This is another て-form addon, noticing a pattern? There back in the main te-form post I hinted at teform being used to conjugate other things a lot. You are now starting to see that. In this case it is a way to apologize for something you have, or haven’t, done.

Something You Did

The crux of using it is to add すみませんでした to the end of a te-form verb.

• 朝ご飯を食べて、すみませんでした。
• あさごはんをたべて、すみませんでした。
• I ate breakfast, sorry.

• 猫を買って、すみませんでした。
• ねこをかって、すみませんでした。
• I am sorry I bought the cat.

You can also use the same construct, but add ごめん to the end to make it more casual, like with a friend.

• デートの約束を忘れて、ごめん。
• デートのやくそくをわすれて、ごめん。
• Sorry I stood you up.

Something You Didn’t Do

This is the same concept as above, but you use なくて. To get it at the end you need to get the short, negative ~ない form of a verb. Drop the い and add くて。

• 持ってこない
• 持ってこな
• 持ってこなくて

Here are some sentences

• 宿題をもってこなくて、すみませんでした。
• しゅくだいをもってこなくて、すみませんでした。
• I am sorry for not bringing in the homework.

• 洗濯しなくて、すみません。
• せんたくしなくて、すみません。
• Sorry I didn’t do the laundry.

With ごめん.

• もっと早く言わなくて、ごめん。
• もっとはやくいわなくて、ごめん。
• Sorry that i did not tell you earlier.

Conclusion

I have a feeling I will be using this one quite a bit. I tend to forget to do things all the time. This is actually kind of fun and easy to use once you figure it out. What are some example sentence you can come up with for this?

Related Posts:

• Combining Activities with te-form verbs
• Because 〜から
• 〜ておく Preparation Time
• Start Using New Verbs
• Adjective Conjugation Te-Form

おく is here to help. Especially since it is a helping verb about us preparing for something. ておく is actually て-form + おく:

て＋おく

It also conjugations like a normal u-verb. So your conjugations should work. Here are some example sentences.

• 明日試験があるので、今晩勉強しておきます。
• あしたしけんがあるので、こんばんべんきょうしておきます。
• Since there will be an exam tommorow, I will study tonight.

• 明日は雨が降りますから、バケツをかっておきました。
• あしたはあめがふりますから、バケツをかっておきました。
• I bought a bucket (to catch water), because it is supposed to rain tommorow.

• オテルを予約しておかなくちゃいけません。
• オテルをよやくしておくなくちゃいけません。
• I must make a hotel reservation in advance.

Hopefully those examples help show it in different forms, and are easy enough to understand (last one might hurt a bit). I find I don’t use this a lot, but when I have needed to it is really useful.

Related Posts:

• Because 〜から
• ~てすみませんでした, I’m Sorry
• Start Using New Verbs
• Japanese Verb Conjugation tai We have Hopes and Dreams
• Don’t do that with short forms

Learning new verbs is easy, for the most part, but using new verbs is a bit of a pain. This pain leads to apprehension when using Japanese, and trying to use this vocabulary we have never used before. However, only through use can we become comfortable with the verb.

One of the conundrums of new vocabulary is usage. It seems for verbs it is always “Now how does that conjugate for sure”, especially when you just learned the word. This is why we need to practice our conjugation at least a little if only on new verbs, though it can help to do it on all verbs.

The biggest problem with practicing the conjugation is not having an organized way to do it. To solve the problem I present the:

“Japanese Verb Conjugation Practice Sheet”

So what is it?

It is a simple pdf file that has the 3 most basic verb conjugation almost everything expands on. Long form present, Long Form Past, Te-Form, Short Form present and Short Form Past. it is basically just a worksheet you print off and do in your spare time. Here is an example I did real quick.

What you do is you set in dictionary form the word you want to conjugate then simply go through filling in the appropriate boxes for the rest. I choose to do the kanji for it and write down whether it is a ru-verb or and u-verb.

