切れる (kireru) conjugation
to cut well, to be sharp; to break (off)
切れる (きれる, kireru) 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 | 切れる kireru | 切れます kiremasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 切れない kirenai | 切れません kiremasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 切れた kireta | 切れました kiremashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 切れなかった kirenakatta | 切れませんでした kiremasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 切れて kirete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 切れている kireteiru | 切れています kireteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 切れたい kiretai | 切れたいです kiretaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 切れよう kireyou | 切れましょう kiremashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 切れられる kirerareru | 切れられます kireraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 切れられる kirerareru | 切れられます kireraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 切れさせる kiresaseru | 切れさせます kiresasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 切れさせられる kiresaserareru | 切れさせられます kiresaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 切れろ kirero | 切れてください kiretekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 切れるな kireruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 切れれば kirereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 切れたら kiretara | — | “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.