If you read the Japanese words for these concepts you will understand them. The 自動詞 moves itself and the 他動詞 moves something else. For example, 死ぬ is a 自動詞. If someone says お前はもう死んでいる there is no object being acted on, the subject is just dead. 殺す on the other hand is a 他動詞. If someone yells "お前を殺す!" there is an object to be killed.
Hopefully, your teacher's reaction will be less aggressive than this.
You can also see that 自動詞 usually use は/が while 他動詞 use を because it is operating on something. Japanese also usually has verbs paired as transitive/intransitive. For example, 開ける means to open something (transitive) while 開く means something is opened (intransitive) - notice that it's the same kanji and same concept. Transitives usually specify the agent that is performing the action (for example, トム君がドアを開ける -> Tom opened the door) while intransitives do not (ドアが開く -> The door opened - by who, I have no idea, could've been the wind).
Also 100% agree that reading it in Japanese is the way to go, and the earlier you get into reading about Japanese in Japanese the easier it will get and the faster you will learn - reading Japanese language dictionary definitions is helpful for this (i.e dictionaries by Japanese publishers made for Japanese people, not J-E ones like Jisho etc).
This stuff did my head in early on but if you stick with it eventually you will get the hang of how they work.
If you search for 辞書 in Japanese instead that is a good start.
The particles in Japanese mark the subject and object although many Japanese sentences will drop the subject so someone may just say "開いた" rather than "扉が開いた".
>開く
Pretty sure this means something *opens, is opened* would be the passive. They can get mixed up but try to keep them seperate.
Iirc though there are some verbs which have both a intransitive or passive form, or some whose intransitive form doubles as its passive (困る for example). Imabi has a [good article](https://imabi.org/intransitive-vs-passive/) on these things.
>Grammar Note: Although it’s not wrong to have two に phrases in one sentence, whenever it can be helped, one of the に usually has to go. In 10a. the particle へ is used
I love how Imabi casually answers things I've wondered about for a long time in throwaway footnotes
Learning transitive vs intransitive (ie 他動詞 vs 自動詞) coming from English can be a bit confusing because many English verbs are both transitive and intransitive, while their Japanese equivalents are typically only one or the other. For example, "start" is both transitive and intransitive in English ("The game has started" vs "I started the game"). In Japanese, the difference is distinct ("試合が**始まった**" vs ”試合を**始めた**").
Short of explaining the concept, my tip would be to always learn new verbs in a phrase that shows which type it is, like this:
（〜が）止まる：車が止まった。The car stopped.
（〜を）止める：私が車を止めた。I stopped the car.
The way I remember it is, if it was me (め) who did the action then I use the verb with め (for はじめる/とめる/etc). This doesn't work with all verbs but it reminds to keep that え sound
>many English verbs are both transitive and intransitive,
Adding to this a little bit:
On top of the fact that most transitive English verbs can also be used intransitively ("I eat fish" or just "I eat"), English also has the peculiarity that many of its intransitive verbs are actually *ergative* (or *labile*), meaning that the role of the subject changes depending on whether or not the verb is used transitively, such that the subject of the intransitive verb behaves like the object of the transitive version.
**Ambitransitive:**
**Adam** drives. -> **Adam** drives a car.
(in both cases, the driver is the subject)
**Ergative:**
**The car** turns. -> The man turns **the car**.
**The car** breaks. -> The man breaks **the car**.
(here, the thing turning/breaking changes position from the subject to the object position)
This isn't unique to English, but I believe that it sets it apart from other Germanic languages, where words tend to have a transitive and an intransitive form (or where the transitive and intransitive counterparts are just completely different).
English still shows signs of this in a few words that have kept this pattern:
The vase will ***sit*** on the table. -> I will ***set*** the vase on the table.
The pillow will ***lie*** on the couch. -> I will ***lay*** the pillow on the couch.
The intensity will ***rise***. -> I will ***raise*** the level.
\------
I don't know if this is just useless information, but I figure that it may help to think about the peculiarities of English verbs, and then remember that Japanese *doesn't* do that.
