain, or to make an excuse
but you can't tell what it means just from looking at it. It is an abbreviation of something along
the lines of 「とはいっても」 meaning, "even if that was the case".

Example Dialogue 1

（A）　しないとだめだよ。
- Have to do it, you know.

（B）　だって、時間がないからできないよ。
- But (even so), can't do it because there is no time.

Example Dialogue 2

（A）　行かなくてもいいよ。
- Don't have to go, you know.

（B）　だって、みんな行くって。私も行かないと。
- But (even so), everybody said they're going. I have to go too.
In some cases, the small 「つ」 is left out and just 「て」 is used instead of 「って」. This is
done (as is usually the case for slang) in order to make things easier to say. In general, this is
when there is nothing before the 「て」 or when the sound that comes before it doesn't require
the explicit separation the 「っ」 gives us in order to be understood.

Examples

（１）　てことは、みきちゃんは、今彼氏がいないてこと？
- Does that mean Miki-chan doesn't have a boyfriend now?

（２）　ていうか、もう帰らないとだめですけど。
- Rather than that, I have to go home already.

Since slang tends to be used in whichever way the person feels like, there are no definite rules
defining whether you should use 「って」 or 「て」. However, 「て」 is generally not used to
express what people have actually said or heard, which is why it wasn't covered in the last
lesson.

（誤）　みきちゃんが、明日こないて。
- (Can't use 「て」 for something actually said)

（正）　みきちゃんが、明日こないって。
- Miki-chan says she isn't coming tomorrow.

Saying 「ゆう」 instead of 「いう」

Because the 「という」construction is used so often, there are a lot of different variations and
slang based on it. While I do not plan on covering all of them here, you can check out casual
patterns and slang in the miscellaneous section for yet even more slang derived from 「とい
う」.

The last thing I'm am going to briefly mention here is the use of 「ゆう」 instead of 「いう」.
In conversations, it is quite normal to say 「ゆう」 instead of 「いう」. 「ゆう」 is easier to
say because it is simply one letter with a long vowel sound instead of the two different vowel
sounds of 「いう」.　

Examples

（１）　てゆうか、もう帰らないとだめですけど。
- Rather than that, I have to go home already.

（２）　そうゆうことじゃないって！
- I said it's not like that (lit: it's not that type of thing)!

Trying or attempting something

Posted by Tae Kim

Let's try some stuff

In English, we use the word, "try" to mean both "to try something out" and "to make an effort to
do something". In Japanese, these are separate grammatical expressions. For instance, "I tried the
cherry flavor" and "I tried to do homework" mean quite different things and though English does
not make a distinction, Japanese does.

To try something out

To try something out, you simply need to change the verb to the te-form and add 「みる」. If it
helps you to remember, you can think of it as a sequence of an action and then seeing the result.
In fact 「みる」 conjugates just like 「見る」. However, just like the 「～てほしい」
grammar we learned, this is a set phrase and 「みる」 is usually written in hiragana.

Summary

 To say you tried something out, take the action, conjugate it to the te-form and add 「み
る」.
 例）　切る → 切って → 切ってみる
 You can treat the whole result as a regular verb just as you would with 「見る」.
 例）　切ってみる、切ってみた、切ってみない、切ってみなかった

Examples

（１）　お好み焼きを初めて食べてみたけど、とてもおいしかった！
- I tried eating okonomiyaki for the first time and it was very tasty!

（２）　お酒を飲んでみましたが、すごく眠くなりました。
- I tried drinking alcohol and I became extremely sleepy.

（３）　新しいデパートに行ってみる。
- I'm going to check out the new department store.

（４）　広島のお好み焼きを食べてみたい！
- I want to try eating Hiroshima okonomiyaki!

To attempt to do something
We already learned that the volitional form was used to indicate a will to set out to do something.
If you guessed that this next grammar for attempting to do something would involve the
volitional form, you were right. To say that you tried (as in attempted) to do something, you need
to conjugate the verb into the volitional, enclose it in a quotation (so that we can perform an
action on the clause) and finally add the verb 「する」. Or put more simply, you just add 「と
する」 to the volitional form of the verb. This is simply an extension of the quoted subordinate
clause from the last section. Instead of saying the quote （言う） or treating it as a thought （思
う、考える）, we are simply doing it with 「する」.

Summary

 To say that you are attempting a certain action, convert the action to the volitional form
and add 「とする」.
 例）　見る → 見よう → 見ようとする
 例）　行く → 行こう → 行こうとする

Examples

（１）　毎日、勉強を避けようとする。
- Everyday, she attempts to avoid study.

（２）　無理矢理に部屋に入ろうとしている。
- He is attempting to force his way into the room.

（３）　早く寝ようとしたけど、結局は徹夜した。
- I attempted to sleep early but ended up staying up all night.

（４）　お酒を飲もうとしたが、奥さんが止めた。
- He tried to drink alcohol but his wife stopped him.

Though we use the verb 「する」 to say, "to do attempt", we can use different verbs to do other
things with the attempt. For instance, we can use the verb 「決める」 to say, "decide to attempt
to do [X]". Here are some examples of other actions carried out on the attempt.

（１）　勉強をなるべく避けようと思った。
- I thought I would attempt to avoid studying as much as possible.

（２）　毎日ジムに行こうと決めた。
- Decided to attempt to go to gym everyday.

Giving and Receiving

Posted by Tae Kim

Japanese people like gifts

One thing about Japanese culture is that they're big on giving gifts. There are many different
customs involving giving and receiving gifts (お歳暮、お中元、etc.) and when Japanese
people go traveling, you can be sure that they're going to be picking up souvenirs to take back as
gifts. Even when attending marriages or funerals, people are expected to give a certain amount of
money as a gift to help fund the ceremony. You can see why properly learning how to express
the giving and receiving of favors and items is a very important and useful skill. For some
reason, the proper use of 「あげる」、「くれる」、and 「もらう」 has always haunted
people studying Japanese as being horribly complex and intractable. I hope to prove in this
section that it is conceptually quite straightforward and simple.

When to use 「あげる」

「あげる」 is the Japanese word for "to give" seen from the speaker's point of view. You must
use this verb when you are giving something or doing something for someone else.

Examples

（１）　私が友達にプレゼントをあげた。
- I gave present to friend.

（２）　これは先生にあげる。
- I'll give this to teacher.

In order to express the giving of a favor (verb) you must use the ever useful te-form and then
attach 「あげる」. This applies to all the other sections in this lesson as well.

（１）　車を買ってあげるよ。
- I'll give you the favor of buying a car.

（２）　代わりに行ってあげる。
- I'll give you the favor of going in your place.

