Japanese Verb Conjugation Practice: Find the Rule You Break

Knowing a conjugation chart by sight and typing the right ending from memory are two different skills. Twelve verbs on paper show which rule each wrong answer comes from, and that rule decides where your verb conjugation practice starts.

Someone who wrote the same wrong form twice might say this about their notebook:

同じ失敗を繰り返さないように、ノートに書いておいた。おなじしっぱいをくりかえさないように、ノートにかいておいた。 (onajishippaiwokurikaesanaiyouni,nootonikaiteoita.)

I wrote it down in my notebook so I would not repeat the same mistake.

Try these 12 verbs once you have studied the て (te), ない (nai), and た (ta) forms, before any typing practice. Form names you cannot yet turn into endings, such as ない (nai) form, point to the verb conjugation field note first.

Each verb is in its dictionary form, with the form to make after it. Write or say all 12 answers before you look at the table.

For the ない (nai) and た (ta) forms, give the plain form, without ます (masu). Kana, kanji, and romaji all count.

Verb 1, 書くかく (kaku): the て (te) form. Verb 2, 買うかう (kau): the ない (nai) form. Verb 3, 泳ぐおよぐ (oyogu): the た (ta) form.

Verb 4, 飲むのむ (nomu): the て (te) form. Verb 5, 見るみる (miru): the ない (nai) form. Verb 6, 行くいく (iku): the て (te) form.

Verb 7, 話すはなす (hanasu): the た (ta) form. Verb 8, 来るくる (kuru): the て (te) form. Verb 9, する (suru): the ない (nai) form.

Verb 10, 待つまつ (matsu): the て (te) form. Verb 11, 死ぬしぬ (shinu): the た (ta) form. Verb 12, 帰るかえる (kaeru): the て (te) form.

“Answer” gives each answer in kana, and in kanji where the verb has one, and “Rule for the ending” names the rule that makes it.

These scoring rules belong to this page. An answer in kana or in the kanji shown is right, and romaji is right when it spells the same sounds as the kana.

A blank counts as wrong. So does a polite form such as 書きますかきます (kakimasu), and so does an answer that is one kana off, such as かいって (kaitte) for 書くかく (kaku).

Circle the number of each wrong row. The rule in that row is what you practice, and the next section turns your circled rows into one place to start.

Five checks follow, and their order is part of the rule. Go through them from the first, and stop at the first one that matches your circled rows.

Check 1 is about form names. If a name such as ない (nai) form did not tell you what to make, read the field note on Japanese verb conjugation first. That includes a form you left blank for that reason, or answered with ます (masu).

Its chart of eight basic forms shows the ない (nai) form (the plain negative) and the た (ta) form (the plain past) for one verb. A later section covers the て (te) form. After that, answer the 12 verbs again and start these checks over.

Check 2 is a sheet with no circles. Go straight to the “Conjugation gym” in Ukiyoe Japanese, with the answer mode set to “Type it.”

Check 3 looks at rows 5 and 12. 見るみる (miru) is a ru-verb, one that drops る (ru) to make its forms. 帰るかえる (kaeru) also ends in る (ru), but it is a u-verb, which changes that last kana instead.

If either row is circled, read the part of the conjugation field note on sorting ru-verbs from u-verbs ending in る (ru). Then go to the “Conjugation gym.”

Check 4 is the て (te) form. If every circled row is a て (te) form row other than rows 6 and 8, start with “Te-form forge,” another of the Skill Drills. Move to the “Conjugation gym” after it.

Check 5 takes everything else: circled ない (nai) or た (ta) rows, row 6 or 8, the する (suru) row, or a mix of forms. Read the rule column of each circled row again, then open the “Conjugation gym” with “Type it” selected.

Two examples show how the order works. Say rows 6 and 9 are circled, with いいて (iite) for 行くいく (iku) and すない (sunai) for する (suru). Row 9 is a ない (nai) form row, so check 4 does not match, and check 5 does.

