聞く (kiku) conjugation
to hear, to listen, to ask
聞く (きく, kiku) is a godan verb. Godan verbs change their final kana up and down its column of the kana chart — the a-row for negatives, the i-row before ます, the e-row for potential and ば. 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 | 聞く kiku | 聞きます kikimasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 聞かない kikanai | 聞きません kikimasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 聞いた kiita | 聞きました kikimashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 聞かなかった kikanakatta | 聞きませんでした kikimasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 聞いて kiite | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 聞いている kiiteiru | 聞いています kiiteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 聞きたい kikitai | 聞きたいです kikitaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 聞こう kikou | 聞きましょう kikimashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 聞ける kikeru | 聞けます kikemasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 聞かれる kikareru | 聞かれます kikaremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 聞かせる kikaseru | 聞かせます kikasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 聞かされる kikasareru | 聞かされます kikasaremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 聞け kike | 聞いてください kiitekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 聞くな kikuna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 聞けば kikeba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 聞いたら kiitara | — | “if / when ~”. The everyday conditional. |
🔊 Tap any Japanese word to hear it spoken.
Why it conjugates this way
Godan verbs change their final kana up and down its column of the kana chart — the a-row for negatives, the i-row before ます, the e-row for potential and ば.
See the full rules on the verb conjugation guide.