Guide to Japanese

Negative Verbs

Now that we’ve seen how to declare things and perform actions with verbs, we want to be able to say the negative. In other words, we want to say that such-and-such action was not performed. This is done by conjugating the verb to the negative form just like the state-of-being for nouns and adjectives. However, the rules are a tad more complicated.

Conjugating verbs into the negative

Vocabulary

ある u-verb
to exist (inanimate)
いる ru-verb
to exist (animate)
食べる(た・べる) ru-verb
to eat
買う(か・う) u-verb
to buy
待つ(ま・つ) u-verb
to wait
する exception
to do
来る(く・る) exception
to come
見る(み・る) ru-verb
to see
寝る(ね・る) ru-verb
to sleep
起きる(お・きる) ru-verb
to wake; to occur
考える(かんが・える) ru-verb
to think
教える(おし・える) ru-verb
to teach; to inform
出る(で・る) ru-verb
to come out
着る(き・る) ru-verb
to wear
話す(はな・す) u-verb
to speak
聞く(き・く) u-verb
to ask; to listen
泳ぐ(およ・ぐ) u-verb
to swim
遊ぶ(あそ・ぶ) u-verb
to play
飲む(の・む) u-verb
to drink
帰る(かえ・る) u-verb
to go home
死ぬ(し・ぬ) u-verb
to die
お金(お・かね)
money
私(わたし)
me, myself, I
猫(ねこ)
cat

We will now make use of the verb classifications we learned in the last section to define the rules for conjugation. But before we get into that, we need to cover one very important exception to the negative conjugation rules: ある.

  • ある (u-verb) – to exist (inanimate)
  • いる (ru-verb) – to exist (animate)

ある is an u-verb used to express existence of inanimate objects. The equivalent verb for animate objects (such as people or animals) is いる, which is a normal ru-verb. For example, if you wanted to say that a chair is in the room, you would use the verb ある, but if you wanted to say that a person is in the room, you must use the verb いる instead. These two verbs ある and いる are quite different from all other verbs because they describe existence and are not actual actions. You also need to be careful to choose the correct one based on animate or inanimate objects.

Anyway, the reason I bring it up here is because the negative of ある is ない (meaning that something does not exist). The conjugation rules for all other verbs are listed below as well as a list of example verbs and their negative forms.

Conjugation rules for negative verbs

  • For ru-verbs: Drop the る and attach ない
    Example: 食(た)べる + ない = 食(た)べない
  • ＊For u-verbs that end in う: Replace う with わ and attach ない
    Example: 買(か)う + わ + ない = 買(か)わない
  • For all other u-verbs: Replace the u-vowel sound with the a-vowel equivalent and attach ない
    Example: 待(ま)つ + た = 待(ま)たない
  • Exceptions:
    する → しない
    くる → こない
    ＊ある → ない

＊ = exceptions particular to this conjugation

ru-verbu-verbexception
見る → 　見ない話す → 　話さないする → しない
食べる → 　食べない聞く → 　聞かないくる → こない
寝る → 　寝ない泳ぐ → 　泳がない＊ある → ない
起きる → 　起きない遊ぶ → 　遊ばない
考える → 　考えない待つ → 　待たない
教える → 　教えない飲む → 　飲まない
出る → 　出ない＊買う → 　買わない
着る → 　着ない帰る → 　帰らない
いる → 　いない死ぬ → 　死なない
Negative form conjugation examples

Examples

Here are the example sentences from the last section conjugated to the negative form.

  1. アリス(a ri su)は食(た)べない。
    As for Alice, does not eat.

  2. ジム(ji mu)が遊(あそ)ばない。
    Jim is the one that does not play.

  3. ボブ(bo bu)もしない。
    Bob also does not do.

  4. お金(お・かね)がない。
    There is no money. (lit: Money is the thing that does not exist.)

  5. 私(わたし)は買(か)わない。
    As for me, not buy.

  6. 猫(ねこ)はいない。
    There is no cat. (lit: As for cat, does not exist.)