|
When describing intransitive actions that are commencing, I often end up saying dumb things like 沸き始まる (わきはじまる) instead of 沸き始める (わきはじめる) - starting to boil. Perhaps it's some meta pattern I am projecting from my knowledge of English!?! When should I use which, what are the rules and common exceptions? Thank you |
|||
|
|
When you express the idea of "begin to [verb]", the pattern is masu stem + はじめる, without exception, whether the verb is transitive or not. The distinction between はじめる and はじまる only applies when the verb is used on its own. You could think of, say, 走り始める as having 走り as a sort of object of 始める, in which case it's obvious that you would never use 始まる, though I don't know if this is etymologically what's going on. |
|||||||||
|
