PG006

12 Gram mar

fortunately for the non-native speaker, easier to conjugate. Masu forms have been used throughout this book. For some examples of how they inflect, see the ‘Tense’ section.

Tense

Verbs only have the present and past tenses. The futurę tense is indicated by the present tense used in combination with time indicating adverbs such as ‘next month’.

Here are some examples of how a few common verbs are conjugated:

verb

to go iku

to come kuru to drink nomu to eat ta beru to have aru

polite ending

g°

ikimasu

come

kimasu

drink

nomimasu

eat

tabemasu

have

arimasu

past tense

went

ikimashita

came

kimashita

drank

nomimashita

ate

tabemashita

had

arimashita

negative

doesn’t go ikimasen doesn’t come kimasen doesn’t drink no mi ma sen doesn’t eat tabemasen doesn’t have arimasen

Desu

We can think of desu as roughly equivalent to the verb ‘to be’ in English, eg:

I am Australian.

watashi wa ósutorariajin desu

Negatives

To make most statements negative, replace desu (am, is, are) with dewa arimasen, sometimes, in informal Japanese, contracted to ja arimasen.

I am Australian.

watashi wa Osutorariajin desu I am not Australian.

watashi wa Osutorariajin dewa arimasen

The masu ending, which is taken by all verbs other than desu, can be madę negat.ive by replacing the su ending with

sen:

I speak Japanese.

watashi wa nihongo o hanashimasu I don’t speak Japanese. watashi wa nihongo o hanashimasen

Adjectives

As in English, adjectives (and adverbs) precede the words they modify. Thus:

A cheap hotel.    yasui hoteru

Negative

In the negative, the i ending is replaced by ku and the verb arimasen added. Thus:

This hotel isn’t cheap.

kono hoteru wa yasuku arimasen