～て form?
Hoh yeah, buster. て form is one of the most useful forms of conjugation in Japanese due to its many uses:
-describing how something currently is
-making requests
-asking if something is alright to do
-to show something was completed
But that’ll be in the future, you have to learn to conjugate it first! It’s systematic, however, like much of Japanese. You’ll come to learn a few special patterns in verbs, namely -る ending verbs, -う ending verbs, and irregular verbs.
There’s a catchy song that might help you! If you know the tune “Oh My Darlin'”, you’ll catch on quick. Here it goes:
う、つ、る：って、
む、ぬ、ぶ：んで、
す：して、く：いて、(gotta say it fast!)
ぐ：いで。
いく：いって、
くる：きて、
する：して
ふきそくな。(it just says “irregular”!)
What does all this mean, you ask? It’s all the conjugations for てform! After the semicolon of each “phrase”, that’s the proper て form for each verb that ends with any of the hiragana of that phrase. All the verbs in red are already complete verbs, not stem endings, and don’t really need more! So when you see a verb, like およぐ (to swim), you can sing the song to remember how to conjugate it. Since およぐ ends with ぐ, we know it is replaced by いで。
So the proper ～て form of およぐ is およいで。
Other examples:
うたう： うたって
まつ： まって
しぬ： しんで
さげす： さげして
わく： わいて
～た form?
You’ve gotた be kidding me, right? But fear not! ～た form is PLAIN, PAST, POSITIVE. And the best part? It conjugates just like the ～て form of verbs.
For example:
のんで → のんだ
たべて → たべた
しって → しった
べんきょうして → べんきょうした
いって → いった
きて → きた
So how can ～た form be used? When speaking in casual form, you use ～た form just like
～ました form.
へやにいきました。
I went to the room. (polite)
へやにいった。
I went to the room. (casual)
～ない form?
You bet there’s another convoluted form out here to learn! This one just has a few variants, is all. What the ない form is is PLAIN, PRESENT, NEGATIVE. For an English example, “not” would work. There’s a few steps to take to properly conjugate ない form verbs.
1.) Determine which category the verb falls into.
You’ll frequently hear about う verbs, る verbs and irregular verbs. Use the section on distinguishing う verbs and る verbs to help you on this part. Narrow your verb into a category!
2.) Is it an う verb?
If it ends with something that isn’t る (and isn’t one of the exceptions), chances are high it’ll be an う verb! To change your dictionary form verb into ～ない form, replace the う sounding ending with an あ sound, and add ～ない.
Ex. およぐ— およがない
のむ— のまない
まつ— またない
3.) Is it a るverb?
Similarly if a verb ends with ～いる or ～える, chances are high that it is in fact a る verb. To make the ～ない form of る verbs, drop the る and add ～ない!
Ex. たべる— たべない
みる— みない
おきる— おきない
4.) Is it irregular?
There’s only a few to really keep in mind, it’s する (including all the verbs that have するat the end) and くる.
する— しない
くる— こない
Ex. べんきょうする— べんきょうしない
けっこんする— けっこんしない
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