Category: Grammar Guide

We will finish defining all the basic properties of verbs by learning how to express the past and past-negative tense of actions. I will warn you in advance that the conjugation rules in this section will be the most complex rules you will learn in all of Japanese. On the one hand, once you have this section nailed, all other rules of conjugation will seem simple. On the other hand, you might need to refer back to this section many times before you finally get all the rules. You will probably need a great deal of practice until you can become familiar with all the different conjugations.

Past tense for ru-verbs

Vocabulary

1. 出る 【で・る】 (ru-verb) – to come out
2. 捨てる 【す・てる】 (ru-verb) – to throw away
3. ご飯 【ご・はん】 – rice; meal
4. 食べる 【た・べる】 (ru-verb) – to eat
5. 映画 【えい・が】 – movie
6. 全部 【ぜん・ぶ】 – everything
7. 見る 【み・る】 (ru-verb) – to see

We will start off with the easy ru-verb category. To change a ru-verb from the dictionary form into the past tense, you simply drop the 「る」 and add 「た」.

Examples

1. ご飯は、食べた。
   As for meal, ate.
2. 映画は、全部見た。
   As for movie, saw them all.

Past tense for u-verbs

Vocabulary

1. 話す 【はな・す】 (u-verb) – to speak
2. 書く 【か・く】 (u-verb) – to write
3. 泳ぐ 【およ・ぐ】 (u-verb) – to swim
4. 飲む 【の・む】 (u-verb) – to drink
5. 遊ぶ 【あそ・ぶ】 (u-verb) – to play
6. 死ぬ 【し・ぬ】 (u-verb) – to die
7. 切る 【き・る】 (u-verb) – to cut
8. 買う 【か・う】 (u-verb) – to buy
9. 持つ 【も・つ】 (u-verb) – to hold
10. する (exception) – to do
11. 来る 【く・る】 (exception) – to come
12. 行く 【い・く】 (u-verb) – to go
13. 今日 【きょう】 – today
14. 走る 【はし・る】 (u-verb) – to run
15. 友達 【とも・だち】 – friend
16. 私 【わたし】 – me, myself, I
17. 勉強 【べん・きょう】 – study

Changing a u-verb from dictionary form to the past tense is difficult because we must break up u-verbs into four additional categories. These four categories depend on the last character of the verb. The table below illustrates the different sub-categories. In addition, there is one exception to the rules, which is the verb 「行く」. I’ve bundled it with the regular exception verbs 「する」 and 「来る」 even though 「行く」 is a regular u-verb in all other conjugations.

* exceptions particular to this conjugation

Examples

1. 今日は、走った。
   As for today, ran.
2. 友達が来た。
   Friend is the one that came.
3. 私も遊んだ。
   I also played.
4. 勉強は、した。
   About study, did it.

Past-negative tense for all verbs

Vocabulary

1. 捨てる 【す・てる】 (ru-verb) – to throw away
2. 行く 【い・く】 (u-verb) – to go
3. 食べる 【たべ・る】 (ru-verb) – to eat
4. する (exception) – to do
5. お金 【お・かね】 – money
6. ある (u-verb) – to exist (inanimate)
7. 私 【わたし】 – me, myself, I
8. 買う 【か・う】 (u-verb) – to buy
9. 猫　【ねこ】 – cat
10. いる (ru-verb) – to exist (animate)

The conjugation rules for the past-negative tense are the same for all verbs. You might have noticed that the negative of just about everything always end in 「ない」. The conjugation rule for the past-negative tense of verbs is pretty much the same as all the other negatives that end in 「ない」. You simply take the negative of any verb, remove the 「い」 from the 「ない」 ending, and replace it with 「かった」.

Examples

1. アリスは食べなかった。
   As for Alice, did not eat.
2. ジムがしなかった。
   Jim is the one that did not do.
3. ボブも行かなかった。
   Bob also did not go.
4. お金がなかった。
   There was no money. (lit: As for money, did not exist.)
5. 私は買わなかった。
   As for me, did not buy.
6. 猫はいなかった。
   There was no cat. (lit: As for cat, did not exist.)

Vocabulary used in this section

This is the same list of verbs from the previous practice exercise. We will use the same verbs from the last exercise to practice conjugating to the negative.

