Verb Book Recommendations

[fareastfurfaro]

Hi there,

I am trying to find a good book with a listing of hundreds of verbs and all (or at least most) of the conjugations. Everything I come across seems to have romaji in it. I REALLY don't want to use a book with that in it. I find myself actually slower at reading that than Japanese anyway. I haven't found any site that has a massive list either with the verbs in their proper I, II, III categories. So, does anyone have any recommendations on a good book to pick up to further my studying? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Ryan

[Yudan Taiteki]

I don't think there is such a book other than that "501 japanese verbs" or whatever the number is, which is in romaji.

I don't understand why you need this anyway; once you learn the conjugation patterns you don't need tables listing every single verb.

[Sairana]

So.. basically you want Barron's 501 Japanese Verbs without the romaji?

I used my Google-fu for about half an hour, and I can find a ton of great books about Japanese verbs that teach you how to conjugate. Most of those have an extensive list of verbs, but rather than hand you the conjugations, they show you how to figure them out for yourself.

However, I did not find anything that meets your criteria.

Won't a dictionary + one of the above mentioned supplements serve just as well?

EDIT: See? Half an hour. Chris responded while I had this window open and I was searching. Must. Stop. Doing that. /sigh

[fareastfurfaro]

Thanks for the quick responses. Well, I am going through the 2nd Minna No Nihongo book and there are times when I have to conjugate the verbs but I am not always 100% if I am right or not. I just want to have a book handy to check so I am not making the same mistakes all the time on certain verbs both written and spoken.

A book focused simply on how to convert verbs would be great, Sairana. I think I do basically want that Barron's book without romaji but of course getting actual instruction on how to conjugate all of them would be even better. I like your idea better. Like I said, I usually understand the methods, I just don't always know if all my conjugations are correct and there is no way to check during the simple drilling parts of the book. Also, my electronic dictionary doesn't show what verb category (I or II) it is in.

Maybe I am asking for too much?

[Sairana]

Also, my electronic dictionary doesn't show what verb category (I or II) it is in.

Are you sure it's not just using a different notation? I can't imagine an electronic dictionary completely leaving that bit out. Maybe it uses the same notation WWWJDIC does, (v1) or (v5), or something similar. If it really has zero indication of which type of verb it is, then you have my sympathies.

Maybe I am asking for too much?

Only in the first post, maybe.

A book focused simply on how to convert verbs would be great

Search amazon.com for "japanese verbs" in the books section. There were several very good hits, and most of them have the "look inside" feature available to get a sampling of actual pages from the book. I don't own any of them, so I can't give hard recommendations, but there was more than a couple that have tempted me to buy them.

[fareastfurfaro]

Also, my electronic dictionary doesn't show what verb category (I or II) it is in.

Are you sure it's not just using a different notation? I can't imagine an electronic dictionary completely leaving that bit out. Maybe it uses the same notation WWWJDIC does, (v1) or (v5), or something similar. If it really has zero indication of which type of verb it is, then you have my sympathies.

I don't know. I have the Canon V300 Wordtank but I don't see a category anywhere. Whether it is just looking up the basic form or on the page with the Kanji by itself.

Search amazon.com for "japanese verbs" in the books section. There were several very good hits, and most of them have the "look inside" feature available to get a sampling of actual pages from the book. I don't own any of them, so I can't give hard recommendations, but there was more than a couple that have tempted me to buy them.

I have done this and then I came here to make a post after because I didn't find what I wanted. Maybe I will just have to make do without one or use a romaji book even though that seems silly to me.

Thanks for the help! If you know anything about the V300 feature I am missing, let me know!

Ryan

[richvh]

If you want to see conjugation tables in kana/kanji, check out the {V} links in WWWJDIC. Just about anything else is going to only give you the category of verb.

Does your electronic dictionary list verbs something like this?

おも・う〔おもふ〕【思う／▽想う／▽憶う／▽念う】

［動ワ五（ハ四）］

That second line tells you how the verb is conjugated: the 動 means it's a verb (動詞), the ワ tells you which column of kana the stems are found in, and the 五 tells you that it's a 5-step verb: the various stems use all 5 rows of the kana table, in this case わ／い／う／え／お. In edict notation, it's a v5w.

(Don't worry about the ハ四, that's referring to classical Japanese conjugation.)

Again,

た・べる【食べる】

［動バ下一］［文］た・ぶ［バ下二］《尊敬語「たぶ」（四段）に対応する謙譲語》

The 動 tells us it's a verb, the バ tells which column the stem falls in, the 下 tells the stem comes from the lower half of the table, and the 一 tells us it's a one step verb - all stems use the same kana, which for 下一段動詞 is always from the え row. (上一段動詞 have stems in the い row.) In edict notation, it's a v1. The rest is, again, talking about classical Japanese.

The other major verb categories you'll run into are サ変 for suru verbs, and カ変 for 来る; vs and vk respecitively in edict notation.

[caroline]

［動バ下一］［文］た・ぶ［バ下二］《尊敬語「たぶ」（四段）に対応する謙譲語》

Thanks Rich, I had never noticed on my Ex word that part, probably because I mainly use it just as a dictionary!

[fareastfurfaro]

If you want to see conjugation tables in kana/kanji, check out the {V} links in WWWJDIC. Just about anything else is going to only give you the category of verb.

ooo...this is nice. I never knew about that feature on the site, thanks!

Does your electronic dictionary list verbs something like this?

おも・う〔おもふ〕【思う／▽想う／▽憶う／▽念う】

［動ワ五（ハ四）］

That second line tells you how the verb is conjugated: the 動 means it's a verb (動詞), the ワ tells you which column of kana the stems are found in, and the 五 tells you that it's a 5-step verb: the various stems use all 5 rows of the kana table, in this case わ／い／う／え／お. In edict notation, it's a v5w.

I searched around for about ten minutes until I finally found what you were talking about. It is in a different location than I was expecting on the electronic dictionary, but it is there. I don't really understand all of it though, unfortunately. I really appreciate the explanations though, I will read them through again and again until I get a better grasp of it. Thanks!

Ryan

[richvh]

I think the verb category will be only given in the J-J dictionary on your electronic dictionary; the J-E and E-J probably won't have them, since the dictionaries on there are intended for native Japanese speakers (since that's where the primary market for the product is) and the verb category for them isn't needed unless they don't know the verb, in which case they'd need to check the J-J dictionary anyway.

[Yudan Taiteki]

Even if they don't know the verb, the class of the verb is purely predictable unless the verb ends in -iru or -eru (or if it's one of the very small number of irregulars, but native speakers would know all of those). I think that even if native speakers weren't consciously aware of the rules you can use to know the class of a verb, they'd probably have some innate awareness of them.