Thanks for following us on Twitter! We hope you have been enjoying the mini lessons we’ve been updating everyday. Our next theme will be Compound Verbs, or 複合動詞 (fukugō dōshi) in Japanese.

Over the next couple of weeks we will introduce you to a new Compound Verb everyday on Twitter.

So what are Compound Verbs, you ask?

Compounds verbs are verbs that are made up of two or more verbs (all of the ones we introduce will be made up of only two verbs). In Japanese, the first verb is in the masu stem form, which is the masu form of the verb with the masu part taken away. Let’s look at an example:

読む (yomu, “to read”) + 始める(hajimeru, “to start”)

The masu form of yomu is yomimasu, so when we take away the “masu” we get the masu stem:

読み (yomi)

And to that, we add the second verb, 始める (hajimeru):

読み始める = yomihajimeru, which means “to start reading”.

If you aren’t already following us on Twitter, make sure that you follow us so that you can get access to these daily mini-Japanese lessons. You can always reply to us if you have any questions or comments about our Tweets! And as always, if you have any ideas for future vocabulary themes, please let us know!