If you are still learning these conjugations, or need to, here are some links to help you.
Understanding u-verbs and ru-verbs
Japanese Verb Conjugation Present and Future Tense
Japanese Verb Conjugation Past Tense
Japanese Verb Conjugation Te-Form
Short Form Japanese Verb Conjugation Present Tense
Short Form Japanese Verb Conjugation Past Tense

Download the practice Sheet:
Japanese Verb Conjugation Practice Sheet

Related Posts:

• Short Form Japanese Verb Conjugation Past Tense
• Short Form Japanese Verb Conjugation Present Tense
• Don’t do that with short forms
• ii and na adjective conjugation present and past tense
• Japanese Verb Conjugation Te-Form

Everyone constantly wants something. Whether they want a hamburger or a new car, maybe even a pencil. In English we have the word want. We want things from objects or dreams to come true, and you probably want to know how to say in Japanese. Well fortunately this is super easy. Just add たい to the stem of a verb. So たべる becomes たべたい. Lets look at some example sentences so it can make more sense.

えいががみたいです。
I want to see a film.

いつか日本にいきたいです。
I want to go to Japan someday.

ほんをよみたいです。
I want to read a book.

In order to do this successfully there is something to realize about ru-verbs and u-verbs. For ru-verbs just drop the る and add たい. For u-verbs change the last sound to い and add たい. As for irregular verbs する and くる you do both you drop the ru and change the last sound to い. So する transforms to し and くる transforms to き. Here is a chart for example.

So now you can dream away in Japanese.

Note: There is more to this, but for now i will leave it here as I want to post on something else before covering another aspect of this subject. I will link to it once the second part of tai verb conjugations is up. This is the brunt of it though.

Related Posts:

• 〜ておく Preparation Time
• Start Using New Verbs
• Don’t do that with short forms
• Short Form Japanese Verb Conjugation Past Tense
• Short Form Japanese Verb Conjugation Present Tense

We often hit on doing stuff or requesting stuff be done, but sometimes there are just things you don’t want people to do. Like don’t eat the car. Not taking pictures in a museum.

To start be sure that you have reviewed short forms present tense. Because what you are going to do is add ～でください to it. Something like:

negative short form + でください / Please don’t…

Here are some example sentences.

ここでしゃしんをとらないでください
Please don’t take pictures here.

あしたはたべないでください。
Don’t eat tomorrow

きょうはしなないでください。あしたはOKです。
Please don’t die today. Tomorrow is ok though.

きょうかしょうはよまないでください。
Please don’t read your textbook.

やまだせんせいははなさないでください。
Please don’t speak professor Yamada.

That isn’t too painful and now you can request people to not do things.

Related Posts:

• Start Using New Verbs
• Short Form Japanese Verb Conjugation Past Tense
• Short Form Japanese Verb Conjugation Present Tense
• 〜ておく Preparation Time
• Japanese Verb Conjugation tai We have Hopes and Dreams

Past tense short forms are a bit more tricky than present tense short forms, but not by much. First though be sure that you understand te-forms, and by extension u and ru-verbs.

Past Affirmative

Just like present affirmative was easy since it was just dictionary form. Past tense is easy too. Since you should arleady know te-forms then you know past tense affirmative short form since all you do is change the て/で of te-form to た/だ. Here are some examples.

Past Negative

I am going to be honest, this one is a bit more complicated, only because it requires a bit more thought. Since negative requires a bit more of a process here it is broken into steps.

General Steps

1. Get the dictionary form of the word
2. Short form present tense negative conjugate it
3. Drop the い
4. Add the かった

Steps in Use

1. よむ
2. よまない
3. よまな
4. よまなかった

It is still simple, but just have to think it through a bit more. With some practice you can easily get it down.

Note: I keep mentioning knowing the u and ru-verbs and how to distinguish them. I keep bringing this up because it is very important and makes life easier if you understand.

Related Posts:

• Start Using New Verbs
• Don’t do that with short forms
• Short Form Japanese Verb Conjugation Present Tense
• Japanese Verb Conjugation Past Tense
• 〜ておく Preparation Time

Short forms seem kind of complicated when I first saw them and messed with them, but they aren’t, at all. If you just know the principles of it short forms are super simple. For present tense you don’t need to really review anything other than u-verb and ru-verb conjugation. The only thing to really know though for these is the exceptions as to which verbs ending in ru are actually u-verbs. So lets get started.

