Basic Course
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- 96 week duration
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Missions in Verb District
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Side Quests
Side Quest 4: Volitional Form
In this lesson, I will teach you how to convert Japanese verbs into Volitional Form.
What Does Volitional Form Mean？
| The Volitional Form means ‘Let’s …’. |
How to change Japanese Verb to Volitional Form?
| For Type-1 Verbs： Change the u-hiragana to the corresponding o-hiragana and add う at the end. For example，会う（au）→会おう（aou）. |
| For Type-2 Verbs: Change the verb ending from る to よう. For example，食べる（taberu）→食べよう（tabeyou）. |
| For Type-3 Verbs: Change the verb ending from する to しよう. For example，勉強する（benkyousuru）→勉強しよう（benkyoushiyou）. |
| For Irregular Verbs： する（suru）→しよう（shiyou）. 来る（kuru）→来よう（koyou）. |
Polite Form of Volitional Form:
| To express volitional form politely to superiors or strangers, simply replace the standard polite ending 〜ます with 〜ましょう. This form is appropriate for formal suggestions or invitations. Below are three examples（For Patrons，there will be three example anime clips from anime demonstrating how the polite volitional form is naturally applied in real dialogue）： 会います → 会いましょう (Let’s meet.) 食べます → 食べましょう (Let’s eat.) 勉強します → 勉強しましょう (Let’s study.) |
Examples:
| Example | Reading | Volitional Form |
|---|---|---|
| 会う | あう | 会おう |
| 行く | いく | 行こう |
| 嗅ぐ | かぐ | 嗅ごう |
| 押す | おす | 押そう |
| 打つ | うつ | 打とう |
| 死ぬ | しぬ | 死のう |
| 呼ぶ | よぶ | 呼ぼう |
| 飲む | のむ | 飲もう |
| やる | やる | やろう |
| 食べる | たべる | 食べよう |
| 勉強する | べんきょうする | 勉強しよう |
| する | する | しよう |
| 来る | くる | 来（こ）よう |
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9 thoughts on “Side Quest 4: Volitional Form”
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I can understand 行こう, but I sometimes see 行くぜ too. Is there any difference between these 2?
【行くぜ】
明日、一緒に東京に行くぜ。 The speaker will go because there is 一緒に.
もう中学生なのだから、一人で東京に行くぜ。 The speaker won’t go.
【行こう】
東京に行こう！
Let’s go to Tokyo.（The speaker will go）
Is there any difference between way 1 and way 2 ?
I explained it already😅
I didn’t see it. Sorry😅😅😅
Hey, I sometimes hear people say 行くよう And I was wondering if that was right or something else?
Conversational Japanese may differ slightly from these rules and tend to have losse rules in general.
It’s better to follow these rules and ask around in the forum/Discord.
Is there a negative volitional form?
I think the most common simple way to express the meaning of “Let’s not X” in Japanese is:
行かないね。
食べませんね。
Another option is to use a compound expression such as Xするのはやめる (which literally means “stop doing X”) or Xないことにする (which literally means “Choose not to do X”). For instance:
行くのはやめよう。
行かないことにしよう。
食べるのはやめましょう。
食べないことにしましょう。