Conjugation

There are 3 major groups when we talk about verbs conjugations:

• Godan

• Ichidan

• Irregular

To know the rules that each group has we need to see the infinite form of the verb. Depending on how it ends we can assign it the correct conjugation group.

Godan

To be part of this group the infinite form of the verb has to be ending in:

-u | -tsu | -ku | -gu | -su | -zu | -nu | -bu | -mu

From the infinite form we can then define the conjugation form that we will successively use fused with the temporal form.

We need to swap the final letter -u to the 5 vocals a, e, i, o, u based on the temporal form.

infinite	conjugation form	present	past
nomu	nomi	nomimasu	nomimashita

NOTE

With Godan verbs the conjugation form will changed based on different temporal forms like shown above.

---

Ichidan

To be part of this group the infinite form of the verb has to be ending in:

-iru | -eru

From the infinite for we can then define the conjugation form that we will successively use fused with the temporal form.

We need to drop the final syllabus -ru

infinite	conjugation form	present	past
neru	ne	nemasu	nemashita

NOTE

With Ichidan verbs the conjugation form will always remain the same even with different temporal forms.

---

Irregulars

Here there the verbs that do not respect any of the rules from either Godan or Ichidan groups.

There are only 2 verbs that are irregular suru , kuru

From the infinite form we cant define the conjugation form that we will successively use fused with the temporal form.

infinite	conjugation form	present	past
suru	shi	shimasu	shimashita

NOTE

With Irregural verbs the conjugation form will change without a structure based on the　different temporal forms.

Verb forms

• Infinite | -u

• Present | -masu

• Present (negation) | -masen

• Past | -mashita

• Past (negation) | -masendeshita