始める
はじめる
hajimeru
= to begin; to start; to commence
Learning when to say hajimeru (始める) versus hajimaru (始まる) is one of the first transitive/intransitive verb pairs that trips up intermediate Japanese learners. Both involve the act of beginning, but one requires an agent who starts something, while the other simply describes something starting on its own.
Hajimeru (始める) is a transitive ichidan (ru-verb / Group 2) verb meaning ‘to begin something,’ ‘to start something,’ or ‘to open something.’ It always requires someone or something to actively initiate the action. Its intransitive partner is hajimaru (始まる), which means ‘something begins’ without implying an agent. The difference: jugyou wo hajimeru means ‘to start the class (someone does this)’; jugyou ga hajimaru means ‘the class begins (it starts on its own or the agent is irrelevant).’ Conjugations: hajimemasu (polite), hajimenai (negative), hajimeta (past), hajimete (te-form). As a suffix attached to another verb’s stem, -hajimeru means ‘to start doing’: hanashi-hajimeru (to begin speaking), tabe-hajimeru (to start eating).
The transitive/intransitive pairing of hajimeru/hajimaru is the central challenge. A useful shortcut: if you can identify a person who is causing the start, use hajimeru with を (object marker). If the event just ‘starts’ with no clear doer, use hajimaru with が. The suffix use is also very common and sounds natural: nihongo wo benkyou shi-hajimeta (I started studying Japanese) is a sentence structure you will hear and want to use early. Separately, hajimemashite — literally ‘for the first time’ — is the standard greeting for meeting someone new, directly derived from this verb.
始める is written with 始 (begin; first) plus the hiragana verb ending める. The character 始 combines 女 (woman/female) on the left with 台 (pedestal; base) on the right. The original meaning connected birth and origin — the female as the source of new life — giving 始 the meaning of ‘beginning’ or ‘origin.’ It appears in 始発 (shihatsu, first train of the day) and 始業式 (shigyoushiki, opening ceremony for a new school term), both of which mark the start of something new.
Everyday use
毎日、朝六時に運動を始めます。
Mainichi, asa rokuji ni undou wo hajimemasu.
I start exercising at six every morning. (explaining a health routine to a friend)
Formal / Cultural context
会議を始めましょう。
Kaigi wo hajimemashou.
Let’s start the meeting. (a team leader opening a work session)
Casual / Social Media
雨が降り始めたので、急いで家に帰った。
Ame ga furi-hajimeta node, isoide ie ni kaetta.
Because it started raining, I hurried home. (describing a sudden change in weather while outdoors)
Beginnings carry particular ceremony in Japanese culture. Shigyoushiki (始業式, school opening ceremony) marks the start of each academic term with formal addresses, the raising of the school flag, and collective singing. The parallel ceremony at the end of term is shuugyoushiki (終業式, closing ceremony). This paired emphasis on opening and closing — both treated with ritual gravity — reflects a broader Japanese cultural attention to transitions as meaningful moments rather than neutral administrative events.
The phrase hajimemashite (初めまして, pleased to meet you / this is our first meeting) is built from the same root as hajimeru and uses the kanji 初 (first time / beginning), a slight variant. The formal greeting effectively says, ‘Since we are beginning our relationship right now, I am pleased to meet you.’ This framing of a first meeting as an opening act — something being started — embeds hajimeru‘s sense of intentional initiation into one of the most common social rituals in Japanese life.