普通形／じしょ形 (Futsuu Kei / Jisho Kei)

Question

Are 普通形 and 辞書形 different? If so, how do they differ? I would appreciate an example.

Answer 1

I am not 100% sure but I would guess that what you refer to as 普通形 is what in English is often translated as "casual" or "standard" conjugation as opposed to 丁寧形{ていねいけい} that is the "polite" form instead. This link seems to prove me right.

On the other hand, 辞書形｛じしょけい｝ is the so-called dictionary form and it's called this way because it is the form in which the verb is found in dictionaries.

To give a concrete example:

Verb: 買う｛かう｝- to buy

普通形: 買う (positive and non past. In this case this is the same as the dictionary form), 買わない (negative-non past), 買った (positive-past), 買わなかった (negative-past).

丁寧形: 買います (positive-non past), 買いません (negative-non past), 買いました (positive-past), 買いませんでした (negative-past).

辞書形: It's just 買う. This is how you find the verb "to buy" in any dictionary. You can see it as a non-conjugated basic form as it could be the infinitive in English (in dictionaries you find "buy", not "bought" for example).

Answer 2

辞書形, in fact, is part of 普通形, which consists of four different forms, including the 〜た form (past affirmative), the 〜なかった form (past negative), the ~ない form (nonpast negative) and finally the root form, a.k.a.　辞書形 (nonpast affirmative). For example, what the root form, 辞書形, is for a verb is much like what "be" is for "is", "are", "was", etc. You can find more detailed explanation here and here.

Answer 3

From what I understand:

• 辞書形 (dictionary form) is your usual 行く, 買う etc,

• 普通形 (plain form) includes all present+past, positive+negative, noun+verb+adjective plain forms; e.g.

  • iku: 行く　行かない　行った　行かなかった
  • genki: 元気だ　元気だった　げんきだった　元気じゃなかった
  • ii: 良い　良くない　良かった　良くなかった
  • hana: 花だ　花だった　花じゃない　花じゃなかった

You use the dictionary form for forms such as:

• 行くこと (make a verb into a noun)
• 行くことができます (I can go)
• 行く前に、～ (before going, ~)

You use the plain form for forms such as:

• 行かないと 言います (~ said not going)
• 元気だったと 思います (I think ~ is healthy)
• 便利だし、忙しくないし、面白い人行くし、安いです (~ is convenient, not busy, interesting people go, and cheap)

Notice how in these examples you can use nouns/adjectives/verbs in their positive/negative and present/past forms.

The dictionary form is just for verbs. You could say that the plain form for verbs is:

• the dictionary form for the present;
• the ta-form for the past
• the nai-form (without i) for the negative present
• the nai-form (without i) +katta for the past

And similar rules exist for i/na adjectives and nouns.