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For Japanese, you learn a handful of rules to conjugate a verb. Then those rules always apply with no exceptions. In English, there are not set rules. Every cas

For Japanese, you learn a handful of rules to conjugate a verb. Then those rules always apply with no exceptions. In English, there are not set rules. Every case is special. What is the past tense form of 'shake'? 'see'? 'walk'? 'sleep'? 'eat'? 'speak'? 'sit'? 'seek'? 'work'? There are no rules. You basically have to memorize every word and all the possible ways it can morph. English possessive: 's or s' or ' or s, depending. Japanese possessive: no English plural: different for every word. Japanese plural: same as singular, or throw on a -tachi English past tense: different for every word. Japanese past tense: -mashita for verbs, deshita for adverbs/adjectives In English, nothing is simple. In Japanese, a multi-word phrase may have more syllables, but at least it will always be the same rule.

chc 10y ago
I think this is overstating the regularity of Japanese a bit. For example, what is the past tense of "kuru"? What is the present tense of "datta"?
- iamnotlarry 10y ago
  Yes. It is overstating Japanese regularity a very little bit. And understating the irregularity of English an enormous amount.
  - RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u 10y ago
    My Japanese's pretty rusty, so corrections welcome. IMO you're not "overstating Japanese [verb][0] regularity a very little bit", but severely overstating it. The ichi-dan / go-dan verbs are indeed quite regular, and though there are irregular verbs like the grandparent post's example, IIRC there aren't actually that many (three?). However, that's not the only "axis" one could conjugate Japanese verbs. The complicated stuff are the transitive / intransitive forms, and the compound verbs. While some rules apply, they are more like the "I before E, except after C" English spelling rule. It would be akin to saying that there are only three verb tenses in English: past, present, and future; simple, right? While it's technically not wrong, it's glossing over the progressive, perfect, and subjunctive forms (maybe there are more, don't remember), and their combinations. [0] Hopefully from context it's clear we're only talking about grammar pertaining to Japanese verbs, and not Japanese in general. Japanese grammar has plenty of quirks, like how some colors are adjectives (red: akai, blue: aoi) but others are nouns (green: midori, purple: murasaki), or how loan words are usually written in katakana, but tobacco is not, etc.
Grue3 10y ago
You're forgetting that there are only 3 (three) verb conjugations in English, of which two are almost always the same. Only a finite number of verbs have irregular conjugations, so you just learn them along with vocabulary. In Japanese, the number of possible conjugations of all irregular verbs (copula, "suru", "kuru") is probably larger than the number of English irregular verbs that are commonly used. In fact, let's count the number of conjugations of "kuru" in my ICHIRAN [1] database: ICHIRAN/DICT> (length (get-kana-forms 1547720)) 186 Are English possessives considered difficult by anyone? Not sure what that demonstrates. Plurals! Oh, that's my favorite topic that I'm working on right now. -tachi is mostly used with people, so can't be used in most context. For inanimate objects you just say the number of them. And that's where the counters come in... At which point any sane person gives up learning Japanese for good. Past tense, isn't that the same as conjugations? Also your rules don't really work. "tanoshii" => "tanoshiideshita"? Pretty sure that's not a word. The correct past tense is "tanoshikatta [desu]". [1] https://github.com/tshatrov/ichiran https://github.com/tshatrov/ichiran
- laurieg 10y ago
  We have counters in English too! Tons of words are uncountable, like water, bread, and so on. A slice of bread, a loaf of bread, a bread roll (Hey, why did that one come after the 'bread'...) We even have lots of words that are both countable and uncountable. "I ate some tomato" and "I ate some tomatoes" has quite different meaning. Overall I think all languages have their foibles, and trying to hold one widely used natural language up as "More regular" or "more difficult" is a pretty fruitless endeavour. Thought it is fun to talk about ;)
  - mhink 10y ago
    > A slice of bread, a loaf of bread, a bread roll (Hey, why did that one come after the 'bread'...) This doesn't seem that unusual to me, all things considered. "Bread", as a word, is more of a substance-noun than a discrete object-noun. Moreover, "slice" and "loaf" don't strike me as words which give meaning to the phrases "slice of bread" or "loaf of bread"- in fact, it's the other way around. For instance, "slice" is the primary noun, and "bread" is just meant to distinguish it from other "slices" (e.g. "slice of pizza"). So, when I say "Pass me two slices of pizza", I'm really saying "Pass me two 'slice-of-pizza's", rather than "Pass me 'two-slices' of pizza".
Grue3 10y ago
Oh, I just remembered another fun feature of Japanese verb conjugation. Can you conjugate the (regular) verb "へる" (heru)? There happen to be two verbs that are pronounced "heru" but with completely different conjugations! Do you remember which one is which? In fact any verb that ends with -eru or -aru can be potentially conjugated like an ichidan verb or a godan verb. For each such verb you have to remember its conjugation class, lest you conjugate it completely wrong. So these aren't so regular after all. Also a related topic is intransitive/transitive verb pairs. These are also heavily irregular, and you must use the correct one in a sentence or it will be ungrammatical.
samfisher83 10y ago
The thing with English is people in general can understand most things even if you screw up tenses or tones. You put a few words together and people will mostly get you. In Japanese you have to remember extra things to add so you identify different parts of a sentence. Same with gender in romance languages. They just add more complexity. In a way Korean and Chinese are a little easier in terms of rules.

