11 Verbs change in various ways When you have just begun to study Japanese, learning verbs may seem very easy. "Nomimasu/ nomimashita/ nomimasen/ nomimasendeshita". Present and past, affirmative and negative, all forms share the part "nomimas", and you only need small changes at the end. It seems that you can say almost anything with this. Japanese should be quite simple... However, when you proceed in studying Japanese, there are various forms such as "nomu", "nomanai", "nonde", where the unchanged part is only "nom" (in case of "nonde", only "no"). It is so difficult to learn so many changes! What you have learned until now, "Nomimasu/ nomimashita/ nomimasen/ nomimasendeshita", were all somewhat similar because they were in the same group of "nomimas"; but actually, there are groups other than "nomimas". Sigh... So, this is why some people feel studying Japanese at this stage is difficult, but this stage the stage of learning the basics of verb inflection is the most important. On this site, I would like to elaborate on verbs, emphasizing some key points to study at this stage. On the site "What are the characteristics of Japanese?" I elaborated on some grammatical characteristics of Japanese, and as one of them, I mentioned that this language puts various elements after the verb. Not only negative and tense, but also the elements such as potential, causative, passive, and modality ("may" "must" "let's" in English) are put after verbs. Let's go over the examples with the same word "nomu" (drink). "nomanai" (negative), "nonda" (past), "nondeiru" (progressive), "nomeru" (potential), "nomaseru" (causative), "nomareru" (passive), "nomudaroo" (conjectural), "nomoo" (intention) etc. are changed forms. I did not mentioned on the site "What are the characteristics of Japanese?", but when connecting two clauses, the verb in the first clause changes according to the next clause, such as "nomeba" (if I drink, ...), "nomunode" (because I drink, ...). It is very common to put various elements together, such as "nom-e-na-katta-node" (because I could not drink; potential+negative+past+reason). If you regard the forms that include all of these elements as inflected verb forms, it could be said that Japanese verbs change in many different ways. ◆ Verbs and their inflections
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