素晴らしいです！ I am Japanese and I am a Japanese tutor. We Japanese NEVER think about "U-verbs" or "RU-verbs" when we speak Japanese. However, most of my Japanese language learner students use "げんき" and seem to be stuck on "U-verbs" and "RU-verbs". If the "U" and "RU" verbs were clearly separated, there would be no problem, but there are too many "exceptions" that make things even more complicated. As a Japanese, I found this video very informative. どうもありがとございます！チャンネル登録もさせていただきました！
@@TakarieZan it's not terrible but it's explained in a pretty confusing way and since the topic is very important I'd suggest to also study from a different source like this video
Oh my god ichidan and godan makes INFINITELY more intuitive sense than how Genki teaches verbs. Three years of rote memorization in classroom study, instantly overwritten by ichidan and godan. And if they want folks to be lifelong learners and eventually take the textbook/classroom training wheels off, why the hell would they introduce concepts that aren't even in Japanese dictionaries and that a native Japanese speaker would be baffled by if you asked them? Obviously Genki isn't the only culprit here but what the heck! Thank you for these videos, my learning would have been accelerated unimaginably if I had had such a good video resource in college.
@@GameGengo about the same level and also didn't know about the godan trick. Learned the る, non-る, 来る, する method. Maybe it's because I know those forms already, but this makes more sense to me. almost didn't click this video but happy i did!
This completely changed my ideas of verbs, I felt hopeless learning all the complicated rules to master Grammer and you gave me a concrete way to remember and focus on the vocabulary, I will be supporting on patreon, thank you for your videos 🙏
Glad I leaned this rule early, now I feel sad for people that had go through it backwards. I still feel though that in the end you need to learn how all the common verbs sounds and tenses to speak the language but at least this will make it easier when reading. Thanks Matt and boo Genki for teaching this.
I'm so happy I found your channel before I started learning japanese verbs the complicated way like my boyfriend did... You're a life saver! My boyfriend saw your video and he could not believe how easy it is! He started the hard way and never was able to understand it fully. Yet with only one page of note taken from your video, he understood more then in years of university and tons of pages of notes! xD Seriously, thank you sooooooo much! Especially since I'm particularly bad with grammar rules. This is just amazing!
I admittedly thought it wouldn’t be useful to watch this video since I had gone through this chapter so long ago, but decided to anyway since this channel has been such a gem. I was wrong- the re-teaching of these lessons is masterful!
I started getting bad grades in my university Japanese class as soon as I hit this lesson, the way it's taught made no sense to me. This simplifies things a lot, and makes learning Japanese more enjoyable. Thank you!
Thank you so much! It's always nice to see people contextualize and improve upon explanations. It's a bummer how common I see textbooks struggle to optimize their writen explanations. It's one thing to know and another thing to explain, and I'm glad you're so good at both.
im studying for my japanese finals right now and by haruhi's grace i randomly came across one of your videos on reddit. I love my Japanese professor and shes very nice, but my ADHD will not allow me to focus on her lectures for 2 hours straight, 2 times a week, especially online, so these videos are saving me. I am really enjoying these videos, they're such a fun way to learn Japanese so please keep it the good work!
Despite being further along the genki 1 textbook, I always look forward to these videos as a sort of revision. Your added insight to and delivery of all these lessons contextualises and enhances everything I thought I already knew, for example (and quite especially) the AMAZING ichidan and godan classification that although uses a tiny bit of upfront memorisation of the nai forms ends up saving a whole lot of brain power in the long run. Thank you for all your efforts :)
When I started to learn the te form in class I noticed the godan trick all by myself and how it fit the aiueo and made a chart to help me learn the verbs. I didn't know that was how they taught it in Japan, it makes a lot more sense and it's easier to grasp. Japanese verb conjugasion is like building lego blocks, way easier than french and english.
You have such an incredible ability to explain abstract concepts. I appreciate so much that you spent the time to explain what the "present tense" means in japanese. Most things I've seen are just "this is the present tense" and mention the habitual element, but i wasn't ever able to grasp it until you explained it here. Like I've been following along with genki with a few other people to explain it and every single time you have been the one to click
i studied japanese for 2 years while i was in college, stopped for a year and now im back at it, the one thing i always struggled with was verb conjugation because of the ru and u verb rules and because i so have some experience the ichidan and godan rules are LIFE . i’m definitely finna have to subscribe to you guys’ patreon.
Honestly, you just saved me with this video. I was about to drop japanese again, but man, these conjugation rules you just laid out with Ichidan and godan make life so much easier. You are a terrific teacher
Even though I'm German, I can follow your explanations very well. You make it very interesting and easy to understand. Even though I didn't learn with genki but with marugoto for a while, I often felt overwhelmed by the explanations. You are a gifted teacher and you present the topics in a very understandable way. Great job and thank you ! Peter
Oh man, were have you been my entire life? Th U/RU verbs thing was so confusing for me for so long! George from "Japanase from Zero" made this subject a bit more understandable, but with your method everything just finally clicked for me :)
i am studying for N4-N3 and your video is very helpful, i finally understood godan and ichidan verbs, there are 5 five different endings for GODAN verbs. it's so simple
The 一段vs五段 method is very helpful for japanese learners of every level.😊 However in some textbooks (including Genki) you will only learn the negative form very late. What helped me, was actually an adaptation on the method for polite verb forms. Polite forms are taught very early and used in almost every scentence. One can use them as reference the same way they would use the negative verb form. Just focusing on the い sound instead of the あ.
