Tatsu: Stand, Be Built, Elapse, and Cut Off

One sound, five kanji

There is a single image at the bottom of most of these verbs: something coming upright or coming into being. In 立つ a person, a rumour or a plan rises. In 建つ a building rises. In 発つ a traveller sets out. 経つ belongs to a different root and simply means passing through, applied to time. 断つ is the odd one out in every way: it is transitive, it takes o, and it means severing something rather than raising it.

Grammatically all of them are godan verbs ending in tsu, and they conjugate identically: tachimasu, tachimashita, tatanai, tatte, tatta. The te form is where beginners stumble, because the tsu drops and a small tsu appears, giving tatte rather than tachite. The potential form is tateru, which is spelled and pronounced exactly like the transitive verb 立てる, so kono ki wa mada tateru can mean either this tree can still stand or someone can still stand it up. Context decides.

Since spoken Japanese shows you no kanji, the practical skill is reading the noun. Jikan, nen and tsukihi mean time is passing. Ie, biru and manshon mean a building is going up. Uwasa, yotei and mitōshi mean something has taken shape. Ashi, seki and mae ni mean somebody is standing. Learn the collocations and the kanji sort themselves out.

The full sense table

Read the transitivity column together with the particle. Everything intransitive takes ga for the thing that rises, appears or elapses, and everything in the tateru row takes o for the thing a person acts on. The two exceptions are worth memorising as shapes rather than rules: seki o tatsu and Tōkyō o tatsu use o for the place left behind, exactly as basu o orimasu does.

Notice that 断つ sits in the transitive column while sounding like all the intransitive ones. That is the single most useful fact in the table, because it means a sentence with o in front of tachimasu is either about leaving a place or about cutting something off, and nothing else.

Since nothing in the sound distinguishes these verbs, train the collocation rather than the kanji. Say the six lines below aloud and notice that the only clue is the noun and the particle in front of the verb. When you can hear the difference between ie ga tachimashita and jikan ga tachimashita without translating, the whole family is under control.

Standing, rising and taking shape with 立つ

The physical sense is the one beginners meet first, and it behaves as expected: mae ni tatte kudasai, ichi-jikan tatte imashita. The state of standing uses tatte imasu, since tachimasu on its own describes the moment of rising rather than the position. Seki o tatsu is the exception in particle terms, marking the seat you get up from with o.

From there the verb extends to anything that rises into view. Steam and smoke rise, waves get up, a rumour spreads, goosebumps come out. The extension that matters most in daily life is the planning one: yotei ga tatsu and mitōshi ga tatsu mean a schedule or an outlook has come together by itself, and the negative mitōshi ga tatanai is the standard way to say you cannot see how something will resolve.

建つ and 建てる: buildings only

建 is narrow and easy: it is used when a structure goes up. Ie ga tatsu, biru ga tatsu, manshon ga tatsu. The transitive partner ie o tateru is what a person or a company does, and the passive tateraremashita is common in descriptions of when something was constructed. If the thing rising is not a building or a monument, this is the wrong kanji.

In speech there is no way to tell ie ga tachimashita from a standing sense, and no need: houses do not stand up on their own in any other reading. What does need care is the pair. A learner who says ie ga tatemashita has mixed the intransitive noun with the transitive verb; the two correct sentences are ie ga tachimashita, a house went up, and ie o tatemashita, we built a house.

経つ: the sense learners least expect

経つ takes a length of time as its subject, marked with ga, and means that the time has elapsed. Nihon ni kite kara san-nen ga tachimashita is the standard way to say how long you have been somewhere, and it is far more natural than trying to build the sentence with imasu or arimasu. The pattern is fixed: a te kara clause, then a period, then tachimashita.

Three habits make it useful straight away. Jikan ga tatsu no wa hayai desu ne is a stock line of small talk and a polite way to close a catch-up. Mada go-fun shika tatte imasen is how you say hardly any time has gone by, using shika with the negative. And toki ga tateba is the conditional that begins a lot of gentle advice, roughly with time you will.

Written Japanese often leaves this verb in kana as たつ, partly because 経 is not in every writer's active set. Recognise it in either form, and when you write, kana is perfectly acceptable.

