Having Trouble Remembering The Te-Forms? This Song Will Help You (Part 2)

There is a certain song that will actually help you to get the different te-forms in your head. This song is often called the ‘utsurutte’ song.

Go to Youtube and check out this version by Yuko-sensei to memorize the different te-forms and become fluent faster.

The melody of this song is based on the famous ‘Santa Clause is Coming to Town’. It will help you to connect in your mind the verb endings with their respective te-form versions. The song is often called ‘utsurutte’, because such is the song’s first line. Verbs ending in u, tsu and ru will have the te-form ‘tte’. Ironically, this song does not include the normal or ‘classic’ te-form (as in an acutal te). Regular ru-verbs like taberu will also have the regular te-form. So, this song actually lists all of the ‘irregular’ te-forms.

On the left of the following list you see the different verb endings that lead to the specific te-form which is on the right. For example, all the verbs that end with mu, bu or nu will have ‘nde’ as their te-form. Nomu belongs to the mu/bu/nu group because it ends with mu, therefore, it has the te-form ‘nde’ . Once you know that, you simply take mu away from nomu (nomu-mu=no) and add nde (no+nde=nonde) – voilà, you have your te-form! This song helps a lot of students. If you are writing an exam that requires you to know the te-form, you can quickly go through this song and find the right te-form for the verb.

u tsu ru —> tte

mu bu nu —> nde

ku —> ite

gu —> ide

su —> shite

kuru —> kite

suru —> shite

iku —> itte

Now you can take off and discover the multitude of grammatical structures that involve the te-form!

Written by Jannick Scherrer