The trick can also work with the "-ます" form if you check for 'い' sounds. For example, "変えます" vs "帰ります". That's what I realized and I never really thought about the rules
Thats great that it helps you! But I dont think it works for every verb? It still sounds a little complicated to me because of verbs like 見る (miru, mimasu), 生きる (ikiru, ikimasu), 信じる (shinjiru, shinjimasu) which are all ru verb/ichidan. EDIT: Ah i see! You just mean for telling apart the tricky homophones! Nice!
@@GameGengo Ya it's not very well thought out lol. It doesn't work as as well as the "ない" trick, but it does work for homophones and generally if you encounter a word you don't recognize
Wow. This is one of my favorite videos so far. I learnt A LOT! And it did make things easier. I'm glad I avoided the whole RU and U verbs mess. Ichidan and Godan is way easier. ありがとうございます！
the godan verbs that look like ichidan: Exceptions in top200 (extremely popular words): 知る(shiru) - to know 入る(iru) - to get in 入る(hairu) - to enter Exceptions in top 1000-2000: 走る(hashiru) - to run 切る(kiru) - to cut 参る(mairu) - to go (humble). 要る(iru) - to need 限る(kagiru) - to limit Exceptions in top 2000-4000: 焦る(aseru) - to be impatient 帰る(kaeru) - to return home 握る(nigiru) - to grasp, to mold/press into shape. 減る(heru) - to diminish Exceptions in top 4000-8000: 蹴る(keru) - to kick 散る(chiru) - to fall/scatter (not vertically, as leafs), it's different from 落ちる to fall straight. 練る(neru) - to knead Exceptions in top 8000-10000: 喋る(shyaberu) - to chatter 滑る(suberu) - to glide/slide 混じる(majiru) - to be mixed 照る(teru) - to shine 罵る(nonoshiru) - to curse/abuse(verbally) 耽る(fukeru) - to indulge in Exceptions in top 10000-20000 (relatively rare): 茂る(shigeru) - to grow thickly 湿る(shimeru) - to become moist/wet 弄る(ijiru) - to fiddle 捻る(hineru) - to twist 寝そべる(nesoberu) - to sprawl 嘲る(azakeru) - to scoff/ridicule 齧る(kajiru) - to gnaw 毟る(mushiru) - to pluck 詰る(najiru) - to rebuke very rare: 軋る(kishiru) - to creak/squeak 誹る(soshiru) - to slander せびる(sebiru) - to pester/demand money. (i got this from reddit, thanks to u/InTheProgress)
I think it definitely makes a lot more sense to say ichidan and godan verbs instead of ru and u verbs. It also helps a lot when you use verb bases instead of telling people to conjugate the verb to one of the forms that uses the base you need then taking off the ending ~
I'm going to school in Japan and the first 2 weeks went perfect.. then we got to Chapter 3.. after watching this I feel a bit better but boy am I now worried about my future learning the language if this chapter already left me overwhelmed.
It definitely gets easier the more you learn! I totally understand how you feel, and honestly Genki is a pretty terrible textbook, it makes things so confusing at times. But I would say outside of verb/conjugation/honorifics, and perhaps Kanji (but you get used to it) the rest of the language is pretty straight forward :) I hope you do well and enjoy your time at school in Japan! If you ever need any help feel free to ask! :)
So glad I found this video! I studied Japanese in highschool (over 12 years ago) and recently started Genki to re-learn, which has been great until this chapter, I somehow remember which ones are ru and u without thinking from when I last learnt, but when I’m doing the exercises I overthink too much and sometimes get them wrong; if I step away from the page, and think about the verbs, I know what’s right and wrong (muscle memory I guess?). It’s very frustrating! I suppose it’s kinda similar to English in whereby if I’m asked to point out “adverbs, irregular verbs” I’d overthink it because I just know them without knowing them 😵💫 Maybe I’ll just skip most of this chapter 😅 thanks!!
Thank you so much for talking about RU/U verbs, I've been struggling with this so much that practically fail my reviews every time because of them. Your method of learning ichidan/godan verbs is so much easier!
Fantastic video, thank you so much, this was very helpful. I'm loving your videos it makes learning Japanese easier and enjoyable, and makes me keep going when I get stuck or unmotivated to keep going! Thank you!
