偉い (erai) conjugation
great, celebrated, remarkable,
偉い (えらい, erai) is an i-adjective. I-adjectives carry their own tense: drop the final い and the endings attach straight to the stem. No だ, no です needed to make a complete sentence.
Conjugation table
| Form | Plain (casual) | Polite (~です) | When you use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dictionary / plain | 偉い erai | 偉いです eraidesu | The form you look up. Also the casual “is ~”. |
| Negative | 偉くない erakunai | 偉くないです erakunaidesu | “is not ~”. |
| Past | 偉かった erakatta | 偉かったです erakattadesu | “was ~”. |
| Past negative | 偉くなかった erakunakatta | 偉くなかったです erakunakattadesu | “was not ~”. |
| Te-form | 偉くて erakute | — | Links to the next clause: “~ and …”. |
| Adverb | 偉く eraku | — | Turns it into “~ly”, describing a verb. |
| Before a noun | 偉い〜 erai〜 | — | How it attaches when it modifies a noun. |
| Conditional (~ば/なら) | 偉ければ erakereba | — | “if it is ~”. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 偉かったら erakattara | — | “if / when it is ~”. The everyday conditional. |
| Become (~なる) | 偉くなる erakunaru | 偉くなります erakunarimasu | “becomes ~” — the change-of-state form. |
| Too much (~すぎる) | 偉すぎる erasugiru | 偉すぎます erasugimasu | “too ~”. |
| Looks ~ (~そう) | 偉そう erasou | 偉そうです erasoudesu | “looks / seems ~” from appearance. |
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Why it conjugates this way
I-adjectives carry their own tense: drop the final い and the endings attach straight to the stem. No だ, no です needed to make a complete sentence.
See the full rules in the adjective conjugation guide.