鍛える (kitaeru) conjugation
to forge, to train, to discipline
鍛える (きたえる, kitaeru) 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 | 鍛える kitaeru | 鍛えます kitaemasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 鍛えない kitaenai | 鍛えません kitaemasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 鍛えた kitaeta | 鍛えました kitaemashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 鍛えなかった kitaenakatta | 鍛えませんでした kitaemasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 鍛えて kitaete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 鍛えている kitaeteiru | 鍛えています kitaeteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 鍛えたい kitaetai | 鍛えたいです kitaetaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 鍛えよう kitaeyou | 鍛えましょう kitaemashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 鍛えられる kitaerareru | 鍛えられます kitaeraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 鍛えられる kitaerareru | 鍛えられます kitaeraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 鍛えさせる kitaesaseru | 鍛えさせます kitaesasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 鍛えさせられる kitaesaserareru | 鍛えさせられます kitaesaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 鍛えろ kitaero | 鍛えてください kitaetekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 鍛えるな kitaeruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 鍛えれば kitaereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 鍛えたら kitaetara | — | “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.