Japanese/Grammar/Transitivity
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Many Japanese verbs have pairs of transitive and intransitive verbs. Formally, the difference between these is that a transitive verb can take on a direct object, whereas an intransitive verb can not. There are a few pairs of distinct verbs in English that correlate to this: "raise"/"rise", "fell"/"fall" and "lay"/"lie".
This is best explained by example. Contrast the following two sentences:
| English | Verb | Japanese | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transitive | (I) close the door | 閉める (しめる) | ドアが閉めます。 |
| Intransitive | The door closes | 閉まる (しまる) | ドアが閉まります。 |
| Transitive | The teacher starts the class | 始める (はじめる) | 先生はクラスが始める。 |
| Intransitive | The class starts | 始まる (はじまる) | クラスが始まる。 |
| Transitive | The sun melts the ice | 溶かす（とかす） | 日が氷を溶かす |
| Intransitive | The ice melts | 溶ける（とける） | 氷が溶ける |
The general patterns for transitive and instransitive sentences is:
| (<subject> は/が) | <direct object> を/が | <transitive verb>。 |
| <subject> が | <intransitive verb>。 |
The topics of intransitive verbs are usually inanimate.
Note that the direct object can have either particle "を" or "が". The difference lies therefore in the verbs ... and these must be remembered! No-one said this would be easy. :-)
