Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Transitive and Intransitive verbs


During the early process of learning Japanese, I had moments of confusion when there was a difference between what I learned and what seemed to be the correct way of using a verb.  
For instance "to continue": I learned suzukimasu, but it turned out to be suzukemasu.
Same for "to begin": I learned hajimemasu, while it was hajimarimasu.
Very confusing, untill I read a blog entry on Transitive and Intransitive verbs.
Than I realised that both conjugations are correct, they just mean something different.

I continue something:   suzukemasu
Something continues:   suzukimasu
I start something:         hajimemasu 
Something starts:         hajimarimasu 

Actually I left it to that, and didn't really study the pair of such verbs until I got the feeling that I could not improve my conversation skills anymore.  But I did collect them, and as I am getting ready to include them in my Anki decks, I might as well share them.

The more I study, the more I come across such pairs of verbs.  So I guess I will keep on updating the list in the future.
If I start with the more common or frequently used verbs, it's already a good basis.


You can get my list here.

No comments:

Post a Comment