Loved this video, my favorite Game Gengo vid I’ve seen so far. The verb conjugation breakdown is 10x better than the explanation in Genki! I actually didn’t know that verbs that are pronounced the same/have the same romaji spelling conjugate differently! ども
Thank you so much for the clear explanations. It has been a terrible struggle trying to wrap my head around the Genki rules. I really appreciate your videos.
oh my god, this was so useful. verb conjugation was exactly my problem as well (though i use other books than genki). so many exceptions and hard to remember patterns... THIS IS REVOLUTIONARY :D thank you so much! (meh. now i have to go back and relearn all the verbs with nai-form haha, but better late than never lol).. makes me wonder though.. which grammar book or book series would you most likely recommend to get the basics in before immersion? (besides watching your top notch videos of course :))
Thanks for enjoying the video Sandra! Yeah for sure! I feel like there are definitely certain points that could be taught much easier to understand thab how they are taught! Hmm in terms of books id recommend...hmm i felt there wasnt really that many great options, which was why I started Game Gengo haha so hmmm i think RU-vid offers a far better experience than textbooks tbh Even the best grammar dictionaries tend to be quite confusing and wordy, compared with just simply googling and getting your answer much quicker and simpler haha
I'm late to this video, but I'm glad I could make the time. Awesome job. And you're right, I never think of how to conjugate my verbs for the languages I'm fluent in, but I'm glad to go over it😁
Hi, Matt! Greetings from Brazil! Quick feedback about this awesome video: I like and I always use and teach the ichidan/godan classification over U/RU. God, it's SO much simpler to understand them by this classification, it's truly a life saver. But still, when we get to the "memorize" the ない form as a trick then the "trick", IMO, falls a bit apart. I don"t like to rely on memorization case-by-case itself, cuz we'll be doing that a lot with kanjis, so I didn't find the trick that useful, as every new word we should memorize both the じしょ and ない. I learned to differenciate ichidan from godan first, so I'm able to know the ない form starting from a じしょけい. I think the real tricky part lies on coming up with a system to get from じしょ to ない without relying on memorization, so the trick will work more efficiently. So far I like the idea of IRU/ERU sound for ICHIDAN as a rule of thumb, picking only the most common exceptions to memorize. Like, they are 5-6 for the most common words in japanese: 入る、走る、要る、切る、知る and 帰る. I find this small list of exception much more easier to handle, at first. The complete list is far much greater, of course, but at least in the beginning this handful of verbs should suffice. This is it, thanks in advance for reading my feedback, love your channel
@@GameGengo I started about 2weeks ago so far I've learnt hiragana and katakana plus a bit of basic kanji. Aswell as some words and sentence structure from your videos plus it helps that I used to watch alot of anime. Your channel really inspired me to work hard to learn Japanese as my goal is to be able to play Kuro no kiseki and your channel is all about games.
Ohhhh that's awesome! A game with LOTS of reading practice in it! haha When do you see yourself trying to start playing in Japanese? I'd highly recommend checking out my 2nd most recent video on how to get started when you're thinking of trying to play! :D I hope you have fun!!
Genki seriously gets in the way of my Japanese learning and totally discouraged me at lesson 3. I’m a week into my studies of a whole new language and i’m supposed to be able to sight read two new alphabets and an ancient writing system to progress?
These videos are really great. I'm on lesson 7 in Genki and I keep wanting to play games in Japanese, but every time I switch everything over (Switch or PC) I see the blast of mainly unknown words and Kanji I panic and go back to English. Do you recommend struggling through with a dictionary or something or waiting a little longer before diving in? TYSVM
Love your Videos, no doubt about that. I loved every single video which I have watched from you. I just want to ask, is there a schedule for the genki series? I just want to know when to expect these videos.
Thanks so much! Im so glad you are enjoying the videos! Im currently working as a teacher while making these videos so my time is very limited. I work every spare second I have on these videos.i would really like to finish this series as soon as possible! Maybe looking at having the whole textbook finished by the end of the year. However i also make lots of other content so its a tough thing to balance with limited time haha i will do my best to get this series finished as quickly as I can though ❤ i hope you enjoy and good luck with your studies!
@@GameGengo Please Take your time and don't overdue yourself. We love your videos and will gladly wait for months for it. I just wanted to ask when the rest is to be expected. And got my answer. So please take your time, nobody wants you to get sick from exhaustion.
I’m super new, could u also just see if the ‘R’ is still in the negative form which means it wasn’t dropped so it’s ichidan? And if it’s gone it means it’s godan?
I found this rule incredible helpful to conjugate verbs by looking at the nai form.. So.. What's the best way to learn the nai form first then? Is there a rule on how I can find them out without creating a list? Is there another rule I can use similar to
can we say that the DE particel is for actions that already are done in that place ? so for example past actions that already done ? and NI is for present or future locations ?
Ichidan verb tabe: on the い side ( polite form ) its tabemasu but shouldnt it end as tabei masu because of the vocal い ? or is this あ い う え お rule only for godan verbs
Does anybody have recommendations for an Anki deck that, for the verbs in the deck, either includes the ichidan/godan classification of the verb or its negative form?
