Now you can say you can.
Expressing the ability to do something
In Japanese, the ability to do a certain action is expressed by conjugating the verb rather than adding a word like the English "can" or "able to". All verbs once
conjugated in the potential form become a ru-verb.
The Potential Form
Once again, the rules can be split into two major groups: ru-verbs and u-verbs. The potential form of the verb 「」 (meaning "to do") is a special
exception because it becomes a completely different verb: 「」 （）
Rules for creating potential form
- ru-verbs - Replace the 「る」with 「られる」.
（例） →
- u-verbs - Change the last character from a / u / vowel sound to the equivalent / e / vowel sound and add 「る」.
（例） → →
- Exceptions - 「」 becomes 「」 and 「」 becomes 「」.
※Remember that all potential verbs become ru-verbs.
Sample ru-verbs
| Plain | Potential |
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Sample u-verbs
| Plain | Potential |
| (Pot.) |
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hanasu | hanaseru |
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kaku | kakeru |
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asobu | asoberu |
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matu | materu |
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nomu | nomeru |
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toru | toreru |
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shinu | shineru |
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Exception Verbs
| Plain | Potential |
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There is some who occasionally will add just 「れる」 instead of the full 「られる」 for ru-verbs. For example, 「」 becomes 「」 instead of
「」. I suggest
learning the official 「られる」 conjugation first because laziness can be a hard habit to break and the shorter version, though common, is not
technically correct.
Examples
（１） はか？- Can you write kanji?
（２） だが、は。- It's unfortunate, but can't go this weeked.
（３） 。- Already, I can't believe it.
Potential forms do not have direct objects
The potential form indicates that something is possible but no actual action is actually taken. While the potential form remains a verb, since it is
describing the state of something you must not use the direct object 「を」 as you have done with regular verbs.
For example the following sentences are incorrect.
（誤） を。
（誤） を。
Here are the corrected versions:
（正） が。- Was able to climb Fuji-san.
（正） が。- Am able to hold heavy baggage.
Of course, the 「は」 or 「も」 particle is also possible depending on what you want to say.
Are 「」 and 「」 exceptions?
There are two verbs 「」 and 「」 that mean that something is visible and audible, respectively. When you want to say that you can
see or hear something, you'll want to use these verbs. If however, you wanted to say that you were given the opportunity to see or hear something,
you would use the regular potential form. However, in this case, it is more common to use the type of expression as seen in example （３）.
Examples
（１） は、が。- It cleared up today and Fuji-san is visible.
（２） ので、はで。- Thanks to (my) friend, (I) was able to watch the movie for free.
（３） ので、をでが。- Thanks to (my) friend, (I) was able to watch the movie for free.
You can see that （３） uses the generic noun for an event to say literally, "The event of seeing movie was able to be done." which essentially
means the same thing as 「」. As already explained in Particles 3,
you can also just use generic noun substitution to substitute for 「」.
（１） ので、をのが。
Here's some more examples using 「」, can you tell the difference? Notice that 「」 always means "audible" and never "able to ask".
（１） にのが。- I was able to hear his voice for the first time in a long time.
（２） が、がが - The surroundings were noisy and I couldn't hear what he was saying very well。
「」, yet another exception
You can say that something has a possibility of existing by combining 「」 and the verb 「」 to produce 「」.
This essentially means 「が」
except that nobody actually says that, they just use 「」. This verb is very curious in that it can be read as either
「」 or 「」, however; all the other conjugations such as 「」、「」、and 「」
only have one possible reading using 「え」.
Examples
（１） は。 - That kind of situation/event is possible.
（２） は。 - That kind of situation/event is possible.
（３） は。- That kind of situation/event is not possible.
（４） にはが。- Everything that possibly exists is in this package.
（５） は、だよ。- That's an impossible story. (story that cannot exist)
This page has last been revised on 2005/2/12