For third-person, this verb is used when the speaker is looking at it from the giver's point of
view. We'll see the significance of this when we examine the verb 「くれる」 next.

（１）　学生がこれを先生にあげる。
- The student give this to teacher. (looking at it from the student's point of view)

（２）　友達が父にいいことを教えてあげた。
- Friend gave the favor of teaching something good to my dad. (looking at it from the friend's
point of view)

Using 「やる」 to mean 「あげる」

Usually used for pets, animals, and such, you can substitute 「やる」, which normally means
"to do", for 「あげる」. You would normally never use this type of 「やる」 for people. I only
included this so that you won't be confused by sentences like the following.
（１）　犬に餌をやった？ - Did you give the dog food?
Here, 「やる」 does not mean "to do" but "to give". You can tell because "doing food to dog"
doesn't make any sense.

When to use 「くれる」

「くれる」 is also a verb meaning "to give" but unlike 「あげる」, it is from the receiver's
point of view. You must use this verb when someone else is giving something or doing
something for you (effectively the opposite of 「あげる」).

Examples

（１）　友達が私にプレゼントをくれた。
- Friend gave present to me.

（２）　これは、先生がくれた。
- Teacher gave this to me.

（３）　車を買ってくれるの？
- You'll give me the favor of buying a car for me?

（４）　代わりに行ってくれる？
- Will you give me the favor of going in my place?

Similarly, when used in the third-person, the speaker is speaking from the receiver's point of
view and not the giver.

（１）　先生がこれを学生にくれる。
- The teacher give this to student. (looking at it from the student's point of view)

（２）　友達が父にいいことを教えてくれた。
- Friend gave favor of teaching something good to my dad. (looking at it from the dad's point of
view)

The following diagram illustrates the direction of giving from the point of view of the speaker.
From the speaker's point of view, all the giving done to others "go up" to everybody else while
the giving done by everybody else "goes down" to the speaker. This is probably related to the
fact that there is an identical verb 「上げる」 meaning "to raise" that contains the character for
"above" （上） and that the honorific version of 「くれる」 is 「下さる」 with the character
for down （下）. This restriction allows us to make certain deductions from vague sentences
like the following:

（１）　先生が教えてあげるんですか。
- Teacher, will you be the one to give favor of teaching to... [anybody other than the speaker]?

Because all giving done to the speaker must always use 「くれる」, we know that the teacher
must be doing it for someone else and not the speaker. The speaker is also looking at it from the
teacher's point of view as doing a favor for someone else.

（２）　先生が教えてくれるんですか。
- Teacher, will you be the one to give favor of teaching to... [anybody including the speaker]?

Because the giver is not the speaker, the teacher is either giving to the speaker or anyone else.
The speaker is viewing it from the receiver's point of view as receiving a favor done by the
teacher.

Let's see some mistakes to watch out for.

（誤）　私が全部食べてくれました。- 「くれる」 is being used as giving done by the
speaker. (Wrong)
（正）　私が全部食べてあげました。- I gave favor of eating it all. (Correct)

（誤）　友達がプレゼントを私にあげた。- 「あげる」 is being used as giving to the

speaker. (Wrong)
（正）　友達がプレゼントを私にくれた。- Friend gave present to me. (Correct)
When to use 「もらう」
「もらう」 meaning, "to receive" has only one version unlike 「あげる／くれる」 so there's
very little to explain. One thing to point out is that since you receive from someone, 「から」 is
also appropriate in addition to the 「に」 target particle.

Examples

（１）　私が友達にプレゼントをもらった。
- I received present from friend.

（２）　友達からプレゼントをもらった。
- I received present from friend.

（３）　これは友達に買ってもらった。
- About this, received the favor of buying it from friend.

（４）　宿題をチェックしてもらいたかったけど、時間がなくて無理だった。
- I wanted to receive the favor of checking homework but there was no time and it was
impossible.

「もらう」 is seen from the perspective of the receiver, so in the case of first-person, others
usually don't receive things from you. However, you might want to use 「私からもらう」
when you want to emphasive that fact that the other person received it from you. For instance, if
you wanted to say, "Hey, I gave you that!" you would use 「あげる」. However, you would use
「もらう」 if you wanted to say, "Hey, you got that from me!"

（５）　その時計は私からもらったのよ。
- [He] received that watch from me.

Asking favors with 「くれる」 or 「もらえる」

You can make requests by using 「くれる」 and the potential form of 「もらう」 (can I
receive the favor of...). We've already seen an example of this in example （４） of the 「くれ
る」 section. Because requests are favors done for the speaker, you cannot use 「あげる」 in
this situation.

Examples

（１）　千円を貸してくれる？
- Will you give me the favor of lending 1000 yen?

（２）　千円を貸してもらえる？
- Can I receive the favor of you lending 1000 yen?
Notice that the two sentences essentially mean the same thing. This is because the giver and
receiver has been omitted because it is obvious from the context. If we were to write out the full
sentence, it would look like this:

（１）　あなたが、私に千円を貸してくれる？
- Will you give me the favor of lending 1000 yen?

（２）　私が、あなたに千円を貸してもらえる？
- Can I receive the favor of you lending 1000 yen?

It is not normal to explicitly include the subject and target like this when directly addressing
someone but is provided here to illustrate the change of subject and target depending on the verb
「くれる」 and 「もらえる」.

You can use the negative to make the request a little softer. You'll see that this is true in many
other types of grammar.

（１）　ちょっと静かにしてくれない？
- Won't you be a little quieter?

（２）　漢字で書いてもらえませんか。
- Can you write this in kanji for me?

Asking someone to not do something

In order to request that someone not do something, you simply attach 「で」 to the negative
form of the verb and proceed as before.

（１）　全部食べないでくれますか。
- Can you not eat it all?

（２）　高い物を買わないでくれる？
- Can you not buy expensive thing(s)?

Making Requests
Posted by Tae Kim

Politely (and not so politely) making requests

Similar to asking for favors, which we learned in the last lesson, there are also various ways to
make requests in Japanese. This is effectively the Japanese way of saying, "please do X". We'll
first learn the most common way to make requests using a special conjugation of the verb 「く
ださる」 and the firmer 「なさる」. Finally, we'll learn the rarely used excessively strong
command form for the sake of completeness. You can safely skip the last part unless you're an
avid reader of manga.

「～ください」－ a special conjugation of 「くださる」

「ください」 is a special conjugation of 「くださる」, which is the honorific form of 「くれ
る」. We will learn more about honorific and humble forms in the beginning of the next major
section. We are going over 「ください」 here because it has a slight difference in meaning
from the normal 「くれる」 and the honorific 「くださる」. 「ください」 is different from
「くれる」 in the following fashion:

（１）　それをください。- Please give me that.

