Japanese Potential Form: （ら）れる and ことができる

Last time, you learned how to express change in Japanese, e.g. “先生せんせいになる: I will become a teacher,” and “子こ供どもを先生せんせいにする: I will make my child a teacher”. Furthermore, there may be times when you want to say “I can become a teacher.” In this lesson, you will learn how to express potential.

Explanation for How Japanese Potential Form Works

In English, you express potential by placing “can” or “able to” before verbs. In Japanese, you don’t place anything, but have to conjugate verbs.

Conjugation Rule

Ru-verb: To Replace ru with rareru

U-verbs: To Replace u with eru

Two Exceptions

As we said above, English has two ways to express potential. Similarly, Japanese has another form, which is …ことができる. You can consider it as nominalizer こと + ができる and thus you are allowed to directly connect verbs with こと. Both of the meanings are almost the same.

見みる => 見みられる or 見みることができる
書かく => 書かける or 書かくことができる
する => できる or することができる
来くる => 来こられる or 来くることができる

Potential Form without ら

Nowadays, younger generations conjugates ru-verbs and 来くる by omitting ら. Grammatically speaking, it is not correct, but sounds natural to the majority of Japanese people today.

見みられる
着きられる
食たべられる
答こたえられる
来こられる

Three Functions

Ability

The first function is to express ability. You can simply consider “can” and “able to” are the equivalent in English. Here are more examples.

Situation

The second function is to express situations. There are some cases where you can situationally do something. You can express such things by using the same way as above.

Attribute

The third function is to express attributes. This can roughly be considered as “-able/-ible” in English. In this context, the particle を disappears and the topic particle は often takes an important role.

Three Sentence Patterns

The conjugation and the functions of the potential form are not difficult, but you need to know one more thing in order to compose natural sentences. That is the type of sentence patterns.

Particle を (Direct Object)

The first pattern is to use the particle を to express direct objects. Some grammar guidebooks say the particle should be が. However, the combination between the particle を and the potential form is frequently used in practice. Actually, the proper usage is still controversial among linguists. The particle を is more suitable at least when you use ことができる.

Particle が (Objects of Potential)

The second pattern is to use the particle が. As you learned in the previous lesson, the particle が expresses objects of potential, e.g. ボブは日に本ほん語ごが上手い (Bob is good at Japanese). You can utilize this for the potential form as well. In a lot of cases, the particle を and が are interchangeable. However, when you use できる, the particle が is more suitable.

…には (Possession of Abstract Attribute)

The third pattern is to use には, which can express possession of abstract attributes, e.g. ボブには才能さいのうがある (Bob has a talent). This is applicable for ability, too. This sounds natural mostly in negative sentences. Affirmative ones are not suitable. Note: this is often used with the particle は or the particle が.

Be careful; the は of には is sometimes omitted.

Considering the characteristic of the function, this is not suitable when you cannot do something due to situations. For example, if you are invited to a party, but you cannot join due to your busy schedule, sentence should be like this.

見みる VS. 見みえる and 聞きく VS. 聞きこえる

The difference is simple. 見みる and 聞きく are transitive verbs while 見みえる and 聞きこえる are intransitive verbs. As you learned, intransitive verbs indicate natural or automatic actions. 見みえる and 聞きこえる mean “to be seen (visible)” and “to be heard (audible),” and don’t have the potential form.

You sometimes intentionally look at or listen to something. In that case, you use the transitive ones: 見みる and 聞きく because there must be objects. Unlike the above, they have the potential form.

Summary

1. When conjugating ru-verbs and 来くる, ら is often omitted.
2. There are three functions: to express ability, situations, and attributes.
3. There are three sentence patterns: using を, が, and には.
4. 見みえる and 聞きこえる are intransitive verbs and don’t have the potential form.

The potential form is one of the most frequently occurring expressions in everyday life. Please master the usage here. Also, you will learn some utilization of the potential form later. Next, you will learn Japanese passive form.