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Can A; be able to A (ability of the subject)
  1. Can A; be able to A (ability of the subject)
  2. Can A; be possible to A; (possibility of the subject to do A)
19
あなた           すごい  
You can read kanji? Wow!
29
  ひらがな          できる  かたかな           
He can read and write in hiragana, but he can't write in katakana.
26
この               
I can't solve this riddle. I give up!
27
       ある                
I have plans on Saturday so I can't go to the party.
21
   いくつ          
How many kanji characters can you write?
27
          
Can you ride a bicycle?
22
           
What kind of songs can you sing?
10
その           しました         
The girl suddenly turned into a cat! I can't believe it!
2
                      
It continued to rain, so I couldn't go out to drink.
42
この カレー             
This curry is too spicy; I can't eat it!
3
            
She can speak seven languages.
0
 ページ  ある              
I can memorize three pages of lines in an hour.
5
  使                 まで     
If I use a cane I can walk to the destination without taking a rest.

Getting the sentences
Construction
(Elements in parentheses are optional.)
Dict. Form
Conjugated
げる
げられる
せる
える
ける
くる
こられる
ねる
Dict. Form
Conjugated
れる
てる
べる
める
そぐ
そげる
する
できる
Where this grammar is found


User notes
avatar
Level:
(4 years ago)
The potential form of ある isn't "あれる"!
It's actually ありえる/ありうる, depending
on which one you want to use.
When negating the potential form of ある,
note that only ありえる is used:
it becomes ありえない.
"ありうらない" is wrong.
9
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まさむね123
Level: 1
(5 years ago)
All potential verbs become verbs.
4
avatar
Level: 156
(6 years ago)
Verb I:
Change last vowel into e + ru
Os(u) = Os(eru)
Kak(u) = Kak(eru)

Verb II:
Change last vowel into a + reru
Taber(u) = Taber(areru)
Mir(u) = Mir(areru)
10
avatar
Level:
(9 years ago)
When you would normally use the particle を with this, you can use either を or が. できる, though, usually uses が.
8
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Karlla
Level: 892
(10 years ago)
There is another potential form for group 2 verbs, which is used only in colloquial speech. It takes the form 'verb stem' + れる.
あける --> あけれる, べる --> べれる, る --> れる etc.
13
 
Can A; be possible to A; (possibility of the subject to do A)
  1. Can A; be able to A (ability of the subject)
  2. Can A; be possible to A; (possibility of the subject to do A)
13
その ボタン                 
If you push this button, you can make the robot move.
18
                
If you go to Japan you can ride the bullet-train.

Getting the sentences
Construction
(Elements in parentheses are optional.)
Dict. Form
Conjugated
げる
げられる
せる
える
ける
くる
こられる
ねる
Dict. Form
Conjugated
れる
てる
べる
める
そぐ
そげる
する
できる
Where this grammar is found


User notes

Discussion about this grammar
avatar
Diamondrock
Level: 1
The second example sentence should say "read and write" not "read and right."
1
15 years ago
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マイコー
Level: 256
How delightfully embarrassing :)
4
15 years ago
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cbruguera
Level: 2
How can I apply potentiality to verb です?
0
14 years ago
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マイコー
Level: 256
Can you give me an example of what you'd want to say that might use です?
0
14 years ago
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cbruguera
Level: 2
です。

I'm trying to say something like "human ideas can be unnatural/artificial"
1
14 years ago
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マイコー
Level: 256
Sorry for the delay.

I had a long talk about what you're trying to say, and it seems to be rather hard to say 'unnatural' in regards to human ideas - we did not make a lot of ground on that front.

With the potential, though, we decided that it would be best to use 'ことがある', which loosely means 'there are times/instances of ...'
http://www.renshuu.org/index.php?page=grammar/individual&id=33

You could say something like
うことがある。
There are times where human ideas are mistaken.

Check out that grammar page - hopefully that'll help some.
1
14 years ago
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cbruguera
Level: 2
thank you very much, that helps alot.

However, I'm not quitely talking about right or mistaken ideas. It sounds quite abstract but I'm writing about nature () in a kinda philosphical way and I was trying to express that reality is all natural, but our ideas might not flow according to nature's way, of course that might be somehow equivalent to the concepts of truth and falsehood, but it was another way to say it, "unnatural".

In case "" is a valid concept, something like this would be right?...

ですが、ですります。

??

is that the way to use ことがある with です verb?
0
14 years ago
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cbruguera
Level: 2
and one more question...

can you use that as a potential form like ‾れる ?
0
14 years ago
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マイコー
Level: 256
The reason I didn't rewrite it with the bit is that we (my Japanese friend and I) could not figure out a good way to translate the English into Japanese. Especially since it's abstract, as you put it, it's hard to make a direct translation.

Because of that, I used the 'mistaken' example not as a replacement, but as a way to explain that grammar point.

As for ことがある and です, you don't need to actually put in です. I think the best way (will double check) would be
...ということがあります.

That takes the statement preceding it and turns it into a noun. Again, I think this works, but I'm not positive. I can say with certainty that you a)do not put です in from of こと, and b)you would not use あれる (I don't think I've ever heard someone say あれる in any context).

You might want to cross-post this in the site's forums (link at the top) - I haven't quite figured out how to get more eyes on these discussion pages, but more people will see a question in the forum.
0
14 years ago
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cbruguera
Level: 2
I see, thank you very much for your time and interest.
だった ^^
0
14 years ago
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Level: 113
in the conjugation table, the example いそぐ becomes いそげる, but is そ supposed to be in red too?
1
13 years ago
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マイコー
Level: 256
Yea - it's not necessarily what has changed (exactly), but is used to draw focus to the change - it's from where the word starts to change until the end of the word.
0
13 years ago
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Level: 113
oh ok, i guess i just don't understand then ... I was thinking that the そ in ぐ wasn't part of the verb ending and therefore wouldn't be a part of the change ...
1
13 years ago
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マイコー
Level: 256
Ah, I see what you're saying. Yea, it should probably be un 'red-ed'.
0
13 years ago
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kawaii_inu
Level: 1
Souldn't が be used instead of を?For exaple "める", and not "める". Potential forms do not have direct objects I've heard.
1
13 years ago
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マイコー
Level: 256
Fixed, thanks!
0
13 years ago
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ringo69
Level: 1
on Can A; be able to A (ability of the subject) example no 8 (しんじる).can you tell me why しんじる became しんじられる. not follow the pattern (るーれる and its negatif form should it be しんじれらない) ?
0
13 years ago
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mysticfive
Level: 1573
ringo - that's because しんじる is a る verb (or an いちだん verb), like べる or あける (the latter being used in the construction box above). The るーれる pattern you're seeing (exemplified by とる in the box) is for う verbs (or ごだん verbs) that happen to end in る.
2
13 years ago
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KomatoseKowboy
Level: 1
For the second sentence,「んだりいたりる、けませんけれど。」 "けません" should be highlighted. :P
1
11 years ago
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マイコー
Level: 256
Thanks, fixed!
0
11 years ago
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Karlla
Level: 892
My Japanese friend once stated, that the potential form of verbs is just ~れる (e.g. べれる). And even my text book (namely JFBP) agrees, that ~れる is sometimes used in colloquial speech. Although I have to admit, that is looks and sounds somewhat strange, for someone like me, who deals with linguistic terms like , etc., it would make perfectly sense to simply add ~る to the of verbs. And it would be soo much easier. :-[ Anyway, I don't know how you think about it, but maybe it's worth a side note?
0
10 years ago
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マイコー
Level: 256
I could have sworn we had already added that in the past. If you would like to add it as a usage note (and I will be happy to check it when you are done), you'll get credit for it, and it'll save me some time :)
0
10 years ago
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mysticfive
Level: 1573
looking at the example sentence 「そのました!じられない!」, the first exclamation point is the only thing highlighted - shouldn't the じられない be highlighted instead?
1
10 years ago
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マイコー
Level: 256
Fixed it!
0
10 years ago
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