（２）　それをくれる？- Can you give me that?
As you can see 「ください」 is a direct request for something while 「くれる」 is used as a
question asking for someone to give something. However, it is similar to 「くれる」 in that you
can make a request for an action by simply attaching it to the te-form of the verb.
（１）　漢字で書いてください。- Please write it in kanji.
（２）　ゆっくり話してください。- Please speak slowly.

The rules for negative requests are same as the rules for 「くれる」 as well.
（１）　落書きを書かないでください。- Please don't write graffiti.
（２）　ここにこないでください。- Please don't come here.

In casual speech, it is often common to simply drop the 「ください」 part.

日本語で話して。- Please speak in Japanese.
消しゴムを貸して。- Please lend me the eraser.
遠い所に行かないで。- Please don't go to a far place.

For those who want to sound particularly commanding and manly, it is also possible to use 「く
れる」 with the 「る」 removed.
日本語で話してくれ。- Speak in Japanese.
消しゴムを貸してくれ。- Lend me the eraser.
遠い所に行かないでくれ。- Don't go to a far place.

Because 「ください」 like the masu-form must always come at the end sentence or a
subordinate clause, you cannot use it to directly modify a noun. For example, the following is not
possible with 「ください」.
（１）　お父さんがくれた時計が壊れた。- The clock that father gave broke.

Of course, since direct quotes is merely repeating something someone said in verbatim, you can
put practically anything in a direct quote.
（１）　「それをください」とお父さんが言った。- Father said, "Please give me that."

Using 「～ちょうだい」 as a casual request

A casual alternative of 「ください」 used usually by females is 「ちょうだい」. It is always
written in hiragana. Written in kanji, it is usually used in a very formal expression such as 「頂
戴致します」. There's not much more to say here because grammatically; it works the same
way as 「ください」.

Examples

（１）　スプーンをちょうだい。- Please give me the spoon.

（２）　ここに名前を書いてちょうだい。- Please write your name here.

Using 「～なさい」 to make firm but polite requests

「なさい」 is a special honorific conjugation of 「する」. It is a soft yet firm way of issuing a
command. It is used, for example, when a mother is scolding her child or when a teacher wants a
delinquent student to pay attention. Unlike 「ください」, 「なさい」 only applies to positive
verbs and uses the stem of the verb instead of the te-form. It also cannot be used by itself but
must be attached to another verb.

Using 「なさい」 to make firm but polite requests

 Conjugate the verb to its stem and attach 「なさい」

 例）　食べる → 食べなさい
 例）　飲む → 飲み → 飲みなさい
 例）　する → し → しなさい

Examples

（１）　よく聞きなさい！- Listen well!

（２）　ここに座りなさい。- Sit here.

You can also drop 「さい」 portion of the 「なさい」 to make a casual version of this
grammar.
（１）　まだいっぱいあるから、たくさん食べな。- There's still a lot, so eat a lot.
（２）　それでいいと思うなら、そうしなよ。 - If you think that's fine, then go ahead and
do it.

The Command Form

We will go over the command form in the interest of covering all the possible verb conjugations.
In reality, the command form is rarely used as Japanese people tend to be too polite to use
imperatives. Also, this coarse type of speech is rarely, if indeed at all, used by females who tend
to use 「なさい」 or an exasperated 「くれる」 when angry or irritated. This form is only
really useful for reading or watching fictional works. You may often see or hear 「死ね！」
("Die!") in fiction which, of course, you'll never hear in real life. (I hope!)
Be sure to note that, in addition to the familiar 「する」, 「くる」 exception verbs, 「くれ
る」 is also an exception for the command form.

Rules for creating command form

 ru-verbs - Replace the 「る」 with 「ろ」

 u-verbs - Change the last character from an / u / vowel to an / e / vowel
 Exceptions - 「する」 becomes 「しろ」, 「くる」 becomes 「こい」, 「くれる」
becomes 「くれ」

Sample u-verbs Exception Verbs

Sample ru-verbs
ローマ字 Plain Command
Plain Command ローマ字
Plain Command (Com)
する しろ
食べる 食べろ 話す 話せ hanasu hanase
くる こい
着る 着ろ 聞く 聞け kiku kike
くれる くれ
信じる 信じろ 遊ぶ 遊べ asobu asobe
寝る 寝ろ          
待つ 待て matu mate
起きる 起きろ
飲む 飲め nomu nome
出る 出ろ
直る 直れ naoru naore
掛ける 掛けろ
死ぬ 死ね shinu shine
捨てる 捨てろ
買う 買え kau kae

Examples

（１）　好きにしろ。- Do as you please.

（２）　あっち行け！- Go away!
（３）　早く酒を持ってきてくれ。- Hurry up and bring me some alcohol.

The negative command form is very simple: simply attach 「な」 to either ru-verbs or u-verbs.
Don't confuse this with the 「な」 gobi we will be learning at the end of this section. The
intonation is totally different.

Using the negative command form

 Attach 「な」 to the verb.

 例）　行く → 行くな
 例）　する → するな
Examples

（１）　それを食べるな！- Don't eat that!

（２）　変なことを言うな！- Don't say such weird things!

This is not to be confused with the shortened version of 「～なさい」 we just learned in the last
section. The most obvious difference (besides the clear difference in tone) is that in 「～なさ
い」, the verb is first converted to the stem while the negative command has no conjugation. For
example, for 「する」, 「しな」 would be the short version of 「しなさい」 while 「する
な」 would be a negative command.

Numbers and Counting

Posted by Tae Kim

Numbers and counting in Japanese are difficult enough to require its own section. First of all, the
number system is in units of four instead of three, which can make converting into English quite
difficult. Also, there are things called counters, which are required to count different types of
objects, animals, or people. We will learn the most generic and widely used counters to get you
started so that you can learn more on your own. To be honest, counters might be the only thing
that'll make you want to quit learning Japanese, it's that bad. I recommend you digest only a little
bit of this section at a time because it's an awful lot of things to memorize.

The Number System

The Japanese number system is spread into units of four. So a number such as 10,000,000 is
actually split up as 1000,0000. However, thanks to the strong influence of the Western world and
the standardization of numbers, when numbers are actually written, the split-off is three digits.
Here are the first ten numbers.

Numerals 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
漢字 一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十
ひらがな いち に さん し／よん ご ろく しち／なな はち きゅう じゅう

As the chart indicates, 4 can either be 「し」 or 「よん」 and 7 can either be 「しち」 or 「な
な」. Basically, both are acceptable up to 10. However, past ten, the reading is almost always
「よん」 and 「なな」. In general, 「よん」 and 「なな」 are preferred over 「し」 and
「しち」 in most circumstances.