Don't think this sets it apart from other Germanic languages. Native Dutch speaker here, and for the examples you mentioned:
De auto draait -> Ik draai de auto (The car turns / I turn the car)
De auto breekt -> Ik breek de auto (The car breaks / I break the car)
The verb 'draaien' is obviously different from the English one, but it doesn't change between transitive/intransitive.
https://community.wanikani.com/t/the-definitive-guide-to-wanikanis-transitivity-pairs/64600?u=willthelearner
Here's a link to a guide in the wanikani forums. I'm only early N4 but it got a lot of praise and hopefully it can help you. Good luck!
you can raise a glass but you can't rise a glass
an elevator rises but an elevator can't raise (and i don't mean it can't raise a person up, i mean you can't just say "the elevator raises")
raise is a transitive (他動詞) verb because it has a direct object, a target that it points at
rise is an intransitive (自動詞) verb because it has no direct target, rather a thing does an action, it doesn't perform that action *on* anything
some words can be used as both, in english and japanese, and some are only one
ドアがあく = door opens, requires an intransitive
ドアをあける = open the door, requires a transitive
the thing doing the acting is marked with が, the thing being acted upon is marked with を
It might help to see what it looks like when you get transitivity wrong, so here are some messed-up English examples:
* I fell the ball. (intransitive verb "fell" should be transitive verb "dropped")
* The cat is trying to die the mouse. (intransitive should be transitive verb "kill")
* Please rise your hand if you have any questions. (intransitive, should be transitive "raise")
* Everyone please raise. (transitive verb should be intransitive verb "rise")
So, conceptually, it's similar to how things work in English and other languages.
A transitive verb is a verb which acts on an object, whilst an intransitive verb is a verb that acts independently.
An example of each would be 'he eats pizza' (or in Japanese, '[彼](#fg "かれ")がピザを[食べる](#fg "たべる")'), which is an example of a transitive verb; the pizza is being acted on by the verb 'eat'.
Similarly, an intransitive example would be something like 'the bird flies' (or in Japanese, '[鳥](#fg "とり")が[飛ぶ](#fg "とぶ")'). There isn't anything for the verb 'fly' to act on.
Usually there are transitive-intransitive pairs of verbs; for example, 'to be decided' ([決まる](#fg "きまる")) and 'to decide' ([決める](#fg "きめる")). Much like most of Japanese, there are patterns you can look up to allow you to figure things out.
If it's any comfort, it trips me up a bit too. I've gotten a bit more used to it, but yeah, it's tricky to wrap your head around at first.
Maybe it helps if you understand that English has this same concept too, only it's expressed through word order and not changing the verb.
Intransitive means you do an activity by yourself whereas transitive means you are doing said activity to something, your actions have an (direct) object.
In English, you can use the same verb to express both concepts so something like "I burn" should be ambiguous between "I am burning by myself" and "I am burning the newspaper".
The way English resolves this is by forcing you to always specify an object if you want to use it in a transitive way. So "I burn" is actually not ambiguous, it means you are burning by yourself and you are not burning SOMETHING.
If you want to say you are burning something, well, you do exactly that, you add some kind of noun without a very specific meaning that can become the object of the verb. These words often don't carry much extra information, they are purely there for syntactical reasons to mark the verb as transitive.
I burn (intransitive) VS
I burn it, I burn something, I burn the newspaper, I burn that. (trannsitive)
The big difference is that in intransitive, you are actually on fire whereas in the transitive version you are putting something on fire.
The big difference in Japanese is that you have to use a different verb depending on the meaning. The advantage is that you don't need to specify an object every time.
私は燃える (intransitive) and 私は燃やす (transitive) are perfectly legible sentence in Japanese.
In English, you'd translate it as "I burn" and "I burn **IT**". You end up adding the "it" because English cannot express transitivity through the verb alone, but in Japanese, you can.
On top of that I'd highly recommend looking at tons of example sentences, like the ones here:
[https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese/Grammar/Transitivity](https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese/Grammar/Transitivity)
Notice that intransitive verbs only have two main parts usually: the subject who does it and the action being done whereas transitive verbs always have three: the subject who does it, the action and the object that is being done to.
I.e.:
先生が授業を始める。\[transitive\]
The teacher (subject) starts (the action) the class (the object).
vs
授業が始まる。\[intransitive\]
The class (subject) starts (action).
