う and る Can’t Make Up Their Minds

う and る verbs can be sort of… pesky. But don’t give up hope yet! Japanese is fairly organized, and infrequently has exceptions like English does. 

But here’s the rundown: 

う verbs typically either end in an う-specific sound (like ゆ, ぐ, or ぶ) or with ～ある, ～うる or ～おる. This leaves out ～いる and ～える because verbs that lead up to the る with these vowel sounds are essentially all る verbs. So that’s a lot of jargon, right? Let’s see some examples: 

NOTABLE EXCEPTIONS
きる that ends in ～いる, can be both a る verb and an う verb. There’s a few out there like this. You’ll have to build up your verb memory!

する and くる, while both ending in ～うる, are irregular verbs, and not う verbs.