You can simply count from 1 to 99 with just these ten numbers. Japanese is easier than English
in this respect because you do not have to memorize separate words such as "twenty" or "fifty".
In Japanese, it's simply just "two ten" and "five ten".
（１）　三十一 （さんじゅういち） = 31
（２）　五十四 （ごじゅうよん）= 54
（３）　七十七 （ななじゅうなな）= 77
（４）　二十 （にじゅう） = 20

Notice that numbers are either always written in kanji or numerals because hiragana can get
rather long and hard to decipher.

Numbers past 99

Here are the higher numbers:

Numerals 100 1,000 10,000 10^8 10^12

漢字 百 千 万 億 兆
ひらがな ひゃく せん まん おく ちょう

Notice how the numbers jumped four digits from 10^4 to 10^8 between 万 and 億? That's
because Japanese is divided into units of four. Once you get past 1 万 (10,000), you start all over
until you reach 9,999 万, then it rotates to 1 億 (100,000,000). By the way, 百 is 100 and 千 is
1,000, but anything past that, and you need to attach a 1 so the rest of the units become 一万
(10^4)、一億 (10^8)、一兆 (10^12).

Now you can count up to 9,999,999,999,999,999 just by chaining the numbers same as before.
This is where the problems start, however. Try saying 「いちちょう」 、「ろくひゃく」、or
「さんせん」 really quickly, you'll notice it's difficult because of the repetition of similar
consonant sounds. Therefore, Japanese people have decided to make it easier on themselves by
pronouncing them as 「いっちょう」、 「ろっぴゃく」、and 「さんぜん」. Unfortunately,
it makes it all the harder for you to remember how to pronounce everything. Here are all the
slight sound changes.

Numerals 漢字 ひらがな
300 三百 さんびゃく
600 六百 ろっぴゃく
800 八百 はっぴゃく
3000 三千 さんぜん
8000 八千 はっせん
10^12 一兆 いっちょう

（１）　四万三千七十六 （よんまんさんぜんななじゅうろく） = 43,076

（２）　七億六百二十四万九千二百二十二 （ななおくろっぴゃくにじゅうよんまん
きゅうせんにひゃくにじゅうに） = 706,249,222
（３）　五百兆二万一 （ごひゃくちょうにまんいち） = 500,000,000,020,001
Notice that it is customary to write large numbers only in numerals as even kanji can become
difficult to decipher.

Some of you may be clamoring for larger numbers but you'll hardly ever use 「億」 much less
「兆」. I will guarantee that you will not need to know this but I looked up a list for curiosity's
sake.

Numbers smaller or less than 1

Zero in Japanese is 「零」 but 「ゼロ」 or 「マル」 is more common in modern Japanese.
There is no special method for reading decimals, you simply say 「点」 for the dot and read
each individual number after the decimal point. Here's an example:
（１） 0.0021 - ゼロ、点、ゼロ、ゼロ、二、一。

For negative numbers, everything is the same as positive numbers except that you say 「マイナ
ス」 first.
（１） マイナス二十九 = -29

Counting and Counters

Ah, and now we come to the fun part. In Japanese, when you are simply counting numbers,
everything is just as you would expect, 一、二、三、 and so on. However, if you want to count
any type of object, you have to use something called a counter which depends on what type of
object you are counting and on top of this, there are various sound changes similar to the ones we
saw with 六百, etc.. The counter themselves are usually single kanji characters that often have a
special reading just for the counter. First, let's learn the counters for dates

Dates

The year is very easy. All you have to do is say the number and add 「年」 which is pronounced
here as 「ねん」. For example, Year 2003 becomes 2003 年 (にせんさんねん）. The catch is
that there is another calendar which starts over every time a new emperor ascends the throne.
The year is preceded by the era, for example this year is: 平成 15 年. My birthday, 1981 is 昭和
56 年 (The Showa era lasted from 1926 to 1989). You may think that you don't need to know this
but if you're going to be filling out forms in Japan, they often ask you for your birthday or the
current date in the Japanese calendar （和暦）. So here's a neat converter you can use to convert
to the Japanese calendar.

Saying the months is actually easier than English because all you have to do is write the number
(either in numerals or kanji) of the month and add 「月」 which is read as 「がつ」. However,
you need to pay attention to April （４月）, July （７月）, and September （９月） which
are pronounced 「しがつ」、 「しちがつ」、and 「くがつ」 respectively.

Finally, we get to the days of the month, which is where the headache starts. The first day of the
month is 「ついたち」 （一日）; different from 「いちにち」　（一日）, which means
"one day". Besides this and some other exceptions we'll soon cover, you can simply say the
number and add 「日」 which is pronounced here as 「にち」. For example, the 26th becomes
26 日 （にじゅうろくにち）. Pretty simple, however, the first 10 days, the 14th, 19th, 20th,
29th have special readings that you must separately memorize. If you like memorizing things,
you'll have a ball here. Notice that the kanji doesn't change but the reading does.

Days of the month

Day Kanji Reading
What day 何日 なん・にち
1st 一日 ついたち
2nd 二日 ふつ・か
3rd 三日 みっ・か
4th 四日 よっ・か
5th 五日 いつ・か
6th 六日 むい・か
7th 七日 なの・か
8th 八日 よう・か
9th 九日 ここの・か
10th 十日 とお・か
11th 十一日 じゅう・いち・にち
12th 十二日 じゅう・に・にち
13th 十三日 じゅう・さん・にち
14th 十四日 じゅう・よっ・か
15th 十五日 じゅう・ご・にち
16th 十六日 じゅう・ろく・にち
17th 十七日 じゅう・しち・にち
18th 十八日 じゅう・はち・にち
19th 十九日 じゅう・く・にち
20th 二十日 はつ・か
21th 二十一日 に・じゅう・いち・にち
22th 二十二日 に・じゅう・に・にち
23th 二十三日 に・じゅう・さん・にち
24th 二十四日 に・じゅう・よっ・か
25th 二十五日 に・じゅう・ご・にち
26th 二十六日 に・じゅう・ろく・にち
27th 二十七日 に・じゅう・しち・にち
28th 二十八日 に・じゅう・はち・にち
29th 二十九日 に・じゅう・く・にち
30th 三十日 さん・じゅう・にち
31th 三十一日 さん・じゅう・いち・にち
In Japan, the full format for dates follows the international date format and looks like: XXXX 年
YY 月 ZZ 日. For example, today's date would be: 2003 年 12 月 2 日

Time

Now, we'll learn how to tell time. The hour is given by saying the number and adding 「時」
which is pronounced here as 「じ」. Here is a chart of exceptions to look out for.

