Transitive vs Intransitive Verbs┃I'm Breaking vs It's Broken

Watch the LONGER lesson on Patreon
*More example sentences, more grammar points to learn*

This time we'll learn what transitive & intransitive（自動詞 & 他動詞) are
and how to use them correctly.
★ It's open vs I'm opening it.
☆ My computer is broken. vs I'm breaking my computer.
★ The light turned on / off.
☆ Don't use the word "fall" around students?!

Other forms you should learn:
しまう / ちゃう form.
てしまう / ちゃう lesson ⇓
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[jeremyfischman]

Here's another way to think about transitive vs. intransitive verbs (in pretty much any language): An intransitive verb is a verb that the subject acts upon itself and therefore the verb doesn't require an object. For example, "run, " "walk, " "sleep, " and "talk" are all great examples of intransitive verbs. When I say "I run" or "I walk" or "I sleep" or "I talk" the meaning is something like "I cause myself to run, walk, sleep, talk, etc." But we don't typically say, "I run myself down the street" or "I talked myself to my mother about the movie." We just say "I run down the street" or "I talked to my mother about the movie." Most of the time when we use intransitive verbs, the subject of the verb is doing that verb on itself, by itself, or to itself.

With transitive verbs, on the other hand, the actor does the action of the verb on something other than himself, herself, or itself.... generally. There are exceptions. But some great examples of transitive verbs are "throw, " "drop, " "lift, " "hit, " etc. For example, we wouldn't generally say "I threw" all by itself. We would only say "I threw SOMETHING." We wouldn't generally say "I hit, " but rather "I hit SOMETHING" or "I hit SOMEBODY." These words require a SOMETHING or a SOMEBODY to act upon. That SOMETHING or SOMEBODY is the direct object of the sentence.

Exceptions: sometimes a subject of a sentence can use a transitive verb upon itself when that item is also the object. For example, someone might say "I hit myself in the head with a hammer." But here, we're emphasizing that the subject of the sentence was ALSO the object of the sentence. Also, in English, we will sometimes use what is typically an intransitive verb in a transitive way. Usually we do this to emphasize EFFORT or to imply we needed to force ourselves to do something. For example, we might say, "I ran myself around the block, " rather than "I ran around the block." This subtly implies that I needed to exert some extra effort, or I need to force myself to do the action.

We can do this in English because in English most verbs have BOTH a transitive and an intransitive sense. The same verb can be used both ways, so we get used making the distinction between the transitive and intransitive sense of a verb by the presence or absence of an object in the sentence. So English speakers don't pay much attention to the transitive or intransitive nature of the verb, the just pay attention to the presence or absence of an object in the sentence to tell where the action of the verb is being acted upon. In Japanese, this isn't the case. Since the transitive and intransitive senses of an action are two different, distinct words it's important to use the correct one in Japanese.

[matthagen]

THIS is defnitely one of the hardest elements of Japanese grammar for learners.

[Nicodegalloyo]

2:36 “Misa says ‘fart’”
Me: *surprised Pikachu meme*

[rafipuff]

28:05 best explanation on the internet XD, binge-watching your videos is like the most productive thing

[watarikeito]

Ive been studying Japanese for 10 years and I can say that mastering intransitive and transitive verbs is probably the second most important thing you can know....

It is important not to confuse them together

[JoachimderZweite]

I reviewed this today and in doing so I again realize how incredibly good and professional your lessons are. 💖 🌹

[handyfernandy]

Your English is perfect, and you explain things in such great detail that its so easy to understand. Thank you so much for all your hard work to make these videos for us.

[thesushi]

Something that helped me guess the meaning in the plain and 〜ている with verbs like 愛す and 壊れる was a chart I saw in a completely different video that splits up verbs into whats called their lexical aspect. The wikipedia for lexical aspect can explain this much better but it's basically the inherent process and endpoint of a verb.

