Hairu and Ireru: Entering, Joining, Adding, Switching On

Why these two verbs come as a pair

Japanese has many transitive and intransitive twins, and hairu and ireru are the pair you will need first. 入る hairu says that something is now inside, arrived, contained or switched on, and the thing that moves is marked with ga or the destination with ni. 入れる ireru says that a person caused that, and the thing moved is marked with o. English blurs the difference, since we say the power comes on and turn the power on with two unrelated verbs, so the mapping has to be rebuilt sense by sense.

The other reason to learn them together is frequency. Between them they cover joining a company, taking a bath, making tea, adding sugar, making a booking, getting in touch, obtaining a ticket, switching on an appliance and liking a design. Very little of that involves the English word enter, which is exactly why a dictionary gloss is not enough. Collect the collocations instead, and say each one inside a full sentence.

Conjugating hairu without the godan trap

Almost every learner meets hairu after learning taberu and miru, sees the ru and produces hairimasu correctly by luck but haita or hairenai by accident. Hairu is godan, so the te-form is haitte with a small tsu, the past is haitta, and the negative is hairanai. Ireru is a genuine ichidan verb, so it simply drops ru: iremasu, irete, ireta, irenai. The general verb conjugation guide covers the classes in full; here you only need these two rows.

Notice the collision in the potential row. 入れる written in kanji is either haireru, the potential of hairu, or ireru, the transitive verb. Speech separates them cleanly, so practise saying hairemasen for cannot get in and iremasen for do not put in until the two feel different in your mouth.

The senses of hairu at a glance

Entering places and joining groups

This is the sense closest to English, and it takes ni for the place entered. Say the destination first, then the verb. For rooms and offices the polite request is haitte mo ii desu ka, and the reply you will hear is dōzo. When you are the one entering someone else's space, shitsurei shimasu carries the apology and hairimasu is optional. For groups, the same ni marks the company, university or club you become part of.

Things that come in by themselves

This is the group that makes hairu feel unfamiliar, because English uses arrive, fit, be included, appear and come on instead. In each case something reaches an inside, and the thing that reaches it is marked with ga. These sentences are everywhere in offices and shops, so learn them as whole lines rather than as vocabulary. The natural reply to renraku ga hairimashita is sō desu ka, wakarimashita.

The senses of ireru at a glance

Two rows deserve a note. O-cha o ireru is the ordinary way to say make tea or coffee, and it is sometimes written 淹れる in cafes and cookbooks; the plain 入れる spelling is safe everywhere. Iken o toriireru is a compound of tori and ireru and is the natural way to say that an opinion was accepted, rather than a literal verb for accept.

Putting in, adding, and switching on

Everything here takes o for the thing put in and ni for the container. In a cafe you will be asked satō wa iremasu ka, and satō wa irenaide kudasai is the polite refusal. At a counter or a machine the staff line is kādo o koko ni irete kudasai, followed by anshō bangō o irete kudasai; the only answer you need is hai. For appliances, dengen o ireru switches something on, while a light is turned on with tsukeru rather than ireru.

The pairs side by side

The clearest way to fix the pair is to say both halves of the same event. Read down the table and speak each row twice, once with ga and the intransitive verb and once with o and the transitive one. If you can produce both halves without pausing, you will also find the other transitive twins easier, since deru and dasu, tsuku and tsukeru and aku and akeru all work the same way.

Ki ni iru: the liking idiom

気に入る is read ki ni iru, never ki ni hairu, and it means that something has pleased you. It conjugates as a godan verb, so the useful forms are ki ni irimasu, ki ni irimashita and ki ni itte imasu. Japanese usually reports the past or the te iru state rather than the plain present: after seeing a jacket you like, say ki ni irimashita rather than ki ni irimasu. The transitive partner ki ni ireru does not exist, so there is nothing to confuse it with.

Shop staff will ask ki ni itte itadakemashita ka, which is a polite way of asking whether you were happy with it. Answer hai, とても気に入りました, or soften a refusal with sumimasen, chotto imēji to chigaimashita. A related fixed phrase worth knowing is osoreirimasu, literally built on the same verb, used as a formal thank you or excuse me in service settings.

Te-form lines you will say every day

The te-form is where these verbs earn their keep. Haitte imasu describes a state: something is inside, or a booking is on the books. Irete okimasu means putting something in ahead of time. Irete kudasai and irenaide kudasai are the requests you will hear at counters and give in kitchens. Practise the minimal pair hairanaide kudasai and irenaide kudasai out loud, because they differ by one syllable and mean do not enter and do not put it in.

Mistakes to fix out loud

• Saying haita or hairenai instead of haitta and hairanai; hairu is godan, so double the consonant in the past and te-form.
• Using hairu when a person acts on an object: the luggage does not hairu itself into the boot if you are the one loading it, so say nimotsu o iremasu.
• Reading 気に入る as ki ni hairu; the idiom keeps the reading ki ni iru in every form.
• Saying denki o iremasu for turning on a light; use denki o tsukemasu, and keep dengen o iremasu for power to a device.
• Marking the entered place with o: heya o hairimasu is wrong, and heya ni hairimasu is correct.
• Forgetting that te ni hairu is intransitive, so a ticket ga te ni hairimashita, while you ga chiketto o te ni iremashita.