[danabramov]

I’m just describing my experience learning. I understand that some compressed explanations match it, and I agree this one is good! This is not the explanation I was exposed to when trying to learn it the first time.

So you agree my explanation is correct (but unnecessarily longwinded and builds a strawman)? I’ll take that.

[charcircuit]

The straw man is how you claim it is usually taught. You claim that only 2 groups are taught when 3 get taught. You claim that you are given arbitrary tables to memorize, but it's usually explained to foreigners that you replace the last romaji to i when conjugating the verb into -masu form.

So in essence this article boils down to someone claiming that the usual explanation is confusing and then their own system turns out to be equivalent to the usual way it is explained.

And based off your comment here the reason behind doing this may be you extrapolating how you first learned it to how people usually learn it.

[danabramov]

>You claim that only 2 groups are taught when 3 get taught.

I skipped the handful of exceptions because they have no rules associated with them, you just have to memorize them. Yes, it would be 3 if I counted exceptions. I am aware that they exist; you can check their list at the end of my post.

>You claim that you are given arbitrary tables to memorize, but it's usually explained to foreigners that you replace the last romaji to i when conjugating the verb into -masu form.

I must have been unlucky. I don't remember what resource I was using but it was primarily teaching with a separate table per suffix. Maybe the pattern was called out but I missed it due to feeling overwhelmed with the tables.

>And based off your comment here the reason behind doing this may be you extrapolating how you first learned it to how people usually learn it.

That's fair — if most people don't stumble here because this is clearly explained, that's good, and it means I've overstated the "usually taught". I still find that I prefer the specific style of explanation where we consider the corresponding vowel a part of the suffix, like -(i)masu or -(a)nai, which is how some linguists view it. That is another part of the motivation for writing the article.

[csande17]

I definitely remember only learning about two groups, personally. Is the third group, like, "irregular verbs", or do some books teach "the -suru verbs" as the third group (instead of "suru" being a single irregular verb that you can attach nouns to)?

[charcircuit]

The three groups taught to foreigners are:

- u verbs / Group 1 verbs / 五段活用

- ru verbs / Group 2 verbs / 一段活用

- Irregular verbs / Group 3 verbs / 不規則動詞

>or do some books teach "the -suru verbs" as the third group (instead of "suru" being a single irregular verb that you can attach nouns to)?

In books for native speakers instead of having irregular verbs they have:

- サ行変格活用 which are the suru and noun + する verbs

- カ行変格活用 which are the kuru verbs.