Practice with Negative Verb Conjugations

We learned how to classify the following verbs in the previous practice exercise. Now, we are going to put that knowledge to use by conjugating the same verbs into the negative depending on which type of verb it is. The first answer has been given as an example.

Now that we’ve seen how to declare things and perform actions with verbs, we want to be able to say the negative. In other words, we want to say that such-and-such action was not performed. This is done by conjugating the verb to the negative form just like the state-of-being for nouns and adjectives. However, the rules are a tad more complicated.

Conjugating verbs into the negative

Vocabulary

1. ある (u-verb) – to exist (inanimate)
2. いる (ru-verb) – to exist (animate)
3. 食べる 【た・べる】 (ru-verb) – to eat
4. 買う 【か・う】 (u-verb) – to buy
5. 待つ 【ま・つ】 (u-verb) – to wait
6. する (exception) – to do
7. 来る 【く・る】 (exception) – to come
8. 見る 【み・る】 (ru-verb) – to see
9. 寝る 【ね・る】 (ru-verb) – to sleep
10. 起きる 【お・きる】 (ru-verb) – to wake; to occur
11. 考える 【かんが・える】 (ru-verb) – to think
12. 教える 【おし・える】 (ru-verb) – to teach; to inform
13. 出る 【で・る】 (ru-verb) – to come out
14. 着る 【き・る】 (ru-verb) – to wear
15. 話す 【はな・す】 (u-verb) – to speak
16. 聞く 【き・く】 (u-verb) – to ask; to listen
17. 泳ぐ 【およ・ぐ】 (u-verb) – to swim
18. 遊ぶ 【あそ・ぶ】 (u-verb) – to play
19. 飲む 【の・む】 (u-verb) – to drink
20. 帰る 【かえ・る】 (u-verb) – to go home
21. 死ぬ 【し・ぬ】 (u-verb) – to die
22. お金 【お・かね】 – money
23. 私 【わたし】 – me, myself, I
24. 猫 【ねこ】 – cat

We will now make use of the verb classifications we learned in the last section to define the rules for conjugation. But before we get into that, we need to cover one very important exception to the negative conjugation rules: 「ある」.

• ある (u-verb) – to exist (inanimate)
• いる (ru-verb) – to exist (animate)

「ある」 is an u-verb used to express existence of inanimate objects. The equivalent verb for animate objects (such as people or animals) is 「いる」, which is a normal ru-verb. For example, if you wanted to say that a chair is in the room, you would use the verb 「ある」, but if you wanted to say that a person is in the room, you must use the verb 「いる」 instead. These two verbs 「ある」 and 「いる」 are quite different from all other verbs because they describe existence and are not actual actions. You also need to be careful to choose the correct one based on animate or inanimate objects.

Anyway, the reason I bring it up here is because the negative of 「ある」 is 「ない」 (meaning that something does not exist). The conjugation rules for all other verbs are listed below as well as a list of example verbs and their negative forms.

＊ = exceptions particular to this conjugation

Examples

Here are the example sentences from the last section conjugated to the negative form.

1. アリスは食べない。
   As for Alice, does not eat.
2. ジムが遊ばない。
   Jim is the one that does not play.
3. ボブもしない。
   Bob also does not do.
4. お金がない。
   There is no money. (lit: Money is the thing that does not exist.)
5. 私は買わない。
   As for me, not buy.
6. 猫はいない。
   There is no cat. (lit: As for cat, does not exist.)

Vocabulary used in this section

Here is a list of a few verbs and the accompanying kanji that you will find useful.

Practice with Verb Classification

There’s really not much to do at this point except to practice classifying verbs as either a ru-verb or an u-verb. You can also take this opportunity to learn some useful verbs if you do not know them already. We’ll learn how to conjugate these verbs according to their category in the next few sections.

In the chart below, you should mark whether the given verb is either an u-verb or a ru-verb. The first answer is given as an example of what you need to do. Obviously, verbs that do not end in 「る」 are always going to be u-verbs so the tricky part is figuring out the category for verbs that end in 「る」. Remember that verbs that do not end in “eru” or “iru” will always be u-verbs. While most verbs that do end in “eru” or “iru” are ru-verbs, to make things interesting, I’ve also included a number of u-verbs that also end in eru/iru. Though you do not need to memorize every word in the list by any means, you should at least memorize the basic verbs.