Reach (a peak, for example) - Telic, punctual - achievement. There is no inherent process in the final verb but there is a clear endpoint.
Drown - Telic, durative - Accomplishment. There is a process and a pre-established end point.
Clap - Telic, punctual - Semelfactive. There is no process and no clear end point (typically "instant" verbs like knock, sneeze, etc.)
Walk - Atelic, durative - activity. There is a process to walking but there is not a pre-established endpoint.
Know - Static, durative - stative. Simply a state

In Japanese, I've noticed that a stative verb (like know, love, break, die, etc) in the 〜ている form turns into that state being experienced in the constructed tense.
I love ➤ 愛し*ている* (I am experiencing love right now)
I know that dog ➤ あの犬を知*っている* (i am experiencing the knowledge of that dog)
I am not dead ➤ 死ん*でいない* (I am not experiencing death)

I find it super cool because in English, those same verbs cannot be put into the continuous form unlike Japanese (Except with verbs like breaking which refer to the coming of the event (being broke) which technically isnt the continuous aspect. But in a few cases like 'knowing' the continuous aspect makes no sense amd doesn't sound right). So because 知っている is used instead of 知る, that means 知る means something like 'to have knowledge of, ' in sort of an abstract sense. Super cool, I think!

Its really strange to think about, like, verbs have even more meaning beyond their dictionary meaning? It's crazy, but it let me guess that to say 'the computer is broken' would need the 〜ている form. In other news, the way the continuous aspect interacts with all the different lexical aspects is super weird, just like Japanese. I don't know any 'instant' verbs in Japanese so I can't say anything about that, but in English the continuous aspect means that the action occurs multiple times (knocking, sneezing, clapping, etc.). How wild is that!

[arizona_iced_out_boy]

I've been studying Japanese for over a year and kept putting off learning the difference between Transitive/Intransitive verbs. I just kind of went with the flow and hoped for the best...Then I ran into a chapter in my Kanji book all about Intransitive and Transitive verbs. This absolutely helped so much, thank you so much.

[we.]

自動詞 じどうし intransitive
他動詞 たどうし transitive
自 self
他 others
動詞 verb

[Moah]

Thank yoouu for another awesome lesson!! Can you please make a video explaining how to use "each" or "every" ( たとえば ごとに、それぞれ、ざまざま、ずつ、etc)

[Lyverfive]

20:55 in Soviet Russia, Store opens you. HAHAHA

[Vivid_pixcel]

The Zenzenzense video has some good information on the んだ for those that wanted to know more. The song uses it a lot!

[LCSDarkAngel]

I am in 300 level Japanese right now and we are going over these. So, this is helpful. ありがとうございます!

[dntp]

20:57 Hey, that's not true! We in Russia have transitive and intrasitive verbs too! "The store is open" would be either "Магазин открылся" or "Магазин открыт". "The store opens smth" on the other hand would be "Магазин открывает что-то". To make a verb intransitive we usually just add "ся" at the end, in this case "открывать" - "открываться" (открылся is the past tense) and "открыт" means it was opened by smbd and is still open. But anyway, great video as always :)

[elizeugabriel]

本当にありがとうみさ先生。I definitely didn't know the differences between 出す and 出る the other verbs as well, so I really appreciate your videos !

[ogiejii]

Thanks. I have been watching this but my old slow brain is having a hard time processing it. another 27 views and i'll have it . Thanks again!

[dalebennett]

OMG!! Thank you so much!! You have no idea how much this helped me! I already graduated college so my Japanese studies are over but I make it a point to study at least an hour each day so that don’t forget what I know and so that I can learn new I try to make my own sentences based off what I know and what I’m learning and I was having a hard time understanding how to a transitive verb in a situation where I didn’t know/didn’t see the action being performed by somebody, so I automatically assumed that I would have to use an intransitive verb but couldn’t find one anywhere!! I was really confused, but when you explained that the dropping of the subject didn’t change the fact that it’s still a transitive verb...that helped me SOOO MUCH!! Sorry the longest comment ever (lol); I was just so excited that I finally got it!! Again, thank you so much!!

[jaxng]

So far, this is the most adequate explanation i have found for this topic. Very glad to stumble upon Misa Sensei's channel!

[Pavme]

I was really confused when coming upon transitive and intransitive verbs during my Anki vocab study, and found this video. I really like how you pointed out the major difference between "the computer broke" and "the computer broke (something).
It actually reminded me that we also have the same thing in my native language, Arabic, but forgot about it since I'm learning Japanese through English! It's useful to try to translate into a 2nd language if you know more than 2 languages (+Japanese) and don't understand something through English because of its specific grammer

In Arabic, the verb word stays the same but you just add a letter (ن) before it, think like a particle, to signify "it broke / نكسر" and not "it broke something / كسر"