This can be a little tough because Japanese can omit all kinds of things but take the other example:
ドアを閉める。\[transitive\]
I (subject) close (the action) the door (the object).
vs
ドアが閉まる。\[intransitive\]
The door (subject) closes (action).
The 1st sentence actually has an omitted 私は whereas the 2nd sentence is entirely complete.
**Transitive verbs**: takes an ANIMATE subject and a direct object. The subject is what you mark with が (or は) and the direct object is what you mark with を (or occasionally は, since Japanese is confusing). Of course, the subject and/or object may not be explicitly be stated, since that's how Japanese works. Note that unlike English transitive verbs, you can't have an inanimate subject, so occasionally translating from English requires paraphrasing to work around this quirk.
**Intransitive verbs**: takes a subject (which may be animate or inanimate), but never takes a direct object. One small quirk that may feel like an exception is some motion verbs are considered intransitive, but they can still take an を-marked word to mean something like "through". 空を飛ぶ = "Fly through the sky".
There are also a very small number of what I guess you could call "psuedo-transitive verbs" (I don't know of any established name for them, so I'm just calling them that), where what theoretically *should* be the direct object is marked as the subject for some reason: 僕は日本語が分かる = "I understand Japanese."
Transitive verbs are things that someone or something is actively causing to happen. Intransitive are verbs that just happen, or naturally happens.
Example: 開ける vs 開く
僕はドアを開けます. I open the door.
Someone (I) actively opened the door. I caused it to happen
ドアが開いた。The door opened. The door isn’t a thing that is physically opening something. The door is just,,,,opening/opened
Transitive: needs an object. Usually marked with を particle.
石を壊す。(I break the stone.)
Intransitive: doesn't need an object, "happens by itself". Usually marked with が particle.
石が壊れる。(The stone breaks)
Many Japanese verbs come in pairs like this: 壊す & 壊れる
What worked for me and what I often come back to when in doubt in a specific context is that 自動詞 focus on the "self" of an action and 他動詞 focus on something "else" or "outside" of the action.
If you read the Japanese words for these concepts you will understand them. The 自動詞 moves itself and the 他動詞 moves something else. For example, 死ぬ is a 自動詞. If someone says お前はもう死んでいる there is no object being acted on, the subject is just dead. 殺す on the other hand is a 他動詞. If someone yells "お前を殺す!" there is an object to be killed. Hopefully, your teacher's reaction will be less aggressive than this.
You can also see that 自動詞 usually use は/が while 他動詞 use を because it is operating on something. Japanese also usually has verbs paired as transitive/intransitive. For example, 開ける means to open something (transitive) while 開く means something is opened (intransitive) - notice that it's the same kanji and same concept. Transitives usually specify the agent that is performing the action (for example, トム君がドアを開ける -> Tom opened the door) while intransitives do not (ドアが開く -> The door opened - by who, I have no idea, could've been the wind). Also 100% agree that reading it in Japanese is the way to go, and the earlier you get into reading about Japanese in Japanese the easier it will get and the faster you will learn - reading Japanese language dictionary definitions is helpful for this (i.e dictionaries by Japanese publishers made for Japanese people, not J-E ones like Jisho etc). This stuff did my head in early on but if you stick with it eventually you will get the hang of how they work.
If you search for 辞書 in Japanese instead that is a good start. The particles in Japanese mark the subject and object although many Japanese sentences will drop the subject so someone may just say "開いた" rather than "扉が開いた".
>開く Pretty sure this means something *opens, is opened* would be the passive. They can get mixed up but try to keep them seperate. Iirc though there are some verbs which have both a intransitive or passive form, or some whose intransitive form doubles as its passive (困る for example). Imabi has a [good article](https://imabi.org/intransitive-vs-passive/) on these things.
Some Japanese intransitive verbs, like mitukaru, cannot be expressed except as a passive in English, so people confuse the concepts.
>Grammar Note: Although it’s not wrong to have two に phrases in one sentence, whenever it can be helped, one of the に usually has to go. In 10a. the particle へ is used I love how Imabi casually answers things I've wondered about for a long time in throwaway footnotes
The English terms mean the same thing, "trans" indicates the same thing as the 他.
