ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the core material of conjugation patterns of predicates which students would expect to encounter in their first year of learning Japanese. Grammar points are followed by contextualized examples and exercises which allow students to reinforce and consolidate their learning. The predicate typically describes what the subject does or what the subject is, and appears at the end of a sentence. While the subject can be omitted, every Japanese sentence must have a predicate. There are three types of predicates in Japanese: nouns accompanied by the copula verb da, adjectives, and verbs. A predicate conjugates according to whether it is: plain or polite, non-past or past, and affirmative or negative. Thus, each Japanese predicate has eight basic conjugation forms.
