切る (kiru) conjugation
to cut; to hang up (a phone)
切る (きる, kiru) 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 | 切る kiru | 切ります kirimasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 切らない kiranai | 切りません kirimasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 切った kitta | 切りました kirimashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 切らなかった kiranakatta | 切りませんでした kirimasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 切って kitte | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 切っている kitteiru | 切っています kitteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 切りたい kiritai | 切りたいです kiritaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 切ろう kirou | 切りましょう kirimashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 切れる kireru | 切れます kiremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 切られる kirareru | 切られます kiraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 切らせる kiraseru | 切らせます kirasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 切らされる kirasareru | 切らされます kirasaremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 切れ kire | 切ってください kittekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 切るな kiruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 切れば kireba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 切ったら kittara | — | “if / when ~”. The everyday conditional. |
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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.