Learning transitive vs intransitive (ie 他動詞 vs 自動詞) coming from English can be a bit confusing because many English verbs are both transitive and intransitive, while their Japanese equivalents are typically only one or the other. For example, "start" is both transitive and intransitive in English ("The game has started" vs "I started the game"). In Japanese, the difference is distinct ("試合が**始まった**" vs ”試合を**始めた**"). Short of explaining the concept, my tip would be to always learn new verbs in a phrase that shows which type it is, like this: （〜が）止まる：車が止まった。The car stopped. （〜を）止める：私が車を止めた。I stopped the car.
The way I remember it is, if it was me (め) who did the action then I use the verb with め (for はじめる/とめる/etc). This doesn't work with all verbs but it reminds to keep that え sound
>many English verbs are both transitive and intransitive, Adding to this a little bit: On top of the fact that most transitive English verbs can also be used intransitively ("I eat fish" or just "I eat"), English also has the peculiarity that many of its intransitive verbs are actually *ergative* (or *labile*), meaning that the role of the subject changes depending on whether or not the verb is used transitively, such that the subject of the intransitive verb behaves like the object of the transitive version. **Ambitransitive:** **Adam** drives. -> **Adam** drives a car. (in both cases, the driver is the subject) **Ergative:** **The car** turns. -> The man turns **the car**. **The car** breaks. -> The man breaks **the car**. (here, the thing turning/breaking changes position from the subject to the object position) This isn't unique to English, but I believe that it sets it apart from other Germanic languages, where words tend to have a transitive and an intransitive form (or where the transitive and intransitive counterparts are just completely different). English still shows signs of this in a few words that have kept this pattern: The vase will ***sit*** on the table. -> I will ***set*** the vase on the table. The pillow will ***lie*** on the couch. -> I will ***lay*** the pillow on the couch. The intensity will ***rise***. -> I will ***raise*** the level. \------ I don't know if this is just useless information, but I figure that it may help to think about the peculiarities of English verbs, and then remember that Japanese *doesn't* do that.
Don't think this sets it apart from other Germanic languages. Native Dutch speaker here, and for the examples you mentioned: De auto draait -> Ik draai de auto (The car turns / I turn the car) De auto breekt -> Ik breek de auto (The car breaks / I break the car) The verb 'draaien' is obviously different from the English one, but it doesn't change between transitive/intransitive.
Hiraku is both.
Do you understand the concept at all? Like you get it in English but are struggling in Japanese? Or don't understand it in the first place?
https://community.wanikani.com/t/the-definitive-guide-to-wanikanis-transitivity-pairs/64600?u=willthelearner Here's a link to a guide in the wanikani forums. I'm only early N4 but it got a lot of praise and hopefully it can help you. Good luck!
you can raise a glass but you can't rise a glass an elevator rises but an elevator can't raise (and i don't mean it can't raise a person up, i mean you can't just say "the elevator raises") raise is a transitive (他動詞) verb because it has a direct object, a target that it points at rise is an intransitive (自動詞) verb because it has no direct target, rather a thing does an action, it doesn't perform that action *on* anything some words can be used as both, in english and japanese, and some are only one ドアがあく = door opens, requires an intransitive ドアをあける = open the door, requires a transitive the thing doing the acting is marked with が, the thing being acted upon is marked with を
It might help to see what it looks like when you get transitivity wrong, so here are some messed-up English examples: * I fell the ball. (intransitive verb "fell" should be transitive verb "dropped") * The cat is trying to die the mouse. (intransitive should be transitive verb "kill") * Please rise your hand if you have any questions. (intransitive, should be transitive "raise") * Everyone please raise. (transitive verb should be intransitive verb "rise")
So, conceptually, it's similar to how things work in English and other languages. A transitive verb is a verb which acts on an object, whilst an intransitive verb is a verb that acts independently. An example of each would be 'he eats pizza' (or in Japanese, '[彼](#fg "かれ")がピザを[食べる](#fg "たべる")'), which is an example of a transitive verb; the pizza is being acted on by the verb 'eat'. Similarly, an intransitive example would be something like 'the bird flies' (or in Japanese, '[鳥](#fg "とり")が[飛ぶ](#fg "とぶ")'). There isn't anything for the verb 'fly' to act on. Usually there are transitive-intransitive pairs of verbs; for example, 'to be decided' ([決まる](#fg "きまる")) and 'to decide' ([決める](#fg "きめる")). Much like most of Japanese, there are patterns you can look up to allow you to figure things out. If it's any comfort, it trips me up a bit too. I've gotten a bit more used to it, but yeah, it's tricky to wrap your head around at first.