英語 4 o'clock 7 o'clock 9 o'clock

漢字 四時 七時 九時
ひらがな よじ しちじ くじ

Notice how the numbers 4, 7, and 9 keep coming up to be a pain in the butt? Well, those and
sometimes 1, 6 and 8 are the numbers to watch out for.

The minutes are given by adding 「分」 which usually read as 「ふん」 with the following
exceptions:

英語 1 min 3 min 4 min 6 min 8 min 10 min

漢字 一分 三分 四分 六分 八分 十分
ひらがな いっぷん さんぷん よんぷん ろっぷん はっぷん じゅっぷん

For higher number, you use the normal pronunciation for the higher digits and rotate around the
same readings for 1 to 10. For instance, 24 minutes is 「にじゅうよんぷん」 （二十四分）
while 30 minutes is 「さんじゅっぷん」 （三十分）. There are also other less common but
still correct pronunciations such as 「はちふん」 for 「八分」 and 「じっぷん」 for 「十
分」 (this one is almost never used).

All readings for seconds consists of the number plus 「秒」, which is read as 「びょう」.
There are no exceptions for seconds and all the readings are the same.

Some examples of time.

（１） 1 時 24 分（いちじ・にじゅうよんぷん） - 1:24
（２） 午後 4 時 10 分 （ごご・よじ・じゅっぷん） - 4:10 PM
（３） 午前 9 時 16 分 （ごぜん・くじ・じゅうろっぷん） - 9:16 AM
（４） 13 時 16 分 （じゅうさんじ・じゅうろっぷん） - 13:16
（５） 2 時 18 分 13 秒 （にじ・じゅうはっぷん・じゅうさんびょう） - 2:18:13

A Span of Time

Ha! I bet you thought you were done with dates and time, well guess again. This time we will
learn counters for counting spans of time, days, months, and years. The basic counter for a span
of time is 「間」, which is read as 「かん」. You can attach it to the end of hours, days, weeks,
and years. Minutes (in general) and seconds do not need this counter and months have a separate
counter, which we will cover next.
（１）　二時間四十分 （にじかん・よんじゅっぷん） - 2 hours and 40 minutes
（２）　二十日間 （はつかかん） - 20 days
（３）　十五日間 （じゅうごにちかん） - 15 days
（４）　二年間 （にねんかん） - two years
（５）　三週間 （さんしゅうかん） - three weeks
（６） 　一日 （いちにち） - 1 day
As mentioned before, a period of one day is 「一日」 （いちにち） which is different from the
1st of the month: 「ついたち」.

Pronunciations to watch out for when counting weeks is one week: 「一週間」 （いっしゅう
かん） and 8 weeks: 「八週間」 （はっしゅうかん）.

To count the number of months, you simple take a regular number and add 「か」 and 「月」
which is pronounced here as 「げつ」 and not 「がつ」. The 「か」 used in this counter is
usually written as a small katakana 「ヶ」 which is confusing because it's still pronounced as
「か」 and not 「け」. The small 「ヶ」 is actually totally different from the katakana 「ケ」
and is really an abbreviation for the kanji 「箇」, the original kanji for the counter. This small
「ヶ」 is also used in some place names such as 「千駄ヶ谷」 and other counters, such as the
counter for location described in the "Other Counters" section below.

In counting months, you should watch out for the following sound changes:

英語 1 month 6 months 10 months

漢字 一ヶ月 六ヶ月 十ヶ月
ひらがな いっかげつ ろっかげつ じゅっかげつ

Just like minutes, the high numbers rotate back using the same sounds for 1 to 10.
（１）　十一ヶ月 （じゅういっかげつ） - Eleven months
（２）　二十ヶ月 （にじゅっかげつ） - Twenty months
（３）　三十三ヶ月 （さんじゅうさんかげつ） - Thirty three months

Other Counters

We'll cover some of the most common counters so that you'll be familiar with how counters
work. This will hopefully allow you to learn other counters on your own because there are too
many to even consider covering them all. The important thing to remember is that using the
wrong counter is grammatically incorrect. If you are counting people, you must use the people
counter, etc. Sometimes, it is acceptable to use a more generic counter when a less commonly
used counter applies. Here are some counters.

日本語 When to Use

人 To count the number of people
本 To count long, cylindrical objects such as bottles or chopsticks
 枚 To count thin objects such as paper or shirts
冊 To count bound objects usually books
匹 To count small animals like cats or dogs
歳 To count the age of a living creatures such as people
個 To count small (often round) objects
回 To count number of times
ヶ所（箇所） To count number of locations
つ To count any generic object that has a rare or no counter
Counting 1 to 10 (some variations might exist)
ヶ所（箇
人 本 枚 冊 匹 歳 個 回 つ
所）
1 ひとり いっぽ いちま いっさ いっぴ いっさ いっ いっか いっか ひとつ
ん い つ き い こ い しょ
2 ふたり にほん にまい にさつ にひき にさい にこ にかい にかしょ ふたつ
3 さんに さんぼ さんま さんさ さんび さんさ さんこ さんか さんか みっつ
ん ん い つ き い い しょ
4 よにん よんほ よんま よんさ よんひ よんさ よんこ よんか よんか
ん い つ き い い しょ よっつ
5 ごにん ごほん ごまい ごさつ ごひき ごさい ごこ ごかい ごかしょ いつつ
6 ろくに ろっぽ ろくま ろくさ ろっぴ ろくさ ろっ ろっか ろっか むっつ
ん ん い つ き い こ い しょ
7 しちに ななほ ななま ななさ ななひ ななさ ななこ ななか ななか
ん ん い つ き い い しょ ななつ

8 はちに はちほ はちま はっさ はっぴ はっさ はっ はちか はっか やっつ

ん ん い つ き い こ い しょ
きゅう
9 にん きゅう きゅう きゅう きゅう きゅう きゅう きゅう きゅうか ここの
ほん まい さつ ひき さい こ かい しょ つ
10 じゅう じゅっ じゅう じゅっ じゅっ じゅっ じゅ じゅっ じゅっか とお
にん ぽん まい さつ ぴき さい っこ かい しょ

The changed sounds have been highlighted.

You don't count 0 because there is nothing to count. You can simply use 「ない」 or 「いな
い」. The chart has hiragana for pronunciation but, as before, it is usually written with either
numbers or kanji plus the counter with the single exception of 「とお」 which is simply written
as 「十」.

For higher numbers, it's the same as before, you use the normal pronunciation for the higher
digits and rotate around the same readings for 1 to 10 except for 「一人」 and 「二人」 which
transforms to the normal 「いち」 and 「に」 once you get past the first two. So 「一人」 is
「ひとり」 while 「11 人」 is 「じゅういちにん」. Also, the generic counter 「～つ」 only
applies up to exactly ten items. Past that, you can just use regular plain numbers.
Note: The counter for age is often sometimes written as 「才」 for those who don't have the
time to write out the more complex kanji. Plus, age 20 is usually read as 「はたち」 and not
「にじゅっさい」.

