A more subtle noun form for verbs is the "way of doing ..." noun form. For instance, "the way one reads" in English is a full noun phrase, but in Japanese it's a compound noun consisting of the verb "read" in 連用形, paired with the noun 方 (pronounced かた in this use) meaning "way". Thus, よ読む, meaning "read", becomes 読み方, meaning "way of reading".

おはし箸のつか使い方にな慣れてないひと人にむずか難しいです。

"It's hard for people who aren't used to the "way of using" chopsticks."

The verb "to use", 使う, is a transitive verb, and since transitive verbs have their direct object marked with を, the subphrase "to use chopsticks" could be お箸を使う. However, since both お箸 and 使い方 are nouns, we can also choose to use の to link them together. The difference is the following, noting the placement of the brackets:

(お箸を使い)方

The way of 'using chopsticks'

お箸の(使い方)

The 'way of using', for chopsticks

Both express the same idea, but the emphasis in the first sentence lies on the fact that it's about using chopsticks, while the emphasis in the second sentence simply lies with the 'way of using' something, which in this case happens to be chopsticks.

The most common conjunction is the verb/verb conjunction. This takes two verbs, and forms a compound verb with them, by placing the first verb in 連用形 and combining it with the second verb in its normal form. There are plenty of examples to choose from for this type of conjunction:

When verbs are conjoined this way, it is quite common for the okurigana (the hiragana that indicates inflection on verbs and verbal adjectives) of the first verb to be omitted: 飛び出す may be written as 飛出す, but is still pronounced とびだす, and 歩き回る may be written as 歩回る but is still pronounced あるきまわる.

A lot of the time, compound verbs created this way have a meaning which is readily guessable. However, sometimes the compound verb is one that's been in use for ages and its meaning has changed over time. This is a good reminder that while the grammar explains forms, it doesn't necessarily explain semantics (i.e., the actual intended meaning). Be careful when creating your own compound verbs - it's not unlikely you will come up with a combination that already means something else in some subtle, or even not so subtle way.

There are a few common verbs which, when used in this fashion, add a specific meaning to the compound. These are:

直す — 'Fix', 'correct', 'repair'

込む — 'Crowd', 'fill up'

切る — 'Cut'

出す — 'Come out'

There are three adjectives that are commonly used in verb/adjective compounds, being やす易い, にく難い and がた難い, used to mean "easy to ..." and "hard to ..." (twice). For instance, if a book is easy to read, then this can be said in Japanese by combining the verb for reading, よ読む, with the adjective easy, 易い, to form 読み易い, meaning "easy to read". In English this is a noun phrase, but in Japanese this is still an adjective, and can be used to describe objects, such as for instance:

よ読み易いほん本。

An easy to read book.

And of course the same goes for 難い:

い言いにく難いこと事。

Something that is hard to say.

(literally: "a hard-to-say thing")

Unlike the verb/verb conjunctions, this type of conjunction never drops the verb's okurigana.

While both にくい and がたい signify "hard to ...", にくい is a more modern reading; most things that are "hard to ..." in modern Japanese will use the にくい reading. Examples of the がたい reading are found in for instance あ有りがた難い, which is commonly known as paired with the verb ございます, with which it becomes ありがとうございます, meaning "thank you".

This conjunction is a very nice one, because it shows an elementary simplicity in the creation of some of Japanese's nouns: compounding. By combining a verb in 連用形, which we know can act as a noun on its own, with another noun, we can form a new compound noun. This particular conjunction can be seen in some words that one would not immediately think of as compound nouns:

Verbal adjectives, too, can be chained in this way by using their 連用形 + て:

This lets us write the previous "book" sentence in the following manner, using the adjectives おお大きい, big, あか赤い, red and おも重い, heavy.:

これはおお大きくてあか赤くておも重いほん本です。

"This is a big, red, heavy book."

Just like with verbs, the actual inflection of the adjectives in て is determined by the final adjective. To illustrate, the following sentence is entirely in past tense affirmative:

大きくて赤くて重かったはこ箱です。

"(It) was a big, red, heavy box."

To make everything negative, we take the plain negative form of adjectives, ending on ない, and simply use ない's て form:

大きくなくて赤くなくて重い本です。

"(It)'s a not big, not red, heavy book."

