Negative Dictionary Group 1 Verbs
“Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.” – Marilyn Vos Savant
We’re going to take it a little slower with negative dictionary form verbs, just because it has the most “new stuff” associated… that’s just new things that aren’t already in your brain right now, one way or another.
Now, negative tense dictionary form is sometimes known as a-form, and for good reason, too. Do you remember what Group 1 verbs are? Okay, I hope so. That part is important for what we’re going to talk about now. First, take a look at these verbs:
いきます = to go
はいります = to enter
あるきます = to walk
いそぎます = to hurry
We’re going to take these and turn them to a-form. To do that, all you need to do is take the last kana right before the ます and change it to an “a-sound.”
いきます → いか
はいります → はいら
あるきます → あるか
いそぎます → いそが
The last thing you need to do is add the negative part to it. ない (which means do not have / do not exist) attaches to the a-form verb. This finishes up the transformation and makes the verb into dictionary form negative.
いか → いかない ＝ won’t go
はいら → はいらない ＝ won’t enter
あるか → あるかない ＝ won’t walk
いそが → いそがない ＝ won’t hurry
The concepts there should be pretty easy (don’t expect you to memorize all this right off the bat… soon though). We’ve been working in dictionary form, so we need to make sure you can change dictionary form verbs to negative dictionary form verbs as well. In fact, this is probably more important than converting from ます form, since they live in the same sort of family. Let’s take a look at this set of verbs:
しぬ ＝ to die
まつ ＝ to wait
かう ＝ to buy
It’s actually a lot easier to convert dictionary form verbs to a-form verbs. Just change the last kana to an “a-sound” (just like before) and then add ない to it.
しぬ → しな → しなない
まつ → また → またない
かう → かわ → かわない
Let’s sum things up. With Group 1 verbs, you’ll want to take the last kana (either before the ます when in ます form or just the last kana overall if in dictionary form) and change it to an “a-sound.” Then, you’ll want to add ない to it (you’ll be seeing ない in a lot of grammar points in Japanese, so keep it in your mind!) to make it negative.
I think the only main issue you might be running into is remembering that you need to use a-form to make a verb negative (at least in dictionary form). Here’s one way to remember it. If you think of one sound (as in, one vowel) that is a negative sound, what would it be? Probably ああああああ (ahhhhhhh!) because it’s a scream. When you scream, something negative is happening to you (Look behind you! A three-headed monkey!). So, when it comes to negative verbs, AHHHHH-form is being used, because screaming is negative.
For now, all I want you to do is practice converting not-negative verbs into negative dictionary form verbs. Once you feel comfortable with that, we’ll look at Group 2 verbs (and the exceptions) before moving on to past negative (which really just combines stuff you’ve already learned).
Group 1 Negative Dictiontary Form (PDF)