Role of Verbs

Vocabulary

1. 食べる 【た・べる】 (ru-verb) – to eat
2. 分かる 【わ・かる】 (u-verb) – to understand
3. 見る 【み・る】 (ru-verb) – to see
4. 寝る 【ね・る】 (ru-verb) – to sleep
5. 起きる 【お・きる】 (ru-verb) – to wake; to occur
6. 考える 【かんが・える】 (ru-verb) – to think
7. 教える 【おし・える】 (ru-verb) – to teach; to inform
8. 出る 【で・る】 (ru-verb) – to come out
9. いる (ru-verb) – to exist (animate)
10. 着る 【き・る】 (ru-verb) – to wear
11. 話す 【はな・す】 (u-verb) – to speak
12. 聞く 【き・く】 (u-verb) – to ask; to listen
13. 泳ぐ 【およ・ぐ】 (u-verb) – to swim
14. 遊ぶ 【あそ・ぶ】 (u-verb) – to play
15. 待つ 【ま・つ】 (u-verb) – to wait
16. 飲む 【の・む】 (u-verb) – to drink
17. 買う 【か・う】 (u-verb) – to buy
18. ある (u-verb) – to exist (inanimate)
19. 死ぬ 【し・ぬ】 (u-verb) – to die
20. する (exception) – to do
21. 来る 【く・る】 (exception) – to come
22. お金 【お・かね】 – money
23. 私 【わたし】 – me, myself, I
24. 猫 【ねこ】 – cat

We’ve now learned how to describe nouns in various ways with other nouns and adjectives. This gives us quite a bit of expressive power. However, we still cannot express actions. This is where verbs come in. Verbs, in Japanese, always come at the end of clauses. Since we have not yet learned how to create more than one clause, for now it means that any sentence with a verb must end with the verb. We will now learn the three main categories of verbs, which will allow us to define conjugation rules. Before learning about verbs, there is one important thing to keep in mind.

Or to rephrase, unlike English, the only thing you need to make a grammatically complete sentence is a verb and nothing else! That’s why even the simplest, most basic Japanese sentence cannot be translated into English!

A grammatically complete sentence:

• 食べる。
  Eat. (possible translations include: I eat/she eats/they eat)

Classifying verbs into ru-verbs and u-verbs

Before we can learn any verb conjugations, we first need to learn how verbs are categorized. With the exception of only two exception verbs, all verbs fall into the category of ru-verb or u-verb.

All ru-verbs end in 「る」 while u-verbs can end in a number of u-vowel sounds including 「る」. Therefore, if a verb does not end in 「る」, it will always be an u-verb. For verbs ending in 「る」, if the vowel sound preceding the 「る」 is an /a/, /u/ or /o/ vowel sound, it will always be an u-verb. Otherwise, if the preceding sound is an /i/ or /e/ vowel sound, it will be a ru-verb in most cases. A list of common exceptions are at the end of this section.

Examples

1. 食べる – 「べ」 is an e-vowel sound so it is a ru-verb
2. 分かる – 「か」 is an a-vowel sound so it is an u-verb

If you’re unsure which category a verb falls in, you can verify which kind it is with most dictionaries. There are only two exception verbs that are neither ru-verbs nor u-verbs as shown in the table below.

Examples

Here are some example sentences using ru-verbs, u-verbs, and exception verbs.

1. アリスは食べる。
   As for Alice, eat.
2. ジムが来る。
   Jim is the one that comes.
3. ボブもする。
   Bob also do.
4. お金がある。
   There is money. (lit: Money is the thing that exists.)
5. 私は買う。
   As for me, buy.
6. 猫はいる。
   There is cat. (lit: As for cat, it exists.)

Appendix: iru/eru u-verbs

Vocabulary

1. 要る 【い・る】 (u-verb) – to need
2. 帰る 【かえ・る】 (u-verb) – to go home
3. 切る 【き・る】 (u-verb) – to cut
4. しゃべる (u-verb) – to talk
5. 知る 【し・る】 (u-verb) – to know
6. 入る 【はい・る】 (u-verb) – to enter
7. 走る 【はし・る】 (u-verb) – to run
8. 減る 【へ・る】 (u-verb) – to decrease
9. 焦る 【あせ・る】 (u-verb) – to be in a hurry
10. 限る 【かぎ・る】 (u-verb) – to limit
11. 蹴る 【け・る】 (u-verb) – to kick
12. 滑る 【すべ・る】 (u-verb) – to be slippery
13. 握る 【にぎ・る】 (u-verb) – to grasp
14. 練る 【ね・る】 (u-verb) – to knead
15. 参る 【まい・る】 (u-verb) – to go; to come
16. 交じる 【まじ・る】 (u-verb) – to mingle
17. 嘲る 【あざけ・る】 (u-verb) – to ridicule
18. 覆る 【くつがえ・る】 (u-verb) – to overturn
19. 遮る 【さえぎ・る】 (u-verb) – to interrupt
20. 罵る 【ののし・る】 (u-verb) – to abuse verbally
21. 捻る 【ひね・る】 (u-verb) – to twist
22. 翻る 【ひるが・える】 (u-verb) – to turn over; to wave
23. 滅入る 【めい・る】 (u-verb) – to feel depressed
24. 蘇る 【よみがえ・る】 (u-verb) – to be resurrected

Below is a list of u-verbs with a preceding vowel sound of /i/ or /e/ (“iru” or “eru” sound endings). The list is not comprehensive but it does include many of the more common verbs categorized roughly into three levels.

Vocabulary used in this section

In the following exercises, we will practice the conjugations for adjectives. But first, you might want to learn or review the following useful adjectives that will be used in the exercises.

Conjugation Exercise

We are now going to practice the adjectives conjugations in order. Take each adjective and conjugate it to the following forms: the declarative (when applicable), negative, past, and negative past. In order to emphasize the fact that you can’t use the declarative 「だ」 with i-adjectives, you should just write “n/a” (or just leave it blank) when a conjugation does not apply.

Sentence completion exercise

Now that we’ve practiced the basic conjugations for adjectives, we are going to practice using them in actual sentences using the particles covered in the last section.

Fill in the blank with the appropriate adjective or particle

Sample:

Ｑ）　学生？

Ａ）　ううん、学生じゃない。

Properties of Adjectives

Now that we can connect two nouns together in various ways using particles, we want to describe our nouns with adjectives. An adjective can directly modify a noun that immediately follows it. It can also be connected in the same way we did with nouns using particles. All adjectives fall under two categories: na-adjectives and i-adjectives.

The na-adjective

Vocabulary

1. 静か 【しず・か】 (na-adj) – quiet
2. 人 【ひと】 – person
3. きれい (na-adj) – pretty; clean
4. 友達 【とも・だち】 – friend
5. 親切 【しん・せつ】 (na-adj) – kind
6. 魚 【さかな】 – fish
7. 好き 【す・き】 (na-adj) – likable; desirable
8. 肉 【にく】 – meat
9. 野菜 【や・さい】 – vegetables

The na-adjective is very simple to learn because it acts essentially like a noun. All the conjugation rules for both nouns and na-adjectives are the same. One main difference is that a na-adjective can directly modify a noun following it by sticking 「な」 between the adjective and noun. (Hence the name, na-adjective.)

Examples

1. 静かな人。
   Quiet person.
2. きれいな人。
   Pretty person.

You can also use adjectives with particles just like we did in the last lesson with nouns.

Examples

1. 友達は親切。
   Friend is kind.
2. 友達は親切な人だ。
   Friend is kind person.

As shown by the following examples, the conjugation rules for na-adjectives are the same as nouns.

Examples

1. ボブは魚が好きだ。
   Bob likes fish.
2. ボブは魚が好きじゃない。
   Bob does not like fish.
3. ボブは魚が好きだった。
   Bob liked fish.
4. ボブは魚が好きじゃなかった。
   Bob did not like fish.

If it bothers you that “like” is an adjective and not a verb in Japanese, you can think of 「好き」 as meaning “desirable”. Also, you can see a good example of the topic and identifier particle working in harmony. The sentence is about the topic “Bob” and “fish” identifies specifically what Bob likes.

You can also use the last three conjugations to directly modify the noun. (Remember to attach 「な」 for positive non-past tense.)

Examples

1. 魚が好きな人。
   Person that likes fish.
2. 魚が好きじゃない人。
   Person that does not like fish.
3. 魚が好きだった人。
   Person that liked fish.
4. 魚が好きじゃなかった人。
   Person that did not like fish.