chc 10y ago

I think this is overstating the regularity of Japanese a bit. For example, what is the past tense of "kuru"? What is the present tense of "datta"?

iamnotlarry 10y ago
Yes. It is overstating Japanese regularity a very little bit. And understating the irregularity of English an enormous amount.
- RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u 10y ago
  My Japanese's pretty rusty, so corrections welcome. IMO you're not "overstating Japanese [verb][0] regularity a very little bit", but severely overstating it. The ichi-dan / go-dan verbs are indeed quite regular, and though there are irregular verbs like the grandparent post's example, IIRC there aren't actually that many (three?). However, that's not the only "axis" one could conjugate Japanese verbs. The complicated stuff are the transitive / intransitive forms, and the compound verbs. While some rules apply, they are more like the "I before E, except after C" English spelling rule. It would be akin to saying that there are only three verb tenses in English: past, present, and future; simple, right? While it's technically not wrong, it's glossing over the progressive, perfect, and subjunctive forms (maybe there are more, don't remember), and their combinations. [0] Hopefully from context it's clear we're only talking about grammar pertaining to Japanese verbs, and not Japanese in general. Japanese grammar has plenty of quirks, like how some colors are adjectives (red: akai, blue: aoi) but others are nouns (green: midori, purple: murasaki), or how loan words are usually written in katakana, but tobacco is not, etc.

Grue3 10y ago

You're forgetting that there are only 3 (three) verb conjugations in English, of which two are almost always the same. Only a finite number of verbs have irregular conjugations, so you just learn them along with vocabulary. In Japanese, the number of possible conjugations of all irregular verbs (copula, "suru", "kuru") is probably larger than the number of English irregular verbs that are commonly used. In fact, let's count the number of conjugations of "kuru" in my ICHIRAN [1] database: ICHIRAN/DICT> (length (get-kana-forms 1547720)) 186 Are English possessives considered difficult by anyone? Not sure what that demonstrates. Plurals! Oh, that's my favorite topic that I'm working on right now. -tachi is mostly used with people, so can't be used in most context. For inanimate objects you just say the number of them. And that's where the counters come in... At which point any sane person gives up learning Japanese for good. Past tense, isn't that the same as conjugations? Also your rules don't really work. "tanoshii" => "tanoshiideshita"? Pretty sure that's not a word. The correct past tense is "tanoshikatta [desu]". [1] https://github.com/tshatrov/ichiran https://github.com/tshatrov/ichiran

laurieg 10y ago
We have counters in English too! Tons of words are uncountable, like water, bread, and so on. A slice of bread, a loaf of bread, a bread roll (Hey, why did that one come after the 'bread'...) We even have lots of words that are both countable and uncountable. "I ate some tomato" and "I ate some tomatoes" has quite different meaning. Overall I think all languages have their foibles, and trying to hold one widely used natural language up as "More regular" or "more difficult" is a pretty fruitless endeavour. Thought it is fun to talk about ;)
- mhink 10y ago
  > A slice of bread, a loaf of bread, a bread roll (Hey, why did that one come after the 'bread'...) This doesn't seem that unusual to me, all things considered. "Bread", as a word, is more of a substance-noun than a discrete object-noun. Moreover, "slice" and "loaf" don't strike me as words which give meaning to the phrases "slice of bread" or "loaf of bread"- in fact, it's the other way around. For instance, "slice" is the primary noun, and "bread" is just meant to distinguish it from other "slices" (e.g. "slice of pizza"). So, when I say "Pass me two slices of pizza", I'm really saying "Pass me two 'slice-of-pizza's", rather than "Pass me 'two-slices' of pizza".

Grue3 10y ago

Oh, I just remembered another fun feature of Japanese verb conjugation. Can you conjugate the (regular) verb "へる" (heru)? There happen to be two verbs that are pronounced "heru" but with completely different conjugations! Do you remember which one is which? In fact any verb that ends with -eru or -aru can be potentially conjugated like an ichidan verb or a godan verb. For each such verb you have to remember its conjugation class, lest you conjugate it completely wrong. So these aren't so regular after all. Also a related topic is intransitive/transitive verb pairs. These are also heavily irregular, and you must use the correct one in a sentence or it will be ungrammatical.

samfisher83 10y ago

The thing with English is people in general can understand most things even if you screw up tenses or tones. You put a few words together and people will mostly get you. In Japanese you have to remember extra things to add so you identify different parts of a sentence. Same with gender in romance languages. They just add more complexity. In a way Korean and Chinese are a little easier in terms of rules.