Present Tense Affirmative Short Form

This one is easy. Basically you just use the dictionary form. Long form, or masu form, you would have ねます. If it was short form you would have ねる. Here is a table of a few more as an example.

Present Tense Negative Short Form

Negative is a bit more complicated, but not a lot. It is actually easy too. First remember that we have 3 types of verbs. ru-verbs, u-verbs and irregular verbs.

る-verbs
ru-verbs are easiest of these. Literally replace the final る with ない. That is it. Another way to describe it is remove the る so with たべる you remove る and have たべ left, then you just append ない to get たべない. Here are some examples.

う-verbs
This one kind of is confusing in some of the stuff I read. I have read where you should drop the final u and add anai. While that is true it is a bit confusing because that deals with sounds. Most of the time, at least for me, when I think of words I think of it as it is spelled. So how I like to think of doing short form instead of changing the u to a. Is to change the last character like く to か or む to ま. Here is a chart of dictionary form and short form. Remember change the u to a.

Remember the groups of characters か, き, く, け, こ and さ, し, す, せ, そ and た, ち, つ, て, と. When you come up on a character with u at the end remember that group and change it to the one that ends in a then add nai to it. く to かない, す to さない, つ to たない.

irregular verbs
Just like ru and u-verbs are easy so are irregular verbs. Change する to しない and くる to こない.

exception
Just like there is an exception for every rule, except the rule there is an exception for every rule. There is one for this, but it is easy.

Basically, the verb ある that is used for existence of things and people just goes to ない instead of あない. Not really sure why, but I kind of think because the あ in あない is kind of pointless since it will sound almost the same anyway.

Related Posts:

• Start Using New Verbs
• Don’t do that with short forms
• Short Form Japanese Verb Conjugation Past Tense
• Japanese Verb Conjugation Present and Future Tense
• 〜ておく Preparation Time

Te-Form verb conjugation is kind of difficult and freaks quite a few people out. Unfortunately, there is te-form conjugation with adjectives. Fortunately it is MUCH easier to do te-forms with adjectives over verbs.

い-adjectives drop the final い and add くて
な-adjectives add で to the base word
You can also treat noun+です the same as な-adjectives

Here are some examples:

い-adjectives:
やすい -> やすくて

な-adjectives:
げんき(な) -> げんきで

Irregular Adjective:
いい -> よくて

noun+です:
にほんじんです -> にほんじんで

Related Posts:

• ~てすみませんでした, I’m Sorry
• Start Using New Verbs
• Combining Activities with te-form verbs
• ii and na adjective conjugation present and past tense
• Dai – Extreme Japanese Langauge

There are two types of adjectives which I will cover in another post, but for the time being know there are い-adjectives and な-adjectives. Very roughly, い-adjectives end in い and な-adjectives use な after the adjective before proceeding to the rest of the statement.

Adjectives, like verbs, conjugate for tense and polarity. However, い-adjectives and な-adjectives conjugate differently. The conjugation of adjectives are similar to verbs in that you need to remember what to add, how and when. Its not to bad after you write it down a few times.

い-adjectives present

Affirmative
おもしろいです

Negative
おもしろくありません

If you will notice present affirmative is pretty straight forward. It is the dictionary form plus です. I think the negative tense on all the adjective conjugation is fun, because it is easy to remember if you recall my “Basic Existense” post. If you remember あります is existence and you do conjugation based on that. Basically you are adding a verb to the adjective to do your negatives.

Here are some examples

Present Affirmative

• あたらしいです
• いそがしいです
• こわいです
• つまらないです

Present Negative

• あたらしいくありません
• いそがしいくありません
• こわいくありません
• つまらないくありません

Next is the past tense form of い-adjectives. They are similar enough in how you approach them. Just remember you do all your normal stuff for the negative. Add the verb aru, make it negative, add past tense. For affirmative just add かった between the word and です.