Of course, since they're both just て forms, we can even mix the two:

大きくて赤くなくて重かったはこ箱です。

"(It) was a big, not red, heavy box."

This "placing ない in て form" to form the negative て form for verbal adjectives also applies to verbs, by first forming their plain negative form, 未然形 + ない, and then turning this negative into a て form:

た食べなくてかえ帰りました。

"(I) didn't eat, and went home."

For nouns, which rely on copulae for inflections, we do not use the 連用形 for つ, but instead rely on the 連用形 for です, which is で:

きれいで、あか明るいへや部屋です。

"A tidy, bright room."

As with the verbal て form, tense and polarity are expressed by the final verbal (which can be either a verb, verbal adjective or a copula), so that if we want to place the previous sentence in past tense, we need only change the tense for あか明るい:

きれいで、明るかった部屋です。

"(It) was a tidy, bright room."

The negative form for this continuative uses じゃない (or ではない), which due to it ending on ない uses the adjectival て form. So far so good, but this is where things get a little complicated: because ない is a verbal adjective, and verbal adjectives can be paired with です, we can actually choose between two "て" forms. One is the regular て form, なくて; the other is ない + 連用形 of です, giving us ないで instead. Both are used, but depending on the speaker's intention, one is usually preferred over the other. For regular chaining, ないで tends to be preferred; for a chaining with an implied contrast of sorts, なくて is typically preferred. To illustrate:

きれいじゃないで、明るい部屋です。

"(it) is a not (so) tidy, (but) bright room."

(no real contrast, although in English the phrasing makes it sound like one)

しず静かじゃなくて、にぎ賑やかなくうき空気でした。

"Rather than quiet, it was a very lively atmosphere."

(real contrast, explicit "rather than X, Y instead" connotation)

Of course this continuative also works for verbal adjectives and verbs in plain negative form, as these end on ない:

おお大きくてあか赤くないでおも重かったはこ箱です。

"(It) was a big, not red, heavy box."

た食べないでかえ帰りました。

"(I) didn't eat, (then) went home."

As mentioned in the section on negatives in this chapter, the negative continuative ないで/なくて is actually similar in role to using a verbal 未然形 + ず + に, meaning "without ...", but there is the subtle difference: ないで is a verb form, while -ずに is an adverbial form. Chaining many affirmative and negative verb actions using the negative て form is possible, while 未然形+ずに doesn't allow you to 'chain':

食べなくて学校へい行ってバスをの乗らなくてつ着きました。

食べないで学校へ行ってバスを乗らないで着きました。

"[I] didn't eat, went to school, didn't take the bus and arrived."

We can interpret this sentence as the more natural sounding "I went to school without eating and (then) arrived without taking the bus." but this misrepresents the actual Japanese, which chains four verb phrases. For actual Japanese that reflects this English sentence, we must use the following:

食べずに学校へ行って、バスを乗らずに着きました。

In the て form sentence, we're chaining four different actions, namely not eating, going, not boarding, and arriving. However, in this sentence using -ずに we are listing just two actions, and both of these are adverbially constrained: 食べずに行く is "going without eating" and バスを乗らずに着く is "arriving without having taken the bus".

Combining the て form with ある and いる profoundly changes the verb's meaning in terms of its grammatical role. Using these two verbs as helper verbs lets us turn any verb into a resultant state, a present progressive form or an habitual act, depending on whether the verb is transitive or intransitive, and whether we use ある or いる. The table of which combinations can imply which constructions is as follows:

Looking at the table, we see that the て+ある form is used to indicate that something is in a particular state, and that this state was caused by someone or something. Examples of this "resultant state" are for instance:

ボタンがはず外してある。

"The button is (in an) unfastened (state) (because someone unfastened it)."

くるま車がと止めてある。

"The car is (in a) stopped (state) (because someone stopped it)."

This construction describes the state of something, just like a normal intransitive verb would, but also implies that someone is responsible for this state. The reason for this is the fact that a transitive verb is used as basis: a transitive verb describes an action being performed by something or someone. Thus, even if the something or someone that performs the verb is left off, the fact that a transitive verb was used is in itself enough to tell us that something or someone must have performed it.

