Understanding the Japanese Volitional Form of Verbs
Last updated: December 26, 2024
The Japanese volitional form of verbs. Boy, that's a mouthful.
To break it down:
- Volition (in linguistics) refers loosely to expressing your intent or inclination to do something
- In Japanese, it's indicated by ~よう/~ましょう after a verb
- It generally (but not always) translates to "let's ___" or "shall we ___" in English
Anyway, 始めましょう！(Let's get started!)
In this article, we'll get into:
ForewarningThis article assumes that you can already read hiragana. If not, we applaud your go-getter spirit. Before you read this article, you may want to take a detour to first check out what hiragana is used for, then read this article while referencing our hiragana cheat sheet.
What is the volitional form in Japanese grammar?
In linguistics, volition refers to whether the doer of an action was proactively inclined to do that thing or not. Practically speaking, so far as Japanese grammar is concerned, you'll use the volitional form to express:
- Inclusive suggestions — Suggestions directed at a group that includes you (e.g., "Shall we eat here?")
- Inclusive commands — Commands directed at a group that includes you (e.g., "Let's go!")
- Intent — Emphasizing your personal intent or determination to do something (e.g., "I'll study harder!")
Japanese sentences that include volitional form verbs often get translated to "let's ___", but don't have to be. Volitional sentences occupy a kind of weird space between commands and suggestions, so when you look at them in English, they can be take on a bunch of different forms.
Don't worry about completely understanding the volitional form right now—just get the gist of what it does. Over time, as you consume content in Japanese and see the volitional form used in a variety of different contexts, you'll naturally come to figure out how it works.
Conjugation rules for the volitional form of Japanese verbs
Japanese is a quite regular language, and conjugating a verb into its volitional form is straightforward once you understand how it works.
It may be a little bit difficult at first because Japanese actually has a few different types of verbs, but the telltale sign you've encountered the volitional form is that the verb you're looking at ends in a よう sound (or {consonant}おう, such as ~こう or ~そう).
Anyway, here's how to make the volitional form in Japanese:
1. Godan Verbs ()
These verbs are also known as う verbs because they end with either an う sound or a consonant + う combination, such as く or す. To make the volitional form of these verbs, replace the final う with おう.
For example:
- → change く (ku) to こう (kou) → 行こう = Let’s go.
- → change む (mu) to もう (mou) → 飲もう = Let’s drink.
2. Ichidan Verbs ()
These verbs are also known as る verbs because—you guessed it—they end in る. To make the volitional form of these verbs, simply replace the る with よう.
For example:
- → replace る with よう → 食べよう = Let’s eat.
- → replace る with よう → 見よう = Let’s watch.
Take noteSome verbs that end in る fall into the る-verb category, while others fall into the う-verb category. There's no way to logically workout whether it's one or the other, so this is unfortunately just something that you're going to have to memorize.
3. Irregular verbs
Japanese has exactly two categories of verbs, and, somewhat serendipitously, exactly two verbs that don't fit into either category. They're also both irregular in a slightly different way, so you'll just have to remember them:
- する → しよう = Let’s do (something).
- → = Let’s come.
4. Polite volitional form with ましょう
To make the volitional form polite, the process is the same for every kind of verb. Simply conjugate it to its polite ~ます form, then replace ~ます with ~ましょう.
Let's take a look at one verb from each category above:
- → 行きます → 行きましょう = Let’s go.
- → 食べます → 食べましょう = Let’s eat.
- する → します → しましょう = Let’s do (something).
Verb conjugation cheat sheet
Now that we've walked through the logic behind how to make the volitional form of each verb type, here's a handy reference that puts everything in one place:
Godan Verbs | Volitional Form | Polite Volitional Form | English |
|---|---|---|---|
買う（かう） | 買おう | 買いましょう | Let's buy |
立つ（たつ） | 立とう | 立ちましょう | Let's stand (up) |
話す（はなす） | 話そう | 話しましょう | Let's talk |
走る（はしる） | 走ろう | 走りましょう | Let's run |
歩く（あるく） | 歩こう | 歩きましょう | Let's walk |
泳ぐ（およぐ） | 泳ごう | 泳ぎましょう | Let's swim |
死ぬ（しぬ） | 死のう | 死にましょう | Let's die † |
飛ぶ（とぶ） | 飛ぼう | 飛びましょう | Let's fly |
飲む（のむ） | 飲もう | 飲みましょう | Let's drink |
Ichidan Verbs | Volitional Form | Polite Volitional Form | English |
|---|---|---|---|
食べる（たべる） | 食べよう | 食べましょう | Let's eat |
見る（みる） | 見よう | 見ましょう | Let's look/watch |
起きる（おきる） | 起きよう | 起きましょう | Let's wake up |
出る（でる） | 出よう | 出ましょう | Let's go out |
Irregular Verbs | Volitional Form | Polite Volitional Form | English |
|---|---|---|---|
する | しよう | しましょう | Let's do (something) |
来る（くる） | 来よう（こよう） | 来ましょう（きましょう） | Let's come |
† Note: I would have liked to use a different verb as an example, but there is unfortunately only one Japanese verb that ends in ぬ.