い-adjectives past

Affirmative
おもしろかったです

Negative
おもしろくありませんでした

Not really anything too very different. Is just similar to verb conjugation where you add a little bit more to it. I’ll list out the same examples as above just past tense now.

Past Affirmative

• あたらしかったです
• いそがしかったです
• こわかったです
• つまらなかったです

Past Negative

• あたらしいくありませんでした
• いそがしいくありませんでした
• こわいくありませんでした
• つまらないくありませんでした

Next, up on the block is な-adjectives they are fairly straight forward, not that い-adjectives weren’t. Just remember for negative you have ありません.

な-adjective Present

Affirmative
げんきです

Negative
げんきじゃありません

I am sure that might have thrown you for a loop there. Affirmative is JUST like い-adjectives. Keeps it simple. The negative is the same as い-adjectives just add じゃ to it in the middle. Here are a few examples.

Present Affirmative

• きらいです
• しずかです
• だいきらいです
• ひまです

Present Negative

• きらいじゃありません
• しずかじゃありません
• だいきらいじゃありません
• ひまじゃありません

Now on to the past tense of な-adjectives these are fairly straight forward as well. Just remember the suffix’s and you will be golden. Just remember for negative you have the verb ありる with some type of conjugation.

な-adjective Past

Affirmative
げんきでした

Negative
げんきじゃありませんでした

Still simple just remember the suffixes. You have でした for affirmative and you just add でした to present negative past tense for negative.

Past Affirmative

• きらいでした
• しずかでした
• だいきらいでした
• ひまでした

Past Negative

• きらいじゃありませんでした
• しずかじゃありませんでした
• だいきらいじゃありませんでした
• ひまじゃありませんでした

Just remember the past tense negative for verbs had でした in it too. There are a lot of similarities that can make things easier if you just remember basics. Try not to get hung up on how long these are, but the basics of each suffix in how it conjugates. Also remember with な-adjective conjugation you don’t need to include the な in the word.

Now for the final conjugation it is an い-adjective, but is an exception. I wanted to save the most important for last and the, what looks like, one excpetion when doing conjugation. That is the word いい (good). This is used A LOT from what I hear, literally. So it is important to know how it conjugates properly. Lets see all the forms for it then I’ll explain what is going on if you haven’t figured it out.

Present Affirmative
いいです

Present Negative
よくありません

PastAffirmative
よかったです

Negative
よくありませんでした

Notice for the present affirmative it stays in dictionary form, but for all the rest it changes to よ. It is a very easy thing to do, but needed to be pointed out. Try saying the words a few times if you have listened to a lot of Japanese then they should sound familiar. If not start listening for them.

I know this was a long post with a lot of information in it. I hope you hung in there. This is actually amazingly useful and once I learned it these conjugations started showing up quite a bit and made several things make more sense in my listening comprehension. Hopefully this will do the same for you.

Related Posts:

• Start Using New Verbs
• Short Form Japanese Verb Conjugation Past Tense
• Short Form Japanese Verb Conjugation Present Tense
• Adjective Conjugation Te-Form
• Dai – Extreme Japanese Langauge

There are 2 words you learn early on when learning Japanese, すき(like) and きらい(dis-like). You also learn だいすき (love) and だいきらい (hate).

From there you can see that だい (dai) makes both like and dis-like more extreme.

Some examples are

おん debt of gratitude
そふ grandfather

If you add dai in front of them

だいおん Great debt of gratitude
だいそふ Great grandfather

So when you add dai to a noun it adds an extreme to it. This was hit home with me when I was watching Mei-Chan J-Drama. One of the characters said.

だいピンチ　basically daipinchi or in a really big pinch with a big problem. Basically, you thought Meisama was about to die basically, so the antagonist said だいピンチ to highlight the predicament.

So when you hear this used in conjunction with a noun remember it means something more extreme or bigger than normal. However, you need to be carefule as dai can alsu be used as a counter when counting specific things. We will hit that later.

Related Posts:

• Adjective Conjugation Te-Form
• ii and na adjective conjugation present and past tense