Yukigo
Japanese verbs: how they conjugate
Japanese verbs are easier than English ones in one way and trickier in another: they don't change with the person — 食べる covers I, you, he and we — but they do change form to express politeness, negation, tense and the link between clauses.
Everything hangs on one piece of information: which of the three groups the verb belongs to. Settle that, and every form follows fixed rules, without the hundreds of irregularities English throws at you.
The three groups, and why they matter
Group 1 (godan) is by far the largest: every verb that doesn't end in る, plus many that do. Group 2 (ichidan) holds the ones ending in -iru or -eru: they are the docile ones, dropping る and nothing else. Group 3 has exactly two members, する and 来る — and they are the two you will use most.
The exceptions that look like group 2
Some verbs end in -iru or -eru but behave like group 1: 帰る (to go home), 入る (to enter), 走る (to run), 切る (to cut), 知る (to know). There are about ten of them and they have to be memorized. It is the one point in the whole system where Japanese asks you to trust a list instead of a rule.
ます is not the present tense
ます marks politeness, not time. 食べます can mean "I eat" or "I will eat": Japanese only distinguishes past from non-past, and the future comes from context or from a word like 明日. That is why the pair to learn isn't present/future but plain/polite.
The て form is the key to everything
It has no tense of its own, yet it opens the most doors: it links two clauses ("I eat and then go out"), makes requests with 〜てください, describes an action in progress with 〜ている, gives permission with 〜てもいい. Learn the て form and you get the past for free, because it follows exactly the same rules.
The four forms you need first
One verb, four transformations: polite (ます), plain negative (ない), plain past (た) and the て form. Each form shows its reading underneath, because with 来る the kanji stays put while the reading changes every single time — the classic trap.
| Verb (dictionary) | Polite ます | Negative ない | Past た | て form |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 書くかくto writeGroup 1 | 書きますかきます | 書かないかかない | 書いたかいた | 書いてかいて |
| 買うかうto buyGroup 1 | 買いますかいます | 買わないかわない | 買ったかった | 買ってかって |
| 読むよむto readGroup 1 | 読みますよみます | 読まないよまない | 読んだよんだ | 読んでよんで |
| 話すはなすto speakGroup 1 | 話しますはなします | 話さないはなさない | 話したはなした | 話してはなして |
| 食べるたべるto eatGroup 2 | 食べますたべます | 食べないたべない | 食べたたべた | 食べてたべて |
| 見るみるto see, to watchGroup 2 | 見ますみます | 見ないみない | 見たみた | 見てみて |
| するto doIrregular | します | しない | した | して |
| 来るくるto comeIrregular | 来ますきます | 来ないこない | 来たきた | 来てきて |
How the て form is made (group 1)
Group 2 is trivial: drop る, add て (食べる → 食べて). する becomes して and 来る becomes 来て. All the difficulty sits in group 1, where the verb's last syllable decides everything.
| Ending | Becomes | Example |
|---|---|---|
| う・つ・る | って | 買う → 買って |
| む・ぶ・ぬ | んで | 読む → 読んで |
| く | いて | 書く → 書いて |
| ぐ | いで | 泳ぐ → 泳いで |
| す | して | 話す → 話して |
| 行く | 行って | 行く → 行って(exception) |
The same rules give you the plain past: swap て for た and で for だ — 読んで becomes 読んだ, 書いて becomes 書いた.
Conjugate for real, not just on paper
Tables fade; forms stick when you use them. With Yukigo verbs arrive inside real sentences, with transformation drills, listening and spaced repetition, from your first ます all the way to the N2 forms. Free and ad-free.
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Frequently asked questions
If it doesn't end in る, it's group 1. If it does, look at the vowel before it: a, u or o means group 1 (作る, 乗る); i or e usually means group 2 (見る, 食べる), apart from the ten or so exceptions like 帰る and 入る.
ます, so you can talk to someone right away — but the plain form comes very soon after: it is the base every other form is built from, and it is what you will meet in every book, manga and subtitle.
It is the single exception to the rule for verbs ending in く, and it has to be taken as it is. All the others behave: 書く gives 書いて, 聞く gives 聞いて.
No, and it is Japanese's great gift: 食べる serves I, you, he, we and they alike. Who is doing the action comes from context, and in most sentences it isn't said at all.
Around eighty base verbs cover the syllabus. But conjugation is what makes the difference: knowing twenty verbs in every form beats knowing a hundred in the dictionary form only.