Any good Suffix dictionary/finding-out place?

[Ojamajoz]

Hi everyone!

I, in relation to other people on this site, am probably on the lower end of the Japanese-skilled spectrum. I'm good with kanji and markers, and even if I don't know something, I can just look them up in a dictionary. One thing though that kills me is SUFFIXES. Both verb suffixes and adjective suffixes are really hard to look up in a dictionary (for example, looking up a verb in Denshi Jisho with its suffix will just redirect to the verb stem) and there seem to be so many of these suffixes. What the poop do they all mean?

Oftentimes when I attempt to translate something, I'll run into these suffixes. The problem is that a suffix can completely change the entire meaning, but It's so hard for me to look what they mean up. I have no idea how to find out the meaning of a suffix without asking people constantly (and I don't want to do that). Its so frustrating!!!!!1

So I guess what I'm getting at is WHERE CAN I GO TO FIND OUT THE MEANINGS OF THE VAST AMOUNT OF VERB AND ADJECTIVE SUFFIXES? Any physical hardback/softback dictionaries I can buy? Websites? Ect?!??!

[TBox]

Do you mean particles like さ and し (sentence particles that took me a long time to find), or actual suffixes like 的 and っぽい? Or maybe conjugations?

Japanese particles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia is as good as any you'll find online for the former, although you'd be better off with a good grammar book.

Tim Sensei's Corner - Japanese Verbs - Introduction and Table of Contents is good for most conjugations. My only regret is it's in romaji. But again, you want a good grammar book.

I thought Jisho had the actual suffixes in it, but it's down right now (my heart...)

[Ojamajoz]

Thanks, Tbox!

Do you recommend any particular grammar books? Thanks

[KyleGoetz]

By verb suffixes do you mean things like 書く becoming 書き込む and 入る becoming 入り込む?

[Ojamajoz]

Yeah, I guess I wasn't clear enough.

What I meant was just anything that one adds to the end of a verb or adjective to change the meaning. Like conjugations.

For example, my Japanese teacher is teaching us how to write "to be able to do" forms of verbs. 食べられます、聞けます。<<like that.

Is there anywhere where I can find a list of things like that?

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by Ojamajoz

Yeah, I guess I wasn't clear enough.

What I meant was just anything that one adds to the end of a verb or adjective to change the meaning. Like conjugations.

For example, my Japanese teacher is teaching us how to write "to be able to do" forms of verbs. 食べられます、聞けます。<<like that.

Is there anywhere where I can find a list of things like that?

I know there are a series of "501 verbs" books for many languages, and it will contain what you're looking for re verbs.

As far as actual conjugations, there aren't many.

formality:
polite
honorific
humble

tense:
past
て-form
conjunctive form

meaning change
imperative
volitional
passive
causative
causative-passive
potential

That's pretty close to all for verb endings. There are numerous combinations of verbs, so we can't really list all those (it's like asking for all possible suffixes in English—even me telling you wouldn't help you learn the language). Also, many of these will be done differently depending on what word you're talking about.

Typically you will have a formality choice, tense choice, and meaning choice for every verb. For example, 食べる as a polite, causative, past tense would be 食べさせました。 ([i] made [him] eat.)

[Ojamajoz]

thank you soo much for the help! Really appreciate it.