nihonbg2

Basic Grammer: LESSON 2

Basic Verb Conjugations:
(sounds scary, huh?)

In the last lesson, you saw the verb 'desu' being conjugated. lost? that's ok- I'm going to explain it to you.

'Desu' is the verb meaning 'is'
remember, from lesson 1?
-but you also saw that desu could be replaced with
'Dewa arimasen' which means 'is not'
In the same way it could also be replaced with
'deshita' meaning 'was'
or
'dewa arimasen deshita' meaning 'was not'

What you just witnessed was the verb 'desu' being conjugated into from it's positive present tense(desu) to it's negative present tense(dewa arimasen) to it's positive past tense(deshita) to it's negative past tense(dewa arimasen deshita).

is, isn't, was, and was not

Let's have another example:

'Arukimasu'. 'to walk', right?
This is a better verb to show you the pattern with because, it follows the general 'masu' form of the verb.

You don't need to worry about this now, but every verb (except desu, which I still consider a verb) has a 'masu' form. you can think of it as the polite form.

Anyway Arukimasu can be conjugated as follows:

Arukimasu : (I) walk.
Arukimasen : (I) don't walk.
Arukimashita : (I) walked.
Arukimasen deshita : (I) didn't walk.

can you see the pattern?
Japanese verb conjugation follows this pattern or formula.

verb-masu : Positive Present
verb-masen : Negative Present
verb-mashita : Positive Past
verb-masen deshita : Negative Past

It's really simple after you get past the technical mumbo-jumbo. If you don't get it now that's ok, learning a new language takes time. (and technical jargon really is another language, believe me.) If you do get it- great. Either way, practice makes perfect. So, here I've been thoughtful enough to write some practice problems. hahaha, homework, right. FOR THE ANSWERS, E-mail me: [email protected] and I will have them to you within a week. No really, I will.

I.
conjugate the following new verbs out into their 4 basic forms. (look, I've even provided the colors.)
Also known as 'fill in the blanks'

II.
Translations
'fill in those blanks'
Remember to keep Word order in mind. SOV (Subject Object Verb!)
Remember to put verbs in correct tense!

#1
(I) do : Shimasu
(I) don't :
(I) did :
(I) didn't :

#2
(I) understand : Wakarimasu
(I) don't understand :
(I) understood :
(I) didn't understand :

#3
(I) write : Kakimasu
(I) don't write :
(I) wrote :
(I) didn't write :

Nouns
Watashi:I
Ginkou:Bank

Other
wa: (Subject Marker)
ni: to

Adjectives
Nemui:Sleepy

Verbs
Ikimasu:Go
Desu:Is, Am

1.)I am sleepy.

______ wa _________ _________.

2.) I went to the bank.

______ wa _________ ___ __________.

Get it?
back to Japanese lesson 1
or
Japanese Lesson 3

Home or Back to Japanese

Everything on this page is written by me, yes, ME. it is therefore copyright(c) to Lynneigh McPherson, 2001. All rights reserved...blablabla so please be considerate. I actually worked on writing this...

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws