~てform chart

A year 12 Japanese teacher at the VSL I attend wrote down on the whiteboard a chart which visually explains how to convert verbs from the three groups (Regular I, Regular II and Irregular – you better know these or else! :P) to their ~て forms instantly, after she saw how many of her yr.12 students were incapable of doing so. I managed to get a copy of this chart and will post it on here for all of you to use. Using the chart is really simple: the character that comes directly before ます is shown (so if the verb was 行きます, the character that comes directly before ます is き) and then it shows the form of て that is used for that verb (remembering that the ~て form of some verbs is んで, って, etc.). After you know which type of ~て is used for a particular verb, convert the ~ます form of the verb to  ~て form as normal. If you have any other questions regarding its use, feel free to leave a comment. In addition, this ~て form chart can be used to convert verbs in their ~た forms as well. All you need to do to is just replace て(で) with た(だ) in each case. 

 

Regular I Verbs		Regular II Verbs		Irregular Verbs
Character directly before ます	Form of ~て to be used	Character directly before ます	Form of ~て to be used	します à して   　     き                  き 来ます à 来て   できます à できて*
い ち り	って	Case 1: The vowel え comes directly before the ます (this doesn’t have to beえ by itself, it can be syllables which contain え, eg: へ, け, せ, etc.)
		~え	て
び み に	んで	Case 2 – Regular I exceptions (except for ね): Verbs that have only a single syllable before ます
き	いて	ね い み に	て
ぎ	いで	Case 3 – Regular I exceptions: homonyms
し	て	The character in this case is irrelevant	て
Single exception: 行くbecomes 行って in it’s ~て form, not 行いて

 

*できます is never listed as an irregular verb in textbooks and in the appendix of dictionaries. I have my reasons for listing it as an irregular verb but there’s no real need to explain why unless someone requests me to.

 

Thanks to Bunn-sensei for this chart! VSL will miss you!