Expressing Abilities: The Importance of Potential Verbs in Japanese

The potential form allows Japanese speakers to express ability, possibility, and permission in everyday conversation. Unlike in English, where additional words like "can" or "able to" are needed, the conjugated verb itself conveys the meaning! This conjugation is commonly used in everyday conversation, and therefore is essential to master. Understanding potential verbs not only broadens your grammatical skills but also enhances your ability to communicate possibilities and limitations in a natural, fluent way.

How to Form Potential Verbs in Japanese: A Quick Guide

To express ability in Japanese, verbs are conjugated into their potential form. For ru-verbs, replace "る" with "られる" (e.g., "食べる" becomes "食べられる"). U-verbs are transformed by changing the final syllable to the "e" sound and adding "る" (e.g., "行く" becomes "行ける"). Irregular verbs like "する" change to "できる," and "来る" becomes "こられる." Once conjugated, these verbs follow ru-verb rules regardless of their original type. 

Common Potential Verbs in Japanese and How to Use Them Effortlessly

Many commonly used verbs have easy-to-apply potential forms. For example, "見る" (to see) becomes "見られる" (can see), and "聞く" (to hear) becomes "聞ける" (can hear). Here are a few more examples:

U-verbs:

• 話す (hanasu) → 話せる (hanaseru)

• 書く (kaku) → 書ける (kakeru)

• 読む (yomu) → 読める (yomeru)

Ru-verbs

• 調べる (shiraberu) → 調べられる (shiraberareru)

• 数える (kazoeru) → 数えられる (kazoerareru)

• 出る (deru) → 出られる (derareru)