Quote:
Originally Posted by RobinMask
Thank you, Masaegu and Kyle 
I think I can see where I've gone wrong now. I've miscatergorised the two verbs as belonging to the wrong groups? I think I just became confused due to how '作れ', for example, was introduced in its dictionary form as 'つくる', so - by the rules the book presented - I was changing it according to as if it belonged to another verb group . . .
I'll try to bear in mind the rules for catergorising the verbs as Kyle mentioned earlier, it seems to help when bearing in mind which group of verbs is which (and thus how to make the potential).
Thank you for the examples, too, Masaegu. It helped to further understand things. |
The Japanese refer to verbs as godan (e.g., 行く、飲む) and ichidan (e.g., 食べる). Terms like "regular 1/2" or "class 1/2" or "step 1/2" they've never used.
Keep in mind these rules:
1. There are very, very few irregular verbs (する、来る、下さる、いらっしゃる, 行く, maybe a couple others), but each irregular verb is almost always regular with only a couple forms actually being irregular. For example, 行く follows all regular rules for "godan" verbs except for the past tense and て form, which are いって／いった rather than いいて／いいた
2. Anything else that does not end in eru/iru is a godan.
3. Of the eru/iru-ending verbs, 95% are ichidan. The rest are godan. You have to memorize which these are. There are very few.