Here, the entire clause 「魚が好き」、「魚が好きじゃない」、etc. is modifying “person” to talk about people that like or dislike fish. You can see why this type of sentence is useful because 「人は魚が好きだ」 would mean “People like fish”, which isn’t always the case.

We can even treat the whole descriptive noun clause as we would a single noun. For instance, we can make the whole clause a topic like the following example.

Examples

1. 魚が好きじゃない人は、肉が好きだ。
   Person who does not like fish like meat.
2. 魚が好きな人は、野菜も好きだ。
   Person who likes fish also likes vegetables.

The i-adjective

Vocabulary

1. 嫌い 【きら・い】 (na-adj) – distasteful, hateful
2. 食べ物 【た・べ・もの】 – food
3. おいしい (i-adj) – tasty
4. 高い 【たか・い】 (i-adj) – high; tall; expensive
5. ビル – building
6. 値段 【ね・だん】 – price
7. レストラン – restaurant
8. あまり／あんまり – not very (when used with negative)
9. 好き 【す・き】 (na-adj) – likable; desirable
10. いい (i-adj) – good

All i-adjectives always end in the Hiragana character: 「い」. However, you may have noticed that some na-adjectives also end in 「い」 such as 「きれい（な）」. So how can you tell the difference? There are actually very few na-adjectives that end with 「い」 that is usually not written in Kanji. Two of the most common include: 「きれい」 and 「嫌い」. Almost all other na-adjectives that end in 「い」 are usually written in Kanji and so you can easily tell that it’s not an i-adjective. For instance, 「きれい」 written in Kanji looks like 「綺麗」 or 「奇麗」. Since the 「い」 part of 「麗」 is part of a Kanji character, you know that it can’t be an i-adjective. That’s because the whole point of the 「い」 in i-adjectives is to allow conjugation without changing the Kanji. In fact, 「嫌い」 is one of the rare na-adjectives that ends in 「い」 without a Kanji. This has to do with the fact that 「嫌い」 is actually derived from the verb 「嫌う」.

Unlike na-adjectives, you do not need to add 「な」 to directly modify a noun with an i-adjective.

Examples

1. 嫌いな食べ物。
   Hated food.
2. おいしい食べ物。
   Tasty food.

Remember how the negative state-of-being for nouns also ended in 「い」 （じゃない）? Well, just like the negative state-of-being for nouns, you can never attach the declarative 「だ」 to i-adjectives.

Now that we got that matter cleared up, below are the rules for conjugating i-adjectives. Notice that the rule for conjugating to negative past tense is the same as the rule for the past tense.

Examples

1. 高いビル。
   Tall building.
2. 高くないビル。
   Not tall building.
3. 高かったビル。
   Building that was tall.
4. 高くなかったビル。
   Building that was not tall.

Note that you can make the same type of descriptive noun clause as we have done with na-adjectives. The only difference is that we don’t need 「な」 to directly modify the noun.

Example

• 値段が高いレストランはあまり好きじゃない。
  Don’t like high price restaurants very much.

In this example, the descriptive clause 「値段が高い」 is directly modifying 「レストラン」.

An annoying exception

Vocabulary

1. 値段 【ね・だん】 – price
2. あまり／あんまり – not very (when used with negative)
3. いい (i-adj) – good
4. 彼 【かれ】 – he; boyfriend
5. かっこいい (i-adj) – cool; handsome

There is one i-adjective meaning “good” that acts slightly differently from all other i-adjectives. This is a classic case of how learning Japanese is harder for beginners because the most common and useful words also have the most exceptions. The word for “good” was originally 「よい（良い）」. However, with time, it soon became 「いい」. When it is written in Kanji, it is usually read as 「よい」 so 「いい」 is almost always Hiragana. That’s all fine and good. Unfortunately, all the conjugations are still derived from 「よい」 and not 「いい」. This is shown in the next table.

Another adjective that acts like this is 「かっこいい」 because it is an abbreviated version of two words merged together: 「格好」 and 「いい」. Since it uses the same 「いい」, you need to use the same conjugations.

Take care to make all the conjugations from 「よい」 not 「いい」.

Examples

1. 値段があんまりよくない。
   Price isn’t very good.
2. 彼はかっこよかった！
   He looked really cool!