Using 「目」 to show order

You can attach 「目」 (read as 「め」) to various counters to indicate the order. The most
common example is the 「番」 counter. For example, 「一番」　which means "number one"
becomes "the first" when you add 「目」 （一番目）. Similarly, 「一回目」 is the first time,
「二回目」 is the second time, 「四人目」 is the fourth person, and so on.

Casual Patterns and Slang

Posted by Tae Kim

So far, for every grammar we have covered, we also went over all the casual variations as well.
However, even though we have already covered all the casual forms, truly mastering casual
speech in Japanese requires far more than just learning the various casual forms. There are
countless numbers of ways in which wordings and pronunciations change as well as differences
between male and female speech. Understanding slang also requires knowing various vocabulary
that is also growing with every new generation. Many adults would be hard-pressed to
understand the kind of slang being used by kids today.

While comprehensively covering slang and relevant vocabulary would require a book in and of
itself (a book that would soon become out of date), I'll instead cover some broad patterns and
common phenomenon which will at least help you get started in understanding the most common
aspects of Japanese slang. There is no particular order in the material presented here and I expect
this page to grow continuously as I find different things to cover.

Please note that slang is also heavily influenced by local dialects. Although all the material
presented here is valid for the greater Tokyo area, your mileage may vary depending on where
you are located.

Basic Principles of Slang

In the world of slang, anything goes and rules that apply to written Japanese are often broken.
The most difficult part is that, of course, you can't just say whatever you want. When you break
the rules, you have to break it the correct way. Taking what you learned from textbooks or
Japanese classes and applying it to the real world is not so easy because it is impossible to teach
all the possible ways things can get jumbled up in the spoken language. Learning how to speak
naturally with all the correct idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies in a language is something that
requires practice with real people in real-world situations. In this section, we'll look at some
common patterns and themes that will at least help you get an idea of where the majority of slang
originates from.
One thing you'll soon realize when you first start talking to Japanese people in real life is that
many sounds are slurred together. This is especially true for males. The fact is voices in
instructional material such as language tapes often exaggerate the pronunciation of each letter in
order to make aural comprehension easier. In reality, not all the sounds are pronounced as clearly
as it should be and things end up sounding different from how it's written on paper.

There is one major driving factor behind the majority of slang in Japanese. The primary goal of
most slang is to make things easier to say. In other words, the goal is to reduce or simplify the
movement of your mouth. There are two primary ways in which this is accomplished, 1) By
making things shorter or, 2) By slurring the sounds together. We have already seen many
examples of the first method such as shortening 「かもしれない」 to 「かも」 or preferring
「と」 to the longer conditional forms. The second method makes things easier to say usually
by substituting parts of words with sounds that fit better with the sounds surrounding it or by
merging two or more sounds together. For example, the same 「かもしれない」 might be
pronounced 「かもしんない」 since 「しん」 requires less movement than 「しれ」.

The fundamental goal of slang is to reduce mouth movement

Let's see some more examples of words that get shortened or slurred. Try saying both versions to
get a feel for how the slang saves space and some calories for your mouth.

Examples

（A）　ここはつまらないから私の家に行こう。

（B）　ここつまんないから、私んち行こう。

（A）　まったく、いつまでこんなところで、ぐずぐずするんだよ。

（B）　ったく、いつまでこんなとこで、ぐずぐずすんだよ。

You'll see that a great deal of slang in Japanese stems from this single principle of making things
easier to say. It's very natural because it's guided by how your mouth moves. With a fair amount
of practice, you should be able to naturally pick up shorter, alternative pronunciations and
incorporate them into your own speech.

Sentence ordering and particles (or the lack thereof)

While written Japanese already has fairly loose rules regarding sentence order, casual spoken
Japanese takes it one step further. A complete sentence requires a verb at the end of the sentence
to complete the thought. However, we'll see how this rule is bent in casual conversations.

Conversations are sporadic and chaotic in any language and it's common for people to say the
first thing that pops into their head without thinking out the whole proper sentence.
For example, if you wanted to ask what something was, the normal, proper way would be to ask,
「それは何？」 However, if the first thing that popped into your head, "What the?" then it
would be more natural to say 「何」 first. However, since 「何はそれ？」 doesn't make any
sense (Is what that?), Japanese people simply break it up into what are essentially two sentence
fragments asking "what" first （何？）, and then following it up with the explanation of what
you were talking about （「それ」 in this case）. For the sake of convenience, this is lumped
into what looks like one sentence.

Examples

（A） それは何？ - What is that?

（B） 何それ？ - What? That. (Two sentences lumped into one)

Sometimes, the first thing that pops into your head might be main verb. But if the main verb has
already slipped out of your mouth, you're now left with the rest of the sentence without a verb to
complete the thought. In conversational Japanese, it's perfectly acceptable to have the verb come
first using the same technique we just saw by breaking them into two sentences. The second
sentence is incomplete of course, but that kind of thing is common in the speech of any language.

（１） 見た？ あの人？- Did you see? That guy?

（２） もう食べた？昨日買ったアイス。- You ate it already? The ice cream I bought

yesterday.

Using 「じゃん」 instead of 「じゃない」 to confirm

「じゃん」 is an abbreviation of 「じゃない」, the negative conjugation for nouns and na-
adjectives. However, this only applies to 「じゃない」 used in the following fashion.

（１） サラリーマンだから、残業はたくさんするんじゃない？
-Because he’s a salaryman, doesn’t he do a lot of overtime?

The important thing to note about the example above is that 「じゃない」 here is actually
confirming the positive. In fact, a closer translation is, “Because he’s a salaryman, he probably
does a lot of overtime.” But it’s still a question so there’s a slight nuance that you are seeking
confirmation even though you are relatively sure.

「じゃん」 is a shorter slang for expressing the same type of thing except it doesn’t even bother
to ask a question to confirm. It’s completely affirmative in tone.

In fact, the closest equivalent to 「じゃん」 is 「じゃない」 used in the following fashion.

（２） まあ、いいじゃない。
- Well, it’s probably fine (don’t you think?).
This type of expression is the only case where you can attach 「じゃない」 directly to i-
adjectives and verbs. Once you actually hear this expression in real life, you’ll see that it has a
distinct pronunciation that is different from simply using the negative. Plus, you have to realize
that this type of 「じゃない」 sounds rather mature and feminine, unlike 「じゃん」, which is
gender-neutral.