On the other hand, the resultant state that is created using the て+いる form does not imply this additional "someone did it", because it uses an intransitive verb instead, which merely passively describes the current state of the world without any implications of how it might have come to be this way:

ボタンが外している。

"The button is (in an) unfastened (state)"

車が止まっている。

"The car is (in a) stopped (state)."

One principal difference is that while て+ある operates on transitive verbs for resultant state, て+いる operates on intransitive verbs. Another difference is that while て+ある can only be used to create a resultant state, て+いる can also be used to create the progressive verb form, as well as to indicate a habitual action. Both these forms can be made with either transitive or intransitive verbs:

いまえいが映画をみ見ています。

"(I) am watching a film right now."

Form: transitive progressive

よくしんぶん新聞をよ読んでいます。

"(I) frequently read the newspaper."

Form: transitive habitual act

まど窓が開いています。

"(The) window is opening."

Form: intransitive progressive

そのドアがよくきし軋っています。

"That door often creaks."

Form: intransitive habitual

To make sure there's no mistakes possible: て+ある/ て+いる can both do resultant state, but they operate on transitive and intransitive verbs, respectively: "Aru, TrAnsitive - Iru, Intransitive". In addition to this, て+ いる can also signify progressive state and habitual form of any verb.

Colloquially, the て+いる form is often shortened by dropping the い, to create てる instead. This means that the following two sentences are technically the same, but the first is formal, and the second less formal:

なに何をしていますか。

何をしてますか。

"What are [you] doing?"

Another important pair is the て+い行く/て+く来る pair, where 行く is sometimes written or pronounced as ゆく instead (this is not wrong, but simply an older, alternate way to write and say 行く, used a lot in songs, poetry and still commonly used in many dialects). These two constructions stand for a gradual process directed either towards the speaker in some way, or heading away from the speaker in some way. This towards/away can be either a physical process or an abstract process such as "it feels like her mind is slowly slipping away":

よる夜になっていく。

"It's (gradually) becoming night."

はる春になってきた。

"It has (gradually) become spring."

ふじさん富士山がみ見えてきます。

"Mt. Fuji is (gradually) coming into view."

When used in this way, 来る or 行く are usually written くる and いく instead of using kanji.

Note that these "gradual process" interpretations do not always apply. For instance, [...]て+くる is also a common pattern used in combination with activity verbs to indicate "てくる". For example, か買ってくる means "going to buy something (and then come back afterwards)" or 行ってくる means "going (somewhere) (and then coming back after whatever one had to do there is done)".

Note that a verb can sometimes be interpreted in two or three ways:

と飛んできた。

Interpreted normally: "(He) came flying over."

As a gradual process: "It came flying into view."

いま今で出てきます。

As a gradual process: "It's coming out (into view) right now."

As 'do and come back': "(I'm) going out (to do something, and will then come back) now."

This construction signifies a semi-formal request, something which we will look at in more detail when treating verbs for giving and receiving in the chapter on language patterns. For now it suffices to say that using て+くだ下さい turns a verb into a polite command or request:

まど窓をあ開けて下さい。

"Please open the window."

た食べて下さい。

"Please eat (this)."

The construction て+しまう is a very interesting construction. It lacks an adequate corresponding construction in English, but indicates that some action has been irrevocably performed. This can either be a good thing ("we are done working on this project"), a bad thing ("I broke the radio...") or something of which one might wish it wasn't irrevocable ("I finished reading this series of books... I wish there were more"). Because of this, translations for this construction are highly context sensitive:

ああ、い言ってしまった......

"Oh (man), now (you)'ve said it..."

literally: "Ah, you've said it (even though it would have been better if you hadn't, but you can't take it back now)"

One can expect to hear something like this when someone says something that everyone knows, but no one had dared say because of the repercussions, such as telling the boss that everyone in his department is better suited for his job than he is.

ラジオをこわ壊してしまった。

"(I) broke the radio... (and that's something I wish I hadn't)."

In this line, it should be obvious why the fact that 壊せる, "break", having been completed is a bad thing.

