Grammar Info

N4 Lesson 2: 7/17

終(お)わるTo finish, To end

Structure

Verb［stem］+ 終(お)わる

Details

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About おわる

To express that actions are beginning, or ending in Japanese, the verbs 始(はじ)める (to commence), or 終(お)わる (to end) will need to be used. In this lesson, we will focus on actions that are 'ending'.

To say that (A) is ending/finishing, we will need to attach おわる to the ます stem of almost any verb. Whether you use the hiragana form, or the kanji form does not matter, as there will be no change in nuance.

Due to おわる being a verb itself, the tense can be changed to show that something will end, is ending, or has ended.

Caution

Unlike はじめる, which uses the transitive form, 終(お)わる uses the intransitive form of its transitive/intransitive pair. This is due to most actions in Japanese being considered to be things that 'come to an end' naturally (intransitive), rather than forcefully (transitive). However, there are exceptions to this, and 終(お)える (the transitive version) may also be seen used as an auxiliary to other verbs.

Antonyms

Related

Examples

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    ２(に)時間(じかん)もかかったけど、食(た)べおわりました。

    It took two hours but I finished eating.

    ３(さん)時(じ)ごろに作(つく)りおわる。

    I will finish making it around three o'clock.

    この番組(ばんぐみ)は見(み)おわった。

    I finished watching this program.

    走(はし)りおわったのは何時(なんじ)ぐらいでしたか？

    Around what time did you finish running?

    宿題(しゅくだい)を直(なお)しおわった人(ひと)は教(おし)えてください。

    Those who have finished fixing the homework, let me know.

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おわる – Grammar Discussion

Most Recent Replies (21 in total)

  • Kattosan

    Kattosan

    「ん、で終わる言葉を使って負けた。」
    This is listed as an example of 終わる being able to appear in different tenses, but how is this an example? 終わる is still in dict form, and moreover, it supposedly is a show of おわる as “is finishing”. How?

    The general sentence looks more like past to me, and おわる doesn’t seem to represent “is finishing”.

  • BreadmanNin

    BreadmanNin

    The sentence as a whole is in past tense, but “ん、で終わる言葉” means “a word ending in ん”, which is present continuous tense.

    It’s that part of the sentence in particular that is meant to show that 終わる’s form can be changed.

    Different example:
    今終わる番組。The tv show that is just ending. (Present continuous ← this is the important point)
    今終わる番組を半分だけ見ました。I only watched half of the tv show that is just ending. (Past tense)

    (Actually, maybe it would be more natural to say 今終わってる番組. I’m not that well-versed in Japanese yet. But if that’s the case, it shows all the more that the form of 終わる can be changed. )

  • Guguru-san

    Guguru-san

    I found this NHK article explaining that 終わる is used instead of 終える because the latter was considered difficult to pronounce when using it as an auxiliary verb (like in this grammar point), so people began saying 終わる in spoken language, making 終わる a transitive verb in addition to an intransitive.

    I hope I was able to understand the article correctly. If not, please let me know so I can delete/edit this comment to avoid causing extra confusion.

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