We haven’t learned this in class yet. Doesn’t seem too bad. But theres a good number of exceptions.

Sources:

Tae Kim’s Guide to Learning Japanese

Potential Form

Structure: Modify verbals in the following way

Ichidan - Take dictionary form, drop ending る, add られる

Godan - Take dictionary form, changing ending kana to corresponding え sound, add る

Formal - Both of the above forms end in る. You actually just end up with an Ichidan verbal. So just replace る with ます


Uses: Expressing the ability to do a certain action.

平仮名は書けます - “(I) can write hiragana”

彼は動けば、僕は行けます - “If he moves, I can go”

助けられなかった - “I was not able to help”

Particles

The verbal you get turns out to be an affective verbal, since being able to do something is not due to human volition. So, you can’t use を, and should should は or が instead.

お酒は飲めるよ - “(I) can drink alcohol”

パイが食べられなければ、こちらの方行って下さい - “If you cannot eat pie, please go this way”

Exceptions

1 - する is special, as it just turns into the verb できる. This is for “suru” verbals as well.

結婚できない - “I can’t get married”

日本語は五時間勉強できた - “I was able to study japanese for 5 hours”


2 - 見える means to be visible. You use it instead of conjugating 見る, only if you are talking about the visibility of something. Other cases, conjugate 見る

曇りであれば、オフィスは見えない - “If it is cloudy, the office is not visible”

わたしがお金があったら、映画は見られます - “If I had money, I could watch the movie”. Though わたしがお金があったら、映画を見ることできる is more common.


3 - 聞こえる means to be audible. Same usage as 見える above. If you want the other meanings besides to be audible, conjugate 聞く

おそすぎて先生聞けませんでした - “I was too late to ask the teacher”

ここから歌手の声は聞こえない - “I can’t hear the singer’s voice from here”


4 - ある combines with 得る (to produce) to get あり得る. The reading can be either ありえる or ありうる, but if conjugated (ex. to a tense) the え reading is used.

そんなことはありうる - “That situation is possible (can exist)”

そんなことはありえない - “This situation is not possible (cannot exist)”




Vocab:

Here are some kanji from the lessons that I wasn’t really familiar with at this point:

結婚 - Means “marriage”. Pronounced “kekkon”. Suru Verbal

曇り - Means “cloudy”. Pronounced “kumori”

得る - Means “to get / earn / aquire”. Pronounced “eru”. Radicals “loiter”, “sun” and “measurement”?