Vocabulary used in this section

Basic Particle Exercise with 「は」

Let’s first get used to the basic concept of particles by making some very simple sentences with them. In this first exercise, we are going to use the topic particle to explain the current topic of conversation. Remember, the topic particle 「は」 is always pronounced as /wa/.

Sample: 誰？ （Topic: アリス） ＝ アリスは誰？

Particle Exercise with 「は」 and 「も」

Now we are going to practice getting used to the differences between the 「は」 and 「も」 particles. The sentences are actually pretty lame but this was the only way I could think of to make obvious which particle should be used. Remember, the point is to get a sense of when and when not to use the inclusive particle instead of the topic particle.

Fill in the blank with the correct particle, either 「は」 or 「も」

Sample: これは鉛筆だ。それも鉛筆だ。

Particle Exercise with 「は」, 「も」, 「が」

In this last exercise, we will practice all three particles by identifying which one should be used for different types of situations. Remember that the 「が」 particle is only used when you want to identify something out of many other possibilities. While there are some cases where both 「は」 and 「が」 makes sense grammatically, because they mean different things, the correct one all depends on what you want to say.

Fill in the blank with the correct particle, either 「は」、 「も」、 or 「が」

Defining grammatical functions with particles

We want to now make good use of what we learned in the last lesson by associating a noun with another noun. This is done with something called particles. Particles are one or more Hiragana characters that attach to the end of a word to define the grammatical function of that word in the sentence. Using the correct particles is very important because the meaning of a sentence can completely change just by changing the particles. For example, the sentence “Eat fish.” can become “The fish eats.” simply by changing one particle.

The 「は」 topic particle

Vocabulary

1. 学生 【がく・せい】 – student
2. うん – yes (casual)
3. 明日 【あした】 – tomorrow
4. ううん – no (casual)
5. 今日 【きょう】 – today
6. 試験 【しけん】 – exam

The first particle we will learn is the topic particle. The topic particle identifies what it is that you’re talking about, essentially the topic of your sentence. Let’s say a person says, “Not student.” This is a perfectly valid sentence in Japanese but it doesn’t tell us much without knowing what the person is talking about. The topic particle will allow us to express what our sentences are about. The topic particle is the character 「は」. Now, while this character is normally pronounced as /ha/, it is pronounced /wa/ only when it is being used as the topic particle.

Example 1

ボブ：アリスは学生？
Bob: Is Alice (you) student?

アリス：うん、学生。
Alice: Yeah, (I) am.

Here, Bob is indicating that his question is about Alice. Notice that once the topic is established, Alice does not have to repeat the topic to answer the question about herself.

Example 2

ボブ：ジョンは明日？
Bob: John is tomorrow?

アリス：ううん、明日じゃない。
Alice: No, not tomorrow.

Since we have no context, we don’t have enough information to make any sense of this conversation. It obviously makes no sense for John to actually be tomorrow. Given a context, as long as the sentence has something to do with John and tomorrow, it can mean anything. For instance, they could be talking about when John is taking an exam.

Example 3

アリス：今日は試験だ。
Alice: Today is exam.

ボブ：ジョンは？
Bob: What about John?

アリス：ジョンは明日。
Alice: John is tomorrow. (As for John, the exam is tomorrow.)

The last example shows how generic the topic of a sentence is. A topic can be referring to any action or object from anywhere even including other sentences. For example, in the last sentence from the previous example, even though the sentence is about when the exam is for John, the word “exam” doesn’t appear anywhere in the sentence!

We’ll see a more specific particle that ties more closely into the sentence at the end of this lesson with the identifier particle.

The 「も」 inclusive topic particle

Vocabulary

1. 学生 【がく・せい】 – student
2. うん – yes (casual)
3. でも – but
4. ううん – no (casual)

Another particle that is very similar to the topic particle is the inclusive topic particle. It is essentially the topic particle with the additional meaning of “also”. Basically, it can introduce another topic in addition to the current topic. The inclusive topic particle is the 「も」 character and its use is best explained by an example.

Example 1

ボブ：アリスは学生？
Bob: Is Alice (you) student?

アリス：うん、トムも学生。
Alice: Yeah, and Tom is also student.

The inclusion of 「も」 must be consistent with the answer. It would not make sense to say, “I am a student, and Tom is also not a student.” Instead, use the 「は」 particle to make a break from the inclusion as seen in the next example.

Example 2

ボブ：アリスは学生？
Bob: Is Alice (you) student?

