う-Verb (Dictionary)う + ます (Godan Verbs)

Short form is also often called 'casual form' (because it is used in casual language), or 'plain form'

Structure

Examples:
座(すわ)る
歌(うた)う
歩(ある)く
話(はな)す
打(う)つ
死(し)ぬ
飛(と)ぶ
休(やす)む
泳(およ)ぐ

Details

Part of Speech
Verb
Word Type
Independent Word
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Standard

About う-Verb (Dictionary)

う-Verbs include all of the verbs in Japanese that end in う sounds (including some of the verbs that end in る). These verbs are called Godan (五段(ごだん)) 'five-level' verbs in Japanese, due to their conjugations using all 5 of the different sounds in the same column (段(だん)) that their base form comes from.

As we can see here, the く in 聞(き)く changes to き when conjugated to the polite form. All of the other sounds the K-column will be used with 聞(き)く, depending on the conjugation. This is the same for all of the う-Verbs.

聞(き)かない, 聞(き)きたい, 聞(き)く, 聞(き)ける, 聞(き)こう

Here we can see the う-Verb 聞(き)く using all of the different K-column sounds in various conjugations.

Caution

Just like with る-Verbs, the base form of the verb may be called 'plain form', 'casual form', or 'short form', depending on the source/book.

Examples

--:--

聞(き)く → 聞(き)きます

To listen/hear

座(すわ)る → 座(すわ)ります

To sit down

飲(の)む→ 飲(の)みます

To drink

打(う)つ → 打(う)ちます

To hit

会(あ)う → 会(あ)います

To meet

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う-Verb (Dictionary) – Grammar Discussion

Most Recent Replies (14 in total)

Jake
Godan verbs: end in a う sound
Structure
- 飲む・飲みます
- 飲んだ・飲みました
- 飲まない・飲みません
- 飲まなかった・飲みませんでした
View on Bunpro
kamirr
I can’t decipher what the structure means, can somebody explain which entries correspond to polite / casual forms etc.?

mrnoone

Hey and welcome on community forums
I hope the conjugation is more understandable this way:

Verb	Ex. Non-past Short	Ex. Non-Past Polite	Ex. Past Short	Ex. Past Polite
V(る5)	座る	座ります	座った	座りました
V(う)	歌う	歌います	歌った	歌いました
V(く)	歩く	歩きます	歩いた	歩きました
V(す)	話す	話します	話した	話し

kamirr
Yep, that cleared this up for me. Thanks!
FredKore
Just browsing the new pages and this one’s structure seemed confusing…
Angry_Bee
Are formal form and polite form the same thing?
FredKore
As it’s used here, yes.
Ayeblinken
I am so lost on this one, I have no idea how to read the structure,

This is chaos

How does janai turn into jaarimasen

Edit: I watched some TokiniAndy videos covering this chapter and it was extremely helpful. Do wonder if this could be broken down a little more clearly in the bunpro explanation though. Still don’t quite understand where the parentheses things are coming from.
nekoyama
It’s just nine examples for how to change the last kana in a verb’s dictionary form to the kana from the same row with an “i” sound, and then add “ます”, which is how godan verbs are transformed into their polite ます form. I’m not sure why the grammar point doesn’t actually say that that’s the rule, but other than that, it’s just a lot of examples, maybe to make sure people see some of the cases that are slightly less obvious to us Westerners like how し is the i-version of す and ち is the i-version of つ (basically, problems people have when they learn Japanese with romaji instead of learning the kana first).

As for the parentheses, the kana in parentheses are just how the kanji in front of them are read in those words. I’m not sure why it’s only those four and only on the polite tab.
Ayeblinken
Yeahhhh, I get the structure now and I completely understand the grammar point but I think bunpro really needs to update this specific lesson for the things you pointed out.
Why only have furigana for 4 of the words, and only the polite forms?
It takes a grammar point that’s fairly simple and makes it really really hard to see what the actual structure is.
bhenryjp1
nekoyama
No, it would have to be もたない.
FredKore
I was curious so I tried it. Google is not great for checking proper grammar – it takes whatever you give it and tries to interpret what you meant to say. But notice, in the ローマ字, it still recognizes that ‘mochinai’ is not a word and separates it into two…
bhenryjp1
I totally overlooked and misread the た in the casual form. Thanks!
delliepops
The ____ is labeled “polite”. But I’m supposed to fill in the casual form? This doesn’t make sense to me. Shouldn’t the ____ be labeled “casual”?

Here’s what the question looks like:

(Polite) → 飲みます

Why is the correct answer nomu (casual form) when the label is clearly asking me to fill in the polite form, which is what’s already on the right side?