答える (kotaeru) conjugation
to answer, to reply
答える (こたえる, kotaeru) 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 | 答える kotaeru | 答えます kotaemasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 答えない kotaenai | 答えません kotaemasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 答えた kotaeta | 答えました kotaemashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 答えなかった kotaenakatta | 答えませんでした kotaemasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 答えて kotaete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 答えている kotaeteiru | 答えています kotaeteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 答えたい kotaetai | 答えたいです kotaetaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 答えよう kotaeyou | 答えましょう kotaemashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 答えられる kotaerareru | 答えられます kotaeraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 答えられる kotaerareru | 答えられます kotaeraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 答えさせる kotaesaseru | 答えさせます kotaesasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 答えさせられる kotaesaserareru | 答えさせられます kotaesaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 答えろ kotaero | 答えてください kotaetekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 答えるな kotaeruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 答えれば kotaereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 答えたら kotaetara | — | “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.