アリス：うん、でもトムは学生じゃない。
Alice: Yeah, but Tom is not student.

Below is an example of inclusion with the negative.

Example 3

ボブ：アリスは学生？
Bob: Is Alice (you) student?

アリス：ううん、トムも学生じゃない。
Alice: No, and Tom is also not student.

The 「が」 identifier particle

Vocabulary

1. 誰 【だれ】 – who
2. 学生 【がく・せい】 – student
3. 私 【わたし】 – me; myself; I

Ok, so we can make a topic using the 「は」 and 「も」 particle. But what if we don’t know what the topic is? What if I wanted to ask, “Who is the student?” What I need is some kind of identifier because I don’t know who the student is. If I use the topic particle, the question would become, “Is who the student?” and that doesn’t make any sense because “who” is not an actual person.

This is where the 「が」 particle comes into play. It is also referred to as the subject particle but I hate that name since “subject” means something completely different in English grammar. Instead, I call it the identifier particle because the particle indicates that the speaker wants to identify something unspecified.

Example 1

ボブ：誰が学生？
Bob: Who is the one that is student?

アリス：ジョンが学生。
Alice: John is the one who is student.

Bob wants to identify who among all the possible candidates is a student. Alice responds that John is the one. Notice, Alice could also have answered with the topic particle to indicate that, speaking of John, she knows that he is a student (maybe not the student). You can see the difference in the next example.

Example 2

1. 誰が学生？
   Who is the one that is student?
2. 学生は誰？
   (The) student is who?

The first sentence seeks to identify a specific person for “student” while the second sentence is simply talking about the student. You cannot replace 「が」 with 「は」 in the first sentence because “who” would become the topic and the question would become, “Is who a student?”

The two particles 「は」 and 「が」 may seem very similar only because it is impossible to translate them directly into English. For example, the two sentences below have the same English translation.*

Example 3

1. 私は学生。
   I (am) student.
2. 私が学生。
   I (am) student.

However, they only seem similar because English cannot express information about the context as succinctly as Japanese sometimes can. In the first sentence, since 「私」 is the topic, the sentence means, “Speaking about me, I am a student”.

However, the second sentence is specifying who the 「学生」 is. If we want to know who the student is, the 「が」 particle tells us it’s 「私」. You can also think about the 「が」 particle as always answering a silent question. The second sentence might be answering a question, “Who is the student?” I often translate the topic particle as “as for; about” and the identifier particle as “the one; the thing” to illustrate the difference.

1. 私は学生。
   As for me, (I am) student.
2. 私が学生。
   I (am) the one (that is) student.

The 「は」 and 「が」 particles are actually quite different if you think of it the right way. The 「が」 particle identifies a specific property of something while the 「は」 particle is used only to bring up a new topic of conversation. This is why, in longer sentences, it is common to separate the topic with commas to remove ambiguity about which part of the sentence the topic applies to.

*Well technically, it’s the most likely translation given the lack of context.

*Note: The order of topics covered are different in the videos so you may want to read about Adjectives first.

Vocabulary used in this section

In the following exercises, we will practice the state-of-being conjugations we just covered. But first, you might want to learn or review the following useful nouns that will be used in the exercises.

Conjugation Exercise 1

We are now going to practice the state-of-being conjugations in order. Take each noun and conjugate it to the following forms: the declarative, negative state-of-being, past state-of-being, and negative past state-of-being.

Sample: 人 ＝ 人だ、人じゃない、人だった、人じゃなかった

Conjugation Exercise 2

In this second exercise, we are really going to test your conjugation knowledge as well as the vocabulary by translating some simple English sentences.
Please note that while the positive, non-past state-of-being can be implied, for the purpose of this exercise, we will assume it’s always declaratory. Don’t forget that
this creates a very firm and declaratory tone.

Sample: Is student. ＝ 学生だ。

Question Answer Exercise

In this last exercise, we’ll practice answering very simple questions using the state-of-being. The yes or no answer （うん or ううん） will be given and it is your job to complete the sentence. In deciding whether to use the declaratory 「だ」, I’ve decided to be sexist here and assume all males use the declaratory 「だ」 and all females use the implicit state-of-being (not the case in the real world).

Sample:
Ｑ）　学生？
Ａ）　ううん、学生じゃない。