Grammar Info

N5 Lesson 2: 5/13

う-Verb (Dictionary)う + ます (Godan Verbs)

Short form is also often called 'casual form' (because it is used in casual language), or 'plain form'

Structure

Examples:
座(すわ)る
歌(うた)う
歩(ある)く
話(はな)す
打(う)つ
死(し)ぬ
飛(と)ぶ
休(やす)む
泳(およ)ぐ

Details

  • Part of Speech

    Verb

  • Word Type

    Independent Word

  • Register

    Standard

About う-Verb (Dictionary)

う-Verbs include all of the verbs in Japanese that end in う sounds (including some of the verbs that end in る). These verbs are called Godan (五段(ごだん)) 'five-level' verbs in Japanese, due to their conjugations using all 5 of the different sounds in the same column (段(だん)) that their base form comes from.

As we can see here, the く in 聞(き)く changes to き when conjugated to the polite form. All of the other sounds the K-column will be used with 聞(き)く, depending on the conjugation. This is the same for all of the う-Verbs.

聞(き)かない, 聞(き)きたい, 聞(き)く, 聞(き)ける, 聞(き)こう

Here we can see the う-Verb 聞(き)く using all of the different K-column sounds in various conjugations.

Caution

Just like with る-Verbs, the base form of the verb may be called 'plain form', 'casual form', or 'short form', depending on the source/book.

Related

Examples

--:--

    聞(き)く → 聞(き)きます

    To listen/hear

    座(すわ)る → 座(すわ)ります

    To sit down

    飲(の)む→ 飲(の)みます

    To drink

    打(う)つ → 打(う)ちます

    To hit

    会(あ)う → 会(あ)います

    To meet

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う-Verb (Dictionary) – Grammar Discussion

Most Recent Replies (17 in total)

  • byrd9999

    byrd9999

    I have a question about one of the example sentences.

    "学生たちは先生の話も聞きます。

    The students listen to the teachers also."

    What is の話 doing in this sentence? It doesn’t seem to appear in the translation.

  • casual

    casual

    The word はなし can be used in different ways. It can mean “a story”, but in this case 先生の話を聞く means “listen to what the teacher(s) have to say”.

    人の話を聞く・聞かない can probably be considered an expression.

  • byrd9999

    byrd9999

    This is something that I do find a little frustrating about bunpro.

    I want to learn the details and specifics of words/kanji/grammar, but then I read an N5 sentence where the translation is “the gist” of the meaning rather than a more precise translation, and there is nothing to indicate this.

    I already knew hanashi as story/talk/tale, so I could infer that the actual translation should be more along the lines of “what the teachers are saying”, but bunpro doesn’t indicate this. If this were a sentence with unfamiliar words or grammar then I would be lost if I tried to use it to learn from. I would be more likely to pick up bad habits.

    There are other apps, such as kanjistudy or elon.io that use example sentences but also allow the reader to click on each individual word to find out what purpose it serves in the sentence, in terms of meaning and syntax.

    I am still in the 30-day trial period before de...

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