Lesson 18: Verbs: Introduction

In Latin based languages we conjugate (change) the verb based on who or what the subject is and also depending on the tense. If you are learning English, for example, it is very difficult to remember all of the verb conjugations.

In Japanese, however, in terms of verb conjugation there are only 3 forms you need to remember. These are:

1. The dictionary form: the way you would search for a word in the dictionary
2. Present continuous form: Similar to [verb + ing] in English
3. The past form: Similar to the [verb + ed] form in English

All the tenses that you an express in English can be expressed in Japanese. However, unlike English which uses a unique verb conjugation for each tense, Japanese only uses the three above mentioned forms to express all of the tenses we use in English.

We will learn the dictionary form of verbs in the next lesson.