Quote:
Originally Posted by BenBullock
In the Japanese grammar which Japanese people are taught, there are seven forms of verbs, which are called the mizenkei, ren'youkei, shuushikei, rentaikei, kateikei, meireikei, and kihonkei. That might be what they meant. 
Having said that, I'm not really qualified to teach you Japanese or offer advice about how to learn the language, but if you are a beginner learner I'd advise you to forget about all of the above words and stick with explanations like Kyle provided here. The reason is that these "kei" things are based on a historical grammar and take some bending to fit with modern Japanese. |
Ah, that's the most likely explanation, Ben!
Yes, OP, listen to the above post: the seven forms of verb don't fit perfectly with modern Japanese. For example, the mizenkei (未然形) is the stem before 〜ず／ざり／etc. It's basically the "imperfect" form ("not yet happened" form). Or so says my copy of
A Handbook to Classical Japanese by Wixted.