Colloquially, て + しまう can be contracted into ちまう or ちゃう, (with で + しまう contracting to じまう or じゃう respectively) resulting, for instance, in:

あっ、きょうかしょ教科書をわす忘れちゃった。

"Ah! (I) forgot (my) textbook..."

Again, it is clear that 忘れる, "forget", is a bad or regrettable thing when completed, especially in relation to needing your textbook in class.

Also important is the て+おく construction. On its own, the verb お置くmeans "to put [something] [somewhere]", but when paired with a verb in て form, it creates a construction meaning "to do something with the intention of leaving it that way [for whatever reason]". This may sound a bit cryptic, so let's look at an example for clarification:

でんき電気をつ付けておいてくだ下さい。

"Please turn on the lights."

This sentence uses the て form of おく for a polite command (using 下さい), and asks for the lights to be turned on without there being a need for them to be on right now, other than it saving having to turn them on later. Literally this sentence would read "Please turn on the lights and leave them that way". Colloquially, the combination of て+お is often changed to とく instead, so the following two sentences are the same, except that the first is more formal, and the second more colloquial:

まど窓をあ開けておきます。

窓を開けときます。

"(I)'ll open the windows (now, rather than having to do it later when it becomes genuinely necessary)."

Another construction that changes the meaning of the suffixed verb is the て+みる form. みる (見る) alone means "to see", but suffixed to て forms, this construction means "to do ... to see what it's like" or "to do ... to see what happens":

すし寿司をた食べてみませんか。

"Won't (you) try eating (some) sushi?"

Here a negative question is asked as a more polite way of offering a suggestion, and the 食べてみます part stands for "trying to eat, to see what happens". In this case, the "to see what happens" is probably related to "seeing if you like it".

じてんしゃ自転車をの乗ってみましたがぜんぜん全然だめでした。

"(I) tried to ride a bicycle, but failed horribly."

literally: "but (it/I) was no good at all."

Here, the act of riding a bicycle was tried to see what would happen, but we can conclude from the remainder of the sentence that riding a bike isn't for this particular speaker.

Unlike the previous constructions starting with the syllable た, this inflection doesn't involve a classical helper verb, but a helper adjective, たい (which has a kanji form, 度い, but this is not used in modern Japanese). This also means that unlike the previous -た, -て, -たり and たら constructions, no contractions occur with 五段 verbs, which makes forming the first person desirative very easy. Since this is an adjective, rather than a verb, it has a slightly different set of bases for further conjugation:

However, as an inflection the first person desirative is about as simple as it gets, pairing with 連用形:

You may have noticed that です and ます are not listed here. The absence of です is easy to explain because it is the copula, and one cannot want something to have a particular property in Japanese using the copula (this uses the adjective ほ欲しい instead, explained later in this section on desiratives). The absence of a たい form for ます is more subtle: there is no たい form for ます because using たい to express one's desire is intrinsically selfish, and thus mutually exclusive with polite phrasing. To make a statement that expresses desire that is less selfish, the Japanese use a construction that expresses "I think I want/would like to ...", using the particle と and the verb おも思う, which makes the actual desire less strong because it's only a thought, rather than a 'genuine' desire:

あたら新しいくるま車をか買いたいとおも思います。

"I think I would like to buy a new car."

This is a very civil way of expressing one's own desire, compared to the plain:

新しい車を買いたい。

"I want to buy a new car."

Because たい is an adjective, it can also be followed by です to make it more polite, in which case the translation stays the same, but the perceived strength of the desire is tuned down just a bit, although not as much as when the desire is turned into a thought using +と+思う:

新しい車を買いたいです。

"I want to buy a new car."

To say one doesn't want something, all we have to do is form the negative of たい, which we know is たくない:

きょう今日はなに何もしたくない。

"I don't want to do anything today."

Because of the way Japanese works, and the way the world is interpreted and thought about in the Japanese mindset, one never presumes to truly know what's going on in someone else's head. Because of this, you cannot say that "Bob wants an apple", because even though he might give off all the signals that he does, and even though he may have said so himself, you might still be interpreting the signals wrong, and he might have only said he wanted one instead of really wanting one. Because of this, rather than using たい for second/third person desiratives, the classical helper verb たがる is used.