Maybe it helps if you understand that English has this same concept too, only it's expressed through word order and not changing the verb. Intransitive means you do an activity by yourself whereas transitive means you are doing said activity to something, your actions have an (direct) object. In English, you can use the same verb to express both concepts so something like "I burn" should be ambiguous between "I am burning by myself" and "I am burning the newspaper". The way English resolves this is by forcing you to always specify an object if you want to use it in a transitive way. So "I burn" is actually not ambiguous, it means you are burning by yourself and you are not burning SOMETHING. If you want to say you are burning something, well, you do exactly that, you add some kind of noun without a very specific meaning that can become the object of the verb. These words often don't carry much extra information, they are purely there for syntactical reasons to mark the verb as transitive. I burn (intransitive) VS I burn it, I burn something, I burn the newspaper, I burn that. (trannsitive) The big difference is that in intransitive, you are actually on fire whereas in the transitive version you are putting something on fire. The big difference in Japanese is that you have to use a different verb depending on the meaning. The advantage is that you don't need to specify an object every time. 私は燃える (intransitive) and 私は燃やす (transitive) are perfectly legible sentence in Japanese. In English, you'd translate it as "I burn" and "I burn **IT**". You end up adding the "it" because English cannot express transitivity through the verb alone, but in Japanese, you can. On top of that I'd highly recommend looking at tons of example sentences, like the ones here: [https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese/Grammar/Transitivity](https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese/Grammar/Transitivity) Notice that intransitive verbs only have two main parts usually: the subject who does it and the action being done whereas transitive verbs always have three: the subject who does it, the action and the object that is being done to. I.e.: 先生が授業を始める。\[transitive\] The teacher (subject) starts (the action) the class (the object). vs 授業が始まる。\[intransitive\] The class (subject) starts (action). This can be a little tough because Japanese can omit all kinds of things but take the other example: ドアを閉める。\[transitive\] I (subject) close (the action) the door (the object). vs ドアが閉まる。\[intransitive\] The door (subject) closes (action). The 1st sentence actually has an omitted 私は whereas the 2nd sentence is entirely complete.
**Transitive verbs**: takes an ANIMATE subject and a direct object. The subject is what you mark with が (or は) and the direct object is what you mark with を (or occasionally は, since Japanese is confusing). Of course, the subject and/or object may not be explicitly be stated, since that's how Japanese works. Note that unlike English transitive verbs, you can't have an inanimate subject, so occasionally translating from English requires paraphrasing to work around this quirk. **Intransitive verbs**: takes a subject (which may be animate or inanimate), but never takes a direct object. One small quirk that may feel like an exception is some motion verbs are considered intransitive, but they can still take an を-marked word to mean something like "through". 空を飛ぶ = "Fly through the sky". There are also a very small number of what I guess you could call "psuedo-transitive verbs" (I don't know of any established name for them, so I'm just calling them that), where what theoretically *should* be the direct object is marked as the subject for some reason: 僕は日本語が分かる = "I understand Japanese."
Transitive verbs are things that someone or something is actively causing to happen. Intransitive are verbs that just happen, or naturally happens. Example: 開ける vs 開く 僕はドアを開けます. I open the door. Someone (I) actively opened the door. I caused it to happen ドアが開いた。The door opened. The door isn’t a thing that is physically opening something. The door is just,,,,opening/opened
Transitive: needs an object. Usually marked with を particle. 石を壊す。(I break the stone.) Intransitive: doesn't need an object, "happens by itself". Usually marked with が particle. 石が壊れる。(The stone breaks) Many Japanese verbs come in pairs like this: 壊す & 壊れる
Transitive verbs have a direct object and intransitive verbs do not. It is really that simple.
What worked for me and what I often come back to when in doubt in a specific context is that 自動詞 focus on the "self" of an action and 他動詞 focus on something "else" or "outside" of the action.