発つ: setting out from a place

発つ means to depart, and the place you leave takes o rather than kara: Tōkyō o tachimasu. It has a slightly formal, slightly literary tone, which is why announcements and travel writing use it more than everyday conversation, where shuppatsu shimasu or deru would be normal. It is worth recognising because the kanji 発 shows up everywhere else in travel vocabulary: shuppatsu, hassha, jūji-hatsu for a ten o'clock departure.

When you do use it, keep the time and the means in their usual slots. Ashita no asa Tōkyō o tachimasu puts the time first, and the flight or train takes de as with any transport sentence. The plain form before a noun works normally too, so tatsu mae ni is a clean way to say before I leave.

断つ: cutting something off

断つ is transitive and takes o, and it means putting an end to something that was continuing. The commonest use is quitting: o-sake o tatsu, tabako o tatsu, amai mono o tatsu. It is stronger and more deliberate than yameru, and it suits a decision made on medical advice or out of resolve, which is why it appears in New Year sentences about what you have given up.

The other everyday use is cutting a line of contact or supply. Renraku o tatsu is to break off contact, kankei o tatsu is to end a relationship, and kyōkyū ga tatareru, in the passive, is what happens to water or power in a disaster. Note the sister verb 絶つ, which is final rather than interrupted: shōsoku o tatsu means to vanish without trace. In casual writing both are often left as たつ.

立てる: the transitive side

立てる is what a person does to make something stand or come about. Physically it stands an object upright: kasa o tateru, hashira o tateru. Abstractly it produces something that then exists: keikaku o tateru for a plan, yotei o tateru for a schedule, mokuhyō o tateru for a goal, oto o tateru for a noise. That last one is the polite-notice verb, so oto o tatenaide kudasai is what a library sign says.

Two pairs deserve drilling because they contrast so cleanly with the intransitive versions. Yotei ga tachimashita means the schedule came together; yotei o tatemashita means I drew it up. Hara ga tachimashita means anger rose in me, close to I got annoyed; hara o tatemashita means I let myself get angry, which sounds more like a choice and often carries a note of regret. Yakudateru, from yaku ni tatsu, is the transitive of usefulness: kono keiken o shigoto ni yakudatetai desu.

The set phrases you will hear every week

Several fixed expressions are built on 立つ and are far more common than the literal standing sense. Yaku ni tatsu is the ordinary way to say useful, and its humble version o-yaku ni tateru is what you say when someone thanks you: o-yaku ni tatete yokatta desu. Hara ga tatsu is the standard verb for being annoyed, taking ni for the cause: sono iikata ni hara ga tachimashita.

Tachiba, literally a standing place, is the noun for someone's position or point of view, and it powers two very useful sentences. Watashi no tachiba mo wakatte kudasai asks for understanding without accusing anyone, and aite no tachiba ni tatte kangaeru, to think from the other person's standpoint, is a phrase you will hear in any workplace training. Medatsu, to stand out, completes the set.

Compound verbs that start with tachi

Tatsu also opens a family of compounds where the first half keeps the sense of rising or being on your feet. Tachiagaru is standing up from a seated position, and it is also the verb used for a computer starting. Tachidomaru is stopping where you are, tachiyoru is dropping in somewhere on the way, and tachinaoru is getting back on your feet after a setback. Naritatsu, to be made up of, keeps the idea of holding together.

These are ordinary conversation words rather than advanced vocabulary, and they conjugate as normal godan verbs. Tachiyoru in particular is worth adopting early, since kaeri ni konbini ni tachiyorimasu is a sentence you can use most days, and it sounds noticeably more natural than saying you went to the shop and came back.

Mistakes to avoid

• Using arimasu for elapsed time. It is san-nen ga tachimashita, not san-nen ga arimashita.
• Marking the seat or the city with kara. Seki o tatsu and Tōkyō o tatsu both take o for the place left behind.
• Mixing the pair in building sentences. Ie ga tachimashita is a house went up; ie o tatemashita is we built one.
• Saying hara o tachimashita for being annoyed. The intransitive set phrase is hara ga tachimashita.
• Building the te form as tachite. Tatsu gives tatte and tatta, with the small tsu.
• Treating yaku ni tatsu as transitive. The thing that is useful takes ga or wa, and the person helped takes ni.
• Reaching for 発つ in casual speech. Shuppatsu shimasu or demasu sounds more natural in ordinary conversation.