Like たい, this form does not suffer from contracted inflections, and is added directly to the 連用形:

Again です and ます are missing. Not unlike たい, たがる can be considered somewhat rude as it presumes to know something about someone else. This construction can be made less rude by adding the noun adjective そう to the 連体形, to emphasise that this is merely an impression:

きみこ君子さんがで出たがるそうです。

"It seems Kimiko wants to leave."

However, note that the following is also possible, using そう with the 連用形:

君子さんが出たがりそうです。

"It seems Kimiko wants to leave."

When そう follows a 連体形, it generally does not mean the same thing as when it follows a 連用形. Normally, そう following a 連体形 expresses a form of hearsay, implying the information's been read somewhere or has been told to the speaker by someone, and そう following a 連用形 expresses the concept of something "being at the point of ..." or "seeming to be ...". While generally two different things, both can be used due to the nature of たがる, but the different uses have difference nuances:

君子さんが出たがるそうです。

"It seems Kimiko wants to leave (I know this because she for instance told us, or someone else told me this was the case)."

君子さんが出たがりそうです。

"It seems Kimiko wants to leave (this is my impression, because she's giving off all the signs of someone who wants to leave)."

The negative form for たがる is a normal verb negative, being either たがらない or たがりません.

Unlike the previous two desirative forms, there is also the 'desire for something to be in a particular state' that was previously hinted at. For instance "I want this door to be red" cannot be expressed with the previous two forms, because they cannot express this state, but can only express verb actions or processes. To express a state desirative, the verbal adjective て form plus the adjective 欲しい, a verbal adjective for indicating that something is desirable, is used:

このドアがあか赤くて欲しい。

"(I) want this door red."

Note that because these are verbal adjectives, we use the particle が, not を. Even though "desire" is a verb in English, it is an adjective in Japanese, so rather than saying "I want this door red", the more literal translation would be "this door is (more) desired (when) red".

In terms of politeness, 欲しい is just as direct and selfish as たい, and it can be softened by adding です:

つか使って欲しい。

"[I] want it made."

使って欲しいです。

"(I) want it made (being said in a less direct manner than the above sentence)"

Since 欲しい is a normal verbal adjective, we can inflect it further like any other verbal adjective:

These forms, as mentioned in the outline for Japanese, turn the 未然形 into something that ends on an お sound through a contraction. There are both a normal and a polite form of this construction, with the polite form simply being the verb in polite form, with ます turned into a pseudo-future.

The way in which the direct pseudo-future is constructed differs for the two verb classes: 五段 verbs get う added to the 未然形, but the combination of the 未然形 あ—row syllable and the う changes the pronunciation (as well as written form) to an お—row syllable instead, so か+う becomes こう, ま+う becomes もう, etc. To see why this happens we have to look back at Japanese, where the combination of an あ—row syllable and an う always changed the pronunciation to that of the corresponding お—row syllable; not just for 未然形 constructions, but for any written combination of the two. While the language reforms of the mid 20th century changed many of the rules for written language so that it would correspond to spoken language more, constructions involving the 未然形 have generally been left alone (another 未然形 'quirk' can be found in 五段 verbs ending on う, which becomes わ rather than あ).

For 一段 verbs, we simply add よう to the 未然形, and for the irregular verbs and copulae we see special cases:

For verbal adjectives, the plain pseudo-future is formed by (once again) combining the adjective's 連用形 with ある, this time in pseudo-future form. The polite version is simply the adjective followed by だ or です in pseudo-future form:

For nouns, there is little choice: they are followed by だ or です in pseudo-future form:

Using the pseudo-future is fairly straight forward:

うみ海にい行こう。

"Let's go to the beach."

海に行こうか。

"Shall [we] go to the beach?"

どこでしょうか?

"Where could it be?"

あのほん本はおもしろ面白いでしょうか。

"(I) wonder if that book (over there) is interesting."

そうしましょう。

"Let's do so."

The presumptive form uses the pseudo-future of the copulae to turn verbs into presumed acts. While this form uses the 未然形 of the copula verb, the verb conjugation itself is actually technically a 連体形 conjugation, and therefore is explained in more detail in the section on 連体形. For now, it suffices to say that it lets us say things like "This computer will probably still work" or "I am sure my coffee isn't cold yet" and similar presumptive statements in Japanese:

コーヒーはもうさ冷めただろう。

"The coffee's probably cold by now."