Like the above, specialized use of 「じゃない」, you can also attach 「じゃん」 directly to
verbs and i-adjectives as well as the usual nouns and na-adjectives. Because slang is usually
created to make things easier, it’s not surprising that the rules for using 「じゃん」 are so lax
and easy.

Summary

 Though derived from 「じゃない」, 「じゃん」 is always used to confirm the positive.
 It can be attached to the end of any sentence regardless of whether it ends in a noun,
adjective, verb, or adverb.

Finally, let’s get to the examples. Hopefully, you can see that 「じゃん」 is basically saying
something along the lines of, “See, I’m right, aren’t I?”

Examples

（１） ほら、やっぱりレポートを書かないとだめじゃん。
-See, as I thought, you have to write the report.

（２） 誰もいないからここで着替えてもいいじゃん。
-Since there’s nobody, it’s probably fine to change here.

（A） たかし君は、ここにいる？ - Is Takashi here?

（B） 知らない。- Dunno.
（A) あっ！やっぱ、いるじゃん！- Ah! See, he is here!

There’s also another variation, which attaches the question marker as well. The meaning is
mostly the same but it adds more to the questioning, confirming tone.

（A) 駅の近くにカラオケがあるじゃんか。- There’s a karaoke place near the station, right?

（B) うん。- Yeah.
（A) あそこのすぐ隣だ。- It’s right next to there.

Using 「つ」 for 「という」

As we learned in the defining and describing section, 「いう」 serves many more functions than
the equivalent English verb, "to say". It is used all the time and therefore, it's not too surprising
that a number of variations and slang have developed. Here's one more that I felt was too
"slangy" to cover so early at that point of the guide.
This may sound hard to believe but if you really slur 「という」 together, it becomes something
resembling 「つ」. Or least, that's what somebody thought when he or she began replacing 「と
いう」 with 「つ」 or in some case 「つう」.

Now, in my opinion, 「つ」 is a lot harder to say than 「という」 so using it like a native
might take a bit of practice. Rather than making things easier to say, as is usually the case, the
real purpose of this substitution is to sound rougher because 「つ」 has a harder, hissing sound.
This is ideal for when you're pissed or for that young and rough image you've always wanted. As
you might expect, this type of speech is usually used by males or very tough females.

Examples

（１） つうか、なんでお前がここにいんのよ！
-Or rather, why are you here?!

（２） 宿題で時間がないつってんのに、みきちゃんとデートしにいったらしい。
-Although he's saying he doesn't have time due to homework, I hear he went on a date with Miki-
chan.

（３） 明日は試験だぞ。つっても、勉強はしてないだろうな。
-Yo, tomorrow's the test. Even if I say that, you probably didn't study anyway, huh?

（４） だから、違うんだつうの！
-Like I said, you're wrong!

If you want even more emphasis, you can even add a small 「つ」. This usually means you are
really at the brink of your patience.

（４） だから、違うんだっつうの！
-Like I said, you're wrong!

Using 「ってば」 and 「ったら」to show exasperation

「ってば」 and 「ったら」 is yet another type of abbreviation for 「という」 similar to 「っ
て」 as discussed in the defining and describing section. In this case, it's an abbreviation of the
conditional form of 「という」, which is 「といえば」 and 「といったら」. By using this
abbreviation, you are essentially saying something along the lines of, "If I told you once, I told
you a million times!" You can use this expression when you tired of repeating yourself or when
you are exasperated with somebody for not listening to you.

Examples

１） もう行くってば！
-I told you I'm going already!
２） あなたったら、いつも忘れるんだから。
-You're always forgetting.

Using 「なんか」 just about everywhere

By now, you're probably aware that 「何」 can be either read as 「なに」 or 「なん」
depending on what comes after it such as 「何色」（なにいろ） versus 「何人」（なんに
ん）. In the case of 「何か」, while 「なにか」 is the correct reading, it is often contracted to
just 「なんか」 in casual speech.

（A） なにか食べる？
-Eat something?

（B） なんか食べる？
-Eat something?

However, 「なんか」 also has a function similar to the word "like" in English. By "like", I'm
not talking about the actual word but the kind that has no meaning and some people use just
about anywhere in the sentence. Similarly, 「なんか」 can also be used as a filler without any
actual meaning. For instance, take a look at the example below.

１） 今日は、なんか忙しいみたいよ。
-I guess he's like busy today.

While 「なんか」 is a shorter version of 「なにか」, only 「なんか」 can be used in this way
as a filler.

誤） 今日は、なにか忙しいみたいよ。
-（「なにか」 cannot be used as a filler word.）

Let's take a look at a few more examples.

Examples

１） なんかね。お風呂って超気持ちいいよね！
-Like, baths feel really good, huh?

２） お母さんが、なんか明日まで戻らないんだってよ。
-Mom said she's not coming back until like tomorrow.

３） なんかさ。ボブは、私のことなんか本当に好きかな？
-Hey like, do you really think that Bob likes somebody like me?

Showing contempt for an action with 「～やがる」

「やがる」 is a verb suffix used to indicate hatred or contempt for the person doing the action.
Unlike the rest of the slang covered here, this extremely strong language is not used in normal,
everyday conversations. You will probably never hear this expression outside of movies, comic
books, games, and the like. However, it is covered here so that you can understand when it is
used in those mediums.

In order to use 「やがる」, you simply attach it to the stem of the verb. After that, 「やがる」
is conjugated just like a regular u-verb.

Examples

１） あんなやつに負けやがって。じゃ、どうすんだよ？
-Losing to a guy like that. Well, what are you going to do?

２） やる気か？だったらさっさと来やがれ！
-You want to fight? If so, then hurry up and come on!

Review and more gobi

Posted by Tae Kim

We are coming to the end of the fourth major section of the guide. Do you feel like your
Japanese has improved? We've come to the point where we've learned enough conjugations to be
able to start mixing them together in various useful combinations. Of course this can be a little
difficult to do without some practice, which is the reason for this lesson. But first, since we've
come to the end of yet another section, let's learn some more sentence endings.

The next most often used gobi: 「な」 and 「さ」

Next to 「よ」 and 「ね」, 「さ」 and 「な」 are the next most commonly used gobi.

「さ」, which is basically a very casual form of 「よ」, is similar to the English "like" in that
some people throw it in at the end of almost every single phrase. Of course, that doesn't mean it's
necessarily a very sophisticated manner of speech but just like using "like" all the time, I cannot
deny that it is an easy habit to fall into. In that sense, due to its over-use, it has almost lost any
specific meaning. You may overhear a conversation like the following:

大学生１：　あのさ・・・
大学生２：　うん
大学生１：　この間さ・・・
大学生２：　うん
大学生１：　ディズニーランドに行ったんだけどさ、なんかさ、すっごい込んで
て・・・
大学生２：　うん
大学生１：　何もできなくてさ・・・
And it goes on like this, sometimes the other person might break in to say something related to
the topic.

