Conjugations

April 5, 2010: New Version released! Major improvements in structure, errors in previous version fixed!

    Conjugations is a pretty simple idea (the implementation, not so simple). It's a a conjugation guide for every verb in Edict (plus a few extra from other sources for good measure). Simply enter any verb to search Conjugations, or select any verb in Edict (or almost any in Waeijiro or other dictionaries) and jump to Conjugations to see how to conjugate it. Want to find the causative form of "あそぶ"? No problem.

    You can see some of the features of the new version of Conjugations here. First, the layout makes it much easier to read and understand than before. Second, there's more information. Tap the name of a tense and you'll automatically jump to a brief explanation of that tense (then just tap the back arrow to get back to this screen). I, F, +, and - are for Informal, Formal, Positive, and Negative--that's pretty easy to remember, but if you forget, just tap that code and you'll jump to an explanation.

How to Use Conjugations

    You can look up a verb or jump from a verb in Edict or another dictionary (here's how to jump in EB Pocket on Windows Mobile, as in the JLT Complete System). You can enter a word either in kanji and hiragana or all in hiragana (e.g., for the search shown above, you can enter 遊ぶ or あそぶ), and you can use all the normal input tools your OS and program allow (see here for the different ways to enter text in the JLT Complete System).  You can also enter the conjugated form of any very you see; let's say I see the word "あそばない" and I don't know what verb it is or what tense it is. When I search for it Conjugations, I get the result below:

    Notice that the result for the term I searched for, あそぶない, is right at the top of the results screen--the heading showing the tense is somewhere above the screen, out of sight. This is due to how the dictionary program works, but it's no problem. Simply tap or click the open triangle icon to jump up a bit and display that heading, as you can see below.

    You can tap the solid triangle to jump up to the first line of the entire entry for the verb, as shown below.

    From here, you can tap the back arrow to go back to where you started. A few more hints about Conjugations and EBPocket: 

• You'll notice that the EB Pocket screen shown above is divided into two parts, a top part showing a list of all results that match the search term (often in Conjugations there'll be only one result) and a bottom part showing the full entry for the result chosen from the top. But in the image at the top of this page, the full-results section takes up the whole screen. To toggle between these two modes, simply tap the Full Screen icon . As always in EB Pocket, tap the back arrow to come back.  In the bottom section, you can scroll up or down in the dictionary with the slider on the right--when you reach the end of its range, simply tap the up or down arrow above or below the slider to move to the next range (sometimes you have to tap twice).  These are all features of the dictionary program EB Pocket (Windows Mobile version) used in the JLT Complete System, not of the dictionary itself; other programs may work a little differently but should offer the same functions.
• You can make a verb out of just about any noun by sticking "suru" on the end (the most common ones are indicated by the grammar code "vs" in Edict). Conjugations does NOT list these separately, as only the "suru" part is conjugated and it's conjugated the same way in every case. Indeed, many people consider these to be nouns followed by the verb "suru" rather than as verbs in and of themselves--that makes sense to me. So if you see something with the "vs" code in Edict and want to see how to conjugate it, simply jump from the "vs" verb code in Edict to Conjugations (or look up "する" in Conjugations) and tack the appropriate form onto the end of your noun. If you're having a hard time finding a conjugated form in Conjugations, consider that it might be a noun followed by a conjugated form of "suru" rather than a discrete verb (this is especially likely to be true where you've got a kanji or two or three followed be a mess of hiranaga beginning with "さ" or "し"): look up the kanji or the first part in Edict, and/or look up the part that looks like a conjugation ending in Conjugations--instead of being a conjugation ending, it may be the entire conjugated from of "suru."
• You can change the font sizes from the Options in the Tool menu of EB Pocket (again, if you're using a different program, there should still be a way to change the font size).
• The term you searched for will appear in red type everywhere it's found. You can jump to the nearest instance of the search term by tapping the magnifiying glass icon .

Download

    Conjugations comes in EPWING format only. EPWING is the format used by EBWin on Windows, EB Pocket on Windows Mobile and the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, and various programs on Mac, Linux, Maemo (Nokia Internet Tablet), Android, and others; it's the format I recommend for anyone building a Japanese dictionary system because of the features it allows, especially the powerful different search types.

    For Palm users and others who prefer the old PDIC format, there is a simpler, far tinier version available in PDIC format--it just gives a chart for each verb type (not for each individual verb). To find the conjugation for a word in Edict, you'd highlight its verb code and jump from there; it doesn't allow you to enter the conjugated form and find the root and tense. You can download the PDIC format version here.

Installation

    Download the file from the link above, unzip it, and then copy the entire resulting folder to the EB Pocket Dics folder on your memory card (if you had the old version of Conjugations, you should delete the old Conjugations folder first). If you use a card reader to do the transfer, please remember to take the proper step before removing your card from the reader or the reader from your computer (Windows: right click on the removable drive letter representing the card in Computer or My Computer, wait a few seconds, then remove the card from the reader; Mac: drag the folder representing the card on your desktop into the trash, wait a few seconds, then remove the card from the reader). Then use the Edit Group function in EB Pocket to install the dictionary.

Errors in the Old Version

    The old version of Conjugations had numerous errors in the conjugations of the kuru verbs (type vk in Edict).  There are only about 20 of these, but the main one, 来る【くる】, is a pretty common and important verb.  There were also a few errors in the more obscure tenses of the mostly obscure zuru and jiru type verbs.  All told, the entries for fewer than 100 verbs, less than 1% of the roughly 10,000 in Conjugations, had errors.  But, of course, zero is even better.  If anyone should find any errors in the new version, please let me know, either by email if you have my address or through the comment box at the bottom of the inquiry form.