あのひと人はたぶん多分せんせい先生でしょう。

"(he/she)'s probably a teacher."

One of the special things about the pseudo-future is that when combined with several verbs, the intuitive meaning isn't always preserved. We can distinguish at least two such cases: the pseudo-future + と + する and the pseudo-future + と + おも思う. While [...]+と+する normally means "to consider something [...]", the meaning changes to "at the point of doing [...]" when combined with a pseudo-future:

ごはん飯を食べようとしたら、でんわ電話がかかってきた。

"As (we) were about to eat, the phone rang."

Similarly, on its own 思う means "to think", but when used with the pseudo-future, the combination becomes more nuanced, expressing "to think about [doing ...]":

てがみ手紙をか書こうと思います。

"(I)'m thinking about writing a letter."

Since the pseudo-future doesn't quite end on a verb that can be placed in a 未然形, creating the negative form cannot be done using ぬ or ない. Instead, the negative pseudo-future uses the classical helper verb まい. To make matters slightly more confusing, while 一段 verbs use their 未然形 as base form, 五段 verbs use their 連体形 as base form for the negative pseudo-future.

And some example sentences:

そんな事が分かるまい。

"(I) do not expect (him) to understand such matters..."

そのえいが映画をみ見ようか見まいか。

"Should (I) go see that film, or not see that film..."

どうしてもの伸びまい。

"That shouldn't stretch regardless of what (you) do."

For verbal adjectives, the negative pseudo-future uses the verbal adjective in negative form, —くない, with ない in pseudo-future form, —なかろう:

For nouns the idea is, again, to inflect だ or です appropriately:

However, for the negative pseudo-future form for nouns the typical pattern involves the copula である instead, and its (small) table is as follows:

However, the negative pseudo-future is a pattern that you will likely not hear too often, as there are other, more frequently used constructions that express negative expectation.

Imperative commands are quite easy to form in Japanese: for 五段 verbs, simply take the 命令形 and you're done:

For 一段 verbs there is a bit of choice, as one can either use the + ろ, or the + よ, depending on how strong the imperative should be:

What is the difference between these two forms for 一段 verbs? In standard Japanese, the -ろ imperative is a true command. If someone says 見ろ, you look. The second is more of an instruction than a command. For instance, if you're browsing though a dictionary and there is a footnote telling you to see page 214 for further information, this will typically use 見よ, rather than 見ろ. However, this distinction only applies to standard Japanese, or ひょうじゅんご標準語, which is the "dialect" spoken in the かんとう関東 region, which is where Tokyo lies. North of this region, the -ろ form is typically used to issue imperatives, whereas South of this region the -よ form tends to be used instead.

Not unexpectedly, the irregular verbs have their own 命令形:

However, there is also another verb with an irregular commanding form, namely the 一段 verb く呉れる (usually written in hiragana rather than using its kanji form). This verb is part of the set of verbs used in giving and receiving, and is thus vitally important to know. It only has one imperative form:

To illustrate the use of the imperative command, some example sentences:

みんな、よくき聞け。

"Everyone, listen up!"

はや速くしろ。

"Hurry up!"

もう、お起きろ。

"Oh come on, wake up already!"

There is a second way to issue imperative commands, using the verb なさる, which is the (normally) honorific counterpart to the verb する. This verb belongs to a set of verbs with a deviant 連用形 and 命令形, so to see how these differ, let's briefly look at the bases for all five verbs in this set:

This set tells us several things: first, it tells us that ください in the special て form -てください is the 命令形 for くださる. Second, it explains why ござる would become ございます: its 連用形 is simply ござい. Third, it tells us what we need to know to form a command using なさる. If we add the 命令形 for なさる, なさい, to a verb's 連用形, we get a command that is less direct than a plain 命令形 (and thus, more formal/polite), but is still a command:

And finally, ある, ます and the copulae do not have this imperative form.