You can use 「な」 in place of 「ね」 when it sounds too soft and reserved for what you want
to say or for the audience you are speaking to. Its rough sound generally applies to the male
gender but is not necessarily restricted to only males.

洋介：　今、図書館に行くんだよな。
- You are going to the library now huh? (seeking explanation)
智子：　うん、なんで？
- Yeah, why?

ボブ：　日本語は、たくさん勉強したけどな。まだ全然わからない。
- I studied Japanese a lot, right? But, I still don't get it at all.
アリス：　大丈夫よ。きっとわかるようになるからさ。
- No problem. You'll become able to understand for sure, you know?
ボブ：　ならいいけどな。
- If so, it would be good.

The 「な」 gobi is often used with the question marker 「か」 to indicate that the speaker is
considering something.

（１）　今日は雨が降るかな？
- I wonder if it'll rain today.

（２）　いい大学に行けるかな？
- I wonder if I can go to a good college.

Gender-specific emphasis gobi: 「わ」、「ぞ」、「ぜ」、

「かしら」
These gobi are primarily used just to emphasize something and doesn't really have a meaning per
se. However, they can make your statements sound much stronger and very gender-specific.
Using 「わ」 is just like 「よ」 except it will make you sound almost sickeningly female
(putting different dialects aside). Use sparingly. 「かしら」 is also a very feminine version of
「かな」, which we just went over. 「ぞ」 and 「ぜ」 are identical to 「よ」 except that it
makes you sound "cool" and manly, or at least, that is the intent. These examples might not be
very helpful without actually hearing what they sound like.

（１）　もう時間がないわ。
- There is no more time.

（２）　おい、行くぞ！
- Hey, we're going!

（３）　これで、もう終わりだぜ。
- With this, it's over already.
（４）　いい大学に入れるかしら？
- I wonder if I can enter a good college.

That's a wrap!
We learned quite a lot of things in this section. Let's try to put it all together by seeing how
different kinds of conjugations are used in different combinations. This is of course by no means
an exhaustive list but merely an illustration of how we can use what we learned in various
combinations to create a lot of useful expressions.

Example 1

アリス： 加賀先生、ちょっと質問を聞いてもいいですか？
加賀先生： うん、いいですよ。
アリス：　「Hello」を日本語で何と言えばいいですか。
何と言えば = quoted sub-clause + if conditional of 言う

加賀先生： そうね。大体、「こんにちは」と言うと思いますよ。ただし、書く時は
「こんにちわ」じゃなくて、「こんにちは」と書かなくてはなりません。
「と言うと思います」 = quoted sub-clause + quoted sub-clause
「じゃなくて」 = negative sequence of states

アリス：　そうですか。他に何かいい表現はありますか。

加賀先生：これも覚えといてね。朝は、「おはよう」と言うの。でも、上の人には「お
はようございます」と言ってください。
「覚えといて」 - 覚える +
abbreviated form of ～ておく + casual ～てください with ください dropped.

アリス：　はい、分かりました。間違えないようにします。いい勉強になりました！

Literal translation of Example 1

Alice: Kaga-sensei, is it ok to ask you a question?

Kaga-sensei: Yes, it's ok.
Alice: If you say what for "hello" in Japanese, is it ok?
Kaga-sensei: Well, mostly, I think people say "konnichiwa". Only, when you write it, you must
write "konnichiha" and not "konnichiwa".
Alice: Is that so? Are there any other good expressions?
Kaga-sensei: Please memorize this too (in preparation for the future). In the morning, everybody
says, "ohayou". But, please say, "ohayou-gozaimasu" to a higher person.
Alice: Yes, I understood. I'll do in the manner of not making mistake. It became good study!

Interpretative translation of Example 1

Alice: Kaga-sensei, is it ok to ask you a question?

Kaga-sensei: Sure.
Alice: How do you say "Hello" in Japanese?
Kaga-sensei: Well, most of the time, I think people say "konnichiwa". Only, when you write it,
you must write "konnichiha" and not "konnichiwa".
Alice: Is that so? Are there any other good expressions?
Kaga-sensei: You should know this too. In the morning, everybody says, "ohayou". But, please
say, "ohayou-gozaimasu" to a higher person.
Alice: Ok, I got it. I'll try not to make that mistake. That was very informative!

Example 2

洋介：　お！アリスだ。あのね、質問を聞いてもいい？
アリス：　何？

洋介：　ちょっと英語を教えてもらいたいんだけどさ、もし時間があれば、教えてくれ
ない？
「教えてもらいたい」 = receiving favor + to want （たい）

アリス：　え？英語を勉強するの？

洋介：　うん、アメリカで留学してみたいなと思ってね。去年も行こうとしたけど、お
金がなくて・・・
「してみたいなと思って」 = to try something out （～てみる） + want to （たい） + な
gobi + quoted subquote + te-form of 思う
「行こうとした」 = volitional of 行く + to attempt （とする）

アリス：　そうなの？いいよ。いつ教えてほしいの？
洋介：　いつでもいいよ。
アリス：　じゃ、来週の木曜日からはどう？
洋介：　うん、いいよ。ありがとう！

アリス：　勉強を怠けたり、来なかったり、しないでね。
「怠けたり来なかったりしないで」 = List of actions （～たりする） + negative request of
する.

洋介：　そんなことしないよ！

Literal translation of Example 2

Yousuke: Oh! It's Alice. Hey, is it ok to ask a question?

Alice: What?
Yousuke: I want to receive the favor of you teaching English and if, by any chance, you have
time, will you give the favor of teaching?
Alice: Huh? You are going to study English?
Yousuke: Yeah, I was thinking that I want to try studying abroad in America. I tried to make
motion toward going last year too but, without money...
Alice: Is that so? It's good. When do you want me to teach you?
Yousuke: Anytime is good.
Alice: Then what about from next week Thursday?
Yousuke: Yeah, ok. Thanks!
Alice: Don't do things like shirk on your studies or not come, ok?
Yousuke: I won't do anything like that!

Interpretative translation of Example 2

Yousuke: Oh! It's Alice. Hey, can I ask you a question?

Alice: What up?
Yousuke: I want to learn English so if you have time, can you teach me?
Alice: Huh? You're going to study English?
Yousuke: Yeah, I was thinking about studying abroad in America. I tried going last year too but I
didn't have the money.
Alice: Really? No problem. When do you want me to teach you?
Yousuke: Anytime is fine.
Alice: What about from next week Thursday then?
Yousuke: OK, thanks!
Alice: You're not going to shirk on your studies or not come or anything right?
Yousuke: I won't do anything like that!