In attempting to learn another language it’s frequently the forms of verbs which present the major difficulties. As has been observed previously in this column, this is much less of a problem with te ...

There are three basic kinds of verbs plus many subclasses. Here we cover only the three basic types. Initially, verbs are divided into main verbs and auxiliary verbs. Then auxiliary verbs are divided ...

The potential form of verbs has two meanings. One is ability to do something. For example, when you want to say "I can speak Japanese", you use the potential form of HANASHI MASU (to speak) and say ...

A new study draws on a rigorous analysis of the Corpus of Historical Japanese to trace the semantic evolution of the verb kikoyu from the 8th centuryto the 20thcentury. This verb, which initially ...