Now say rows 4 and 12 are circled. Both are て (te) form rows, but check 3 comes before check 4, so the ru-verb section is your first stop.

“Conjugation gym,” on the Skill Drills page of Ukiyoe Japanese, has 30 questions for N5 and N4. In 25 of them you type the form yourself, and a question you get wrong goes to “Missed questions.” Redoing it from there is outside the daily limit.

Once you have seen the answer table, these 12 verbs cannot test you a second time. The drill puts its questions in a new order each time you open it, so the same rules return mixed with others.

All 12 verbs on this page are among its 30 questions, each in the same form. The other 18 are two more て (te) form questions, two more ない (nai) form questions, nine on other forms, and the five fill-in questions.

Each question comes with an explanation of its rule. At the end of a run, the questions you got wrong come back once more, under “One more try.”

The drill also treats a one-character mistake differently from this page. When a typed answer of four or more characters is one character off, such as かいって (kaitte), you get one retype. It counts as wrong only if the retype is also off.

Typing all 30 takes “Type it,” which turns the five fill-in questions into typing, with kana or romaji accepted. The other 25 ask you to type in either answer mode. Each run also mixes all 30, so it cannot give you only the rows you circled.

The daily limit covers drill questions too: 10 a day without an account, or 20 with a free account. A free account gets up to five extra questions when you answer several in a row correctly. Even so, one run of 30 does not fit in a single day.

Someone looking for a tool that turns any verb into all its forms will not find one here. The drill shows a form only after you answer, and it stops at N5 and N4 forms. Adjective forms belong to the field note on Japanese adjectives.

These 12 verbs cover three forms. In the N5 grammar explainers of Ukiyoe Japanese, the て (te) form comes before the ない (nai) form. Plain forms, which include the た (ta) form, come later.

Among the N4 explainers, the potential form comes before the volitional form. That is the order of the app's explainers, not an order the JLPT sets.

The field notes on the Japanese potential form and the Japanese volitional form show how each one is made. The “Conjugation gym” has four potential form questions, three volitional ones, and two for たい (tai), the want-to form.

So a rule from these 12 verbs comes first, and the order of the explainers comes after it. With no circled rows, begin that order at the て (te) form.

Whichever check you reached, copy the rule from one circled row into your notebook today, next to the verb. With more than one, take the row whose form comes first in that order.

Take someone with only row 2 circled. Check 5 applies, and the rule to copy is う (u) becomes わ (wa) before ない (nai), next to 買うかう (kau). The same verb comes back among the drill's 30 questions.

Which form do you type first, then? Whichever one you circled.

Stopping at the first of the five checks that matches gives you one place to start.

Check 3, for 見るみる (miru) and 帰るかえる (kaeru), comes before check 4, for rows that are all て (te) form.

Six of the 12 verbs here ask for the て (te) form: rows 1, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12. Say each one again with its rule, then try “Te-form forge,” a 30-question drill where 16 are typed in either answer mode.

Two of those six, 行くいく (iku) and 来るくる (kuru), do not follow the rule their last kana suggests. “Te-form forge” does not ask for either verb, and the “Conjugation gym” asks for both.

For what the て (te) form does in a sentence, such as linking two actions, see the field note on how to say and in Japanese.

Yes. On this page, romaji is right when it spells the same sounds as the kana answer, and one wrong letter counts as a wrong answer. In the “Conjugation gym,” a typed answer can be kana or romaji, and romaji is checked as the same kana.

This page follows the order of the grammar explainers in Ukiyoe Japanese, and other courses may use a different order. At N5 the order is the て (te) form, the ない (nai) form, then plain forms such as the た (ta) form. At N4, the potential form comes before the volitional form.

The start screen of the “Conjugation gym” links to explainers on the ます (masu), て (te), and ない (nai) forms, which you can read outside the daily limit. Adjectives have a drill of their own, “Adjective workout.”