For verbal adjectives, the idea of an imperative is a bit odd, but that doesn't mean we can't form one. Relying on 連用形 + ある for the inflection again, we can form the imperative command for verbal adjectives. We can either leave these as is, or contract them. The difference is subtle: the uncontracted form is considered an adjectival statement akin in use to, for instance, the English "be faster!" (in Japanese: はや速くあれ). Contracted, this is an adverbial statement (はや速かれ), which has no English equivalent and is thus harder to explain; it is experienced as an adjectival statement in the same way that the past tense for verbal adjectives is still an adjectival statement.

The same goes for the copula, for which we must use である (since neither だ nor です have a commanding form of their own):

If you want to tell people to not do something, then the form of the command is much simpler: simply add the particle な to the 連体形 of any verb:

And finally ある, which has a negative imperative based on ない: なかれ.

Even easier than the normal imperative command, some example sentences are:

にど二度とく来るな。

"Don't come (round here) a second time!"

なんだ、見るなよ。

"What, don't look (at me)."

(よ is an emphatic particle, added to the end of a sentence as an extra level of "I am telling you ...". This particle will be treated in more detail in the chapter on particles.)

In addition to this rather simple prohibitive, we can also turn the 連用形 + なさい imperative into a prohibitive, by using 連用形 + なさる + な. However, while grammatically sound, practically speaking this form is very rarely used. This works for any verb, except for する, which is technically the same verb as なさる but at a different formality/politeness level. Rather than using し + なさる + な, just なさる + な is used.

We already saw that we can use the verb 連用形 + てください to form a request,

コーヒーをにはい二杯くだ下さい。

"Two coffee, please."

But we can also use the plain て form to form an informal request, or plea:

ま待って。

"Wait (please)"

これをか買って？

"Buy this (for me)?"

Of course, like all requests, they can be made to sound demanding, so intonation counts. If we say 待て instead of 待って, cutting out the stop in the middle to sound curt, then rather than a request this may very well be experienced as a command instead. Similarly, saying して in a stern tone might be less commanding than しろ, but will still be experienced as a command more than as request. However, using this plain て form (rather than paired with ください) can be experienced as curt, or even impolite language, depending on the setting it is used in, so be careful.

This kind of requesting can of course also be done in a prohibitive manner, in which case we rely on the continuative form for ない using です, ないで:

い行かないで。

(Please) don't go.

In this sentence the "please" is implied, and depending on intonation and context this form may be experienced as anything between a mandate (such as a police officer asking you not to come too close to a crime scene) or a plea for someone to not do something (such as a friend in need asking you not to leave quite yet). We can also use an explicit "please" in the form of ください:

行かないでくだ下さい。

Please don't go.

Again, depending on intonation and context this might be experienced as anything between a mandate and a plea.

As mentioned in the section on the passive, one of the other roles that れる/られる can play is that of the (long) potential. The potential form of a verb in English is typically constructed using the auxiliary verb "can", such as when turning "I swim" into "I can swim", but in Japanese this is a conjugation instead. The reason this form is called the "long" potential is that there exists a shorter potential form for the 五段 verbs, which will be discussed after this section. Forming the long potential is no different from forming the passive, except that it is generally not used for 五段 verbs:

Formation of the long potential form is the same as for the passive form:

There is one striking exception to this potential form, and that's the irregular verb する, "do". Rather than inflecting, this verb is simply replaced entirely with the verb でき出来る, which literally means "be able to do".

We need to be mindful of particles again: verbs in potential form are always intransitive, and so any direct object it might take in normal use becomes a verb subject instead, requiring the use of が rather than を. However, quite often in colloquial Japanese, the direct object particle を will be heard used in combination with these verbs, rather than the subject particle が, not because this is grammatically correct, but because it "feels right". If you are a beginning student of Japanese, however, it is recommended you stick with proper grammar until you have mastered it to a level that allows you to interact with native speakers, so that you get a feel for what is "right" through exposure to the language as it is used by people.

You may also hear people using れる rather than られる, but at the moment this is discouraged language abuse: the idea behind it is that the short potential form for 五段 verbs always ends on え—row syllable + る, and so using れる for 一段 verbs "does the same thing". However, while they might sound the same, れる is a classical helper verb, whereas the え—row syllable + る sound for 五段 verbs is actually a contraction from what used to be い—row syllable + える, so they have completely different background. So until the Japanese language authorities start accepting this highly colloquial "short potential for 一段 verbs" as right and proper, you're best off avoiding it; at least outside of colloquial interaction with Japanese people who use it.

