縮める (chijimeru) conjugation
to shorten, to reduce, to shrink
縮める (ちぢめる, chijimeru) is an ichidan verb. Ichidan verbs are the tidy ones: drop the final る and add the ending. Nothing inside the word ever changes. Every form below is tappable — hear it, then say it back.
Conjugation table
| Form | Plain (casual) | Polite (~ます) | When you use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dictionary / plain | 縮める chijimeru | 縮めます chijimemasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 縮めない chijimenai | 縮めません chijimemasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 縮めた chijimeta | 縮めました chijimemashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 縮めなかった chijimenakatta | 縮めませんでした chijimemasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 縮めて chijimete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 縮めている chijimeteiru | 縮めています chijimeteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 縮めたい chijimetai | 縮めたいです chijimetaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 縮めよう chijimeyou | 縮めましょう chijimemashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 縮められる chijimerareru | 縮められます chijimeraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 縮められる chijimerareru | 縮められます chijimeraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 縮めさせる chijimesaseru | 縮めさせます chijimesasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 縮めさせられる chijimesaserareru | 縮めさせられます chijimesaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 縮めろ chijimero | 縮めてください chijimetekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 縮めるな chijimeruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 縮めれば chijimereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 縮めたら chijimetara | — | “if / when ~”. The everyday conditional. |
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Why it conjugates this way
Ichidan verbs are the tidy ones: drop the final る and add the ending. Nothing inside the word ever changes.
See the full rules on the verb conjugation guide.