Japanese Verb Conjugation Guide
Japanese verb conjugation becomes predictable once you group verbs by ending and practise the forms as a system.
About the author
Luke McLaughlin created Constructing Language after living in Japan and later learning Mandarin Chinese from scratch. The lessons, games, and guides are built from that first-hand learner experience and checked against native-speaker course work with Hiro for Japanese and Xiang for Mandarin Chinese.
- Lived in Japan and studied Japanese through immersion and structured self-study.
- Learned Mandarin Chinese from scratch as an adult learner.
- Created the Construction Method: audio-first sentence building, grammar graphics, and active recall.
- Built Japanese course material with Hiro and Mandarin course material with Xiang, both native-speaker collaborators.
Start with verb groups
Japanese verbs fall into broad groups. U-verbs change the final sound, Ru-verbs often drop る, and irregular verbs must be memorised early.
- U-verbs include forms like 書く, 話す, and 飲む.
- Ru-verbs include forms like 食べる and 見る.
- する and 来る are the key irregular verbs.
Learn forms by function
Instead of memorising a chart once, connect each form to what it does: politeness, negation, past action, connection, ability, receiving, making, or being acted upon.
Practise with recall
Seeing a form is easier than producing it. Use wheel drills to force active recall across many verbs and adjectives.