Transitivity In Japanese

Introduction :

    In Japanese, a move word, 動詞（どうし） is a verb, a word that donates an action or movement. A self-move is any verb that moves itself. So, if you stand up, that's self-move action. You're not moving something else, you're moving yourself. If you throw a ball, you moving something else. You're not throwing yourself, you're throwing other-self. It's simple as that.

    Japanese has a lot of pairs of words, you can say two forms of the same word. Where we have self-move and other-move version of the word. For example :

• 出る Leave, exit, come out.
• 出す Bring out, take out.

    These examples uses the same kanji "come out". In first case, the actor moves itself. In second case, the actor of the sentence brings something out; causes something to come out. One more example : 

- 負ける（まける） To lose 

   (Not losing object or money; but losing a battle, fight, etc.)

- 負かす（まかす） To defeat; cause someone to lose.

You don't need to remember self-move/other-move pairs, understanding logic behind that and how you form there verbs is best option. Most of the time time we can tell which on is which just by looking at it. There a simple rule that covers most of move-word pairs.

    The first thing you need to know is that there's a father and a mother of self-move and other-move words. And these are する and ある.

Self-move verbs :

ある

    This's a mother of self-move words, and it means "be". It's a completely inward-directed verb. You can't be of exist something else; you can only be in yourself.    

Other-move verb:

する

    This's the father of other-move words, and it means "do". And it cannot exist on its own, you have to be doing something.