Note that because this is a potential form, を has to be swapped for が:

A: くるま車をと止めてくだ下さい。

B: すみません、車がいま今止められません。

A: "Please stop the car."

B: "(I am) sorry, but (I) cannot stop the car right now."

Also note that this potential form is one of a temporary nature. For instance, rather than meaning "I can see" in general (because you have eyes that work), 見られる means "I can see (whatever I am supposed to see right now)". Similarly, た食べられる means "(I) can eat (this)", rather than the more general "(I) can eat". If we want to say that we have an inherent ability to do (or not do) something, we have to use 連体形 + ことができ出来る, which will be explained after we cover the short potential form.

Finally, some verbs are not inflected to form the potential form, instead requiring the use of a related, but different verb. For instance, while 見られる is a valid long potential form, you will find the verb み見える is often used, instead. Similarly, there are 五段 verbs for which alternate potential forms exist, such as the verb き聞く ("to hear/listen"). Rather than the normal potential form, explained in the next section, the verb き聞こえる ("to be able to hear") is used. This highlights an important rule: when learning new verbs, make sure to learn to inflect them correctly; some inflections may in fact use a different verb entirely!

The short potential form is called "short" because it is simply a lot shorter than the full 未然形+られる version of the potential. However, in modern Japanese, this construction only exists for 五段 verbs. For 一段 verbs, the only grammatically correct potential form is the られる potential form. To create the short potential form, the 連用形 is paired with the verb え得る, meaning "to acquire", to form an "attainable" form of verbs.

In this combination, the final い—row syllable of the 連用形 for 五段 verbs has become contracted with the え sound from 得る over the course of history, becoming an え—row syllable instead. To illustrate:

While this construction in modern Japanese is a contraction, there are a handful of verbs in which this contraction never occurred, and as such are still in use today in the uncontracted form. Verbs such as ありえる (from ある) or お起こりえる (from 起こる, "to occur") are examples of this. Interestingly, this potential form can also be seen in certain modern 一段 verbs that have traditionally been paired with 得る, such as み見える, "to (be able to) see", from the 一段 verb 見る, or に煮える, "(be able to) boil", from the 一段 verb 煮る.

Just like with the 未然形 potential form, verbs placed in this short potential form become intransitive, which means that technically they can only be used in relation to subjects, and no longer in relation to direct objects.

Some examples to show this potential form:

びょうき病気であんまりある歩けません。

"Because of (my) illness, I can't walk that well (at the moment)."

これでいけるでしょうか。

"I wonder if this will do."

The いける in this second sentence is actually a fairly important word to know. While strictly speaking the short potential form of い行く, its meaning of "being able to go" has become overloaded with the figurative meaning of "something being able to go well". As such, いける means "being fine", "being good" as well as noting that something "will do" or "is acceptable".

Note again that because this is a potential form, を has to be swapped for が:

A: ほん本をいくら読みますか。

B: そうですね。じかん時間がたっぷりあって、本がいっぱい読めます。

A: "How much do you read?"

B: "Good question. (I) have plenty of time, so (I) can read a lot of books."

A third way to form the potential, for any verb, is by using the construction 連体形 + こと事ができ出来る. 事 literally means 'concept', and we already saw that 出来る means "be able to do", and this in combination with a verb in 連体形 creates a generalised ability.

For instance, as mentioned earlier, 見られる means "being able to see (something) (at this moment)". Similarly, ある歩ける means "being able to walk (at this moment)". In contrast, 見ることが出来る and 歩くことが出来る mean being able to see, or walk, in general. Particularly with negatives, this difference is striking. For instance, a person whose glasses are so dirty they can't really see any of the things we point out to them might say:

見られません。

"I can't (really) see (it)."

This is hardly anything to worry about as the potential form used is one associated with temporary impairment. However, if they had used:

見ることが出来ません。

We would have good reason to apologise for telling them to look at something; they're blind.