Page 141 - Easy Japanese - Learn to Speak Japanese Quickly! (TUTTLE)

• For Adjective predicates, drop desu.
Takai desu. → Takai. It’s expensive.
Takaku nai desu. → Takaku nai. It’s not expensive.

Takakatta desu. → Takakatta. It was expensive.

Takaku nakatta desu. → Takaku It was not expensive.
nakatta.

• For Noun predicates, replace desu with da and deshita with datta. However,
da in the sentence final position is often dropped.
Nihon-go desu. → Nihon-go. It’s Japanese.

Nihon-go ja nai desu. → Nihon-go ja It’s not Japanese.
nai.

Nihon-go deshita. → Nihon-go It was Japanese.
datta.
Nihon-go ja nakatta → Nihon-go ja It was not Japanese.
desu nakatta.

• For verb predicates, you need to know the Informal form of each verb. There
are conjugation rules for verbs in different groups. Japanese verbs are
divided into the four groups: 1) U-verbs 2) Ru-verbs 3) Irregular verbs and
4) Special Polite verbs.

U-Verbs
This is the largest verb group. To make the plain form of a verb in this group,
replace -imasu with -u. (Or drop -masu and change i to u.) A verb stem is the
portion of the verb before -masu. The stem of the verbs in this group all end in -
i.

Stem Meaning Informal Form
wakar-i understand → wakar-u

ka-i buy → ka-u
kak-i write → kak-u

nom-i drink → nom-u

oyog-i swim → oyog-u
hanash- talk → hanas-u
i