Usage of the volitional form in context
The volitional form is an important part of everyday Japanese—after all, it'd be hard to have any sort of conversation without being able to make suggestions!
We briefly covered the main usages of the volitional form above, and here we'll provide example sentences and look at each usage in a bit more detail.
1. Making an inclusive suggestion/invitation
The first usage of the volitional form is pretty straightforward—use it to suggest things to do together as a group or couple. These can be serious suggestions, ideas you're tossing out there, or even questions:
- さあ、はどこにか
So, where shall we go today?
Of course, the word "shall" seems kind of stilted to our modern ears. Language is a flexible thing and we have multiple ways of making suggestions in English, so volitional phrases may be translated in a variety of ways.
For example, consider this sentence:
I'm getting hungry, so maybe it's about time for lunch?
2. Making an inclusive command
Sometimes, especially when they come from people who are higher in status than you, suggestions are really more like a polite command. For example, consider that you arrive early to a meeting and are chatting with colleagues. The chatter goes on for awhile, and then your boss says:
Well then, let's get started.
The word "let's" makes this look like a suggestion, but it's actually a command. The boss isn't merely suggesting that people stop talking and getting on with business, but issuing a soft command that it's time to get started.
This usage isn't limited to formal settings. You can also use it between friends, and it has pretty much exactly the same feel as using "let's" to initiate an action in English. It's a command, but not pushy.
Let's eat!
3. Expressing intent or determination
The final main usage of the volitional form is to express your personal resolve to do. Whereas the other previous two examples are for nudging a group to do something, this usage instead presents your own personal inclination to do something.
You'll commonly see this structure used in sentences that involve somehow doing or becoming better:
I'll study harder!
I'll start a diet from tomorrow.
You'll also see this used when nobody is taking action, then one person in a group steps forward:
I'll do it!
NoteAs shown here, you'll often see the subject marked with the particle が in this kind of sentence. We discuss this more in the が section of our beginner's guide to Japanese particles, but the general idea is that, here, が is emphasizing who amongst a group of people will do something—almost like you're pointing a finger and specifying one thing amongst a group of things.
Wondering how you'll ever learn the volitional form?
I still haven't figured out a good way to say this, but Japanese is one of Migaku's main languages, so we've naturally reviewed a lot of Japanese textbooks. When I say "a lot", I mean that we've literally got an entire article about Japanese textbooks for beginners. The article introduces like ten different textbooks aimed at beginners of Japanese.
The bad news (spoiler alert) is that every single textbook has the same problem: they teach you what somebody else thinks is important to know, and those things may or may not overlap with the things you actually need to know in order to do the things you want to do.
We found this so annoying that we spent like 10,000 hours building our own flashcard-based Japanese course. You can see how it looks below (but it looks much nicer on your phone...):
The beauty of the course is that it's curated and data-driven (and awesome, but we're being professional here).
- We dig into the math in our post on how to learn Japanese vocabulary, but the course is pretty lean: it teaches you the most common ~1,800 words and ~350 grammar points you need to know to understand 80% of anything you read or hear in Japanese
- The course has been painstakingly arranged so that every next flashcard contains only one new word or grammar point
The result is a super smooth learning curve that helps you quickly build the foundation you need to begin consuming the Japanese media you're interested in (which is actually our pruduct's main focus).
Wrapping up
The volitional form of Japanese verbs is important—it lets you make suggestions and invitations, among other things. So far as Japanese verb conjugations go, it's also pretty straightforward to make: the Japanese volitional form of every verb will end in an ~おう sound.
With that out of the way,
(See what I did there? 😉)