The Difference Between aru and iru (ある、いる)

Hey everyone! Welcome back to our dearest blog, www.japaneselearningonline.blogspot.com^^ this article is discussing about the difference between ある(aru) and いる(iru) that have same meaning but different use. Both aru and iru are used to indicate that something exist, like "there is/are" in English. Though they have same meaning but these two verbs are used in different situation. While いる (iru) is used to indicate for animate objects (human and animal), we use ある (aru) for unanimate objects, plants or things. For example you want to say "there are two people" you would say "hito ga futari iru" not "hito ga futari aru" because a person/people is animate. And to say "there is a book" you can say "hon ga aru", because in Japanese there's no rule about singular and plural noun so you don't need to worry and about singular and plural noun like English^^, for instance, if you want to say (one) book, (two or more) books, you just say "hon" in Japanese. Alright, until here I sure you knew the difference between aru and iru. And now let's learn about the conjugations of these two verbs.

ある (aru) is a group 1 verb, but the conjugation of aru is an exception, the negative form of aru is ない (nai), not aranai, Ok? and aru in negative past tense is なかった(nakatta).

And いる (iru) is a group 2 verb and his conjugation is like a common verb in group 2 we learned before. いる in negative become いない (inai) and become いなかった (inakatta) in negative past tense. Be careful because there is a verb with same pronounciation with iru means "need" and this iru is a group 1 verb, so that the conjugation between iru (exist) and iru (need) are different. The only way to identify these verbs is in the Kanji.  iru which means "to need" is written with kanji 要る and iru which means "exist" is written with kanji 居る and commonly this iru is written in hiragana いる. The following table is the conjugation of aru and iru which means "exist or there is/are".

aru and iru conjugations
positive	past tense	negative	negative past tense
aru	atta	nai	nakatta
iru	ita	inai	inakatta
aru and iru masu-kei conjugations
arimasu	arimashita	arimasen	arimasen deshita
imasu	imashita	imasen	imasen deshita

Ok, the lesson finished and I'll wrap up today's lesson, but before it, I will repeat the point of today's lesson about the difference between aru and iru once again^^.

Aru is used for unanimate objects such as things, idea, event, skill, plants, building, and so on. Example:

冷蔵工にたくさん食べ物がある
reizoukou ni takusan tabemono ga aru
there are many foods in refrigerator
雛祭に東京にある
hinamatsuri ni toukyou ni aru
there's doll festival in tokyo / doll festival is in tokyo
ナルトはお金がたくさんある (aru can be mean "to have")
naruto wa okane ga takusan aru
naruto has much money

Iru is used for animate objects like human and animals. Example:

庭に猫が二羽いる
niwa ni neko ga niwa iru
there are two cats in the garden
お姉さんは台所にいる
oneesan wa daidokoro ni iru
there's my sister in the kitchen / my sister is in the kitchen

And in formal form or masu-kei aru become arimasu and iru become imasu. Example:

教室に先生がいます
Kyoushitsu ni sensei ga imasu
There's a teacher in classroom
鞄に鉛筆があります
Kaban ni enpitsu ga arimasu
There's a pencil in the bag

All right guys, our class for today is over, I hope you can understand my explanation^^ and I hope our Japanese skills and knowledge are increasing to be more and more fluent. Aamiin m(_ _)m.

Posted by Riizhu

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