nihongo wo benkyou shitai

Well, a nice simple one for today. I say simple, but it's oh-so-handy and I'm forever using it. Today we'll revise how turn verbs into their potential form, or in other words, how to say "I can...".

A few examples to kick off:

1. I can read kana, but I can't read kanji.
2. I think I can pass the exam.
3. I can't eat bananas.

Now the nice thing is that this is a pretty simple conjugation, as follows:

• ーる verbs, drop ーる and add ーられる
• ーう verbs, drop ーう and add ーえる
• する becomes できる
  
• くる becomes こられる

And that is pretty much it. Two things are worth pointing out. First, after conjugating the verb, it acts just like a ーる verb and will conjugate as such (see the examples below). Second, a lot of Japanese will conjugate ーる verbs to ーれる instead of ーられる. If you're doing exams, don't try and go native on this - the examiners only want to see ーられる!

例えば：

English: I can read kana, but I can't read kanji.
Jenglish: [I][kana][read+can][but][kanji][read+can't]
日本語:　　　私は仮名を読めますが漢字を読めません。

仮名 = か・な

English: I think I can pass the exam.
Jenglish: [I][exam][pass][think]
日本語:　　　私は試験を合格できると思う。

English: When I went to the restaurant, I couldn't eat the fish.
Jenglish: [restaurant][went][when][fish][eat+couldn't]
日本語：　　　レストランに行った時魚を食べられませんでした